Innovative seaweed-based concepts for sustainable farming in Gelderland, Netherlands
Since June 2021, The Seaweed Company (TSC) is proudly collaborating with two innovative farmers in the Province of Gelderland in the Netherlands to demonstrate TSC seaweed products and concepts to showcase the value of seaweeds for sustainable and regenerative agriculture.
A joint innovation project has been started under the name of “Blue Farming” at the farms of Gerjo Koskamp (Boerderij Ruimzicht, Halle) and Gert van Middendorp (Boerderij en landwinkel Vanelly, Barneveld). The Blue Farming innovation project runs for 1.5 years until the end of 2022 and is focused on the demonstration and validation of 3 innovative seaweed concepts:
1) Support agriculture soil regeneration with TSC’s organically certified seaweed-based biostimulant that improves grasslands, soil, & crop growth;
2) Improve dairy cow performance and health through TSC’s 100% seaweed feed additive for dairy cows to produce more & better quality milk, improved health & well-being and, additionally, an improved methane footprint;
3) Developing seaweed cheese for human consumption.
We are grateful that the Province of Gelderland, along with Gert and Gerjo, is enthusiastic to work with The Seaweed Company to jointly gather data and showcase the benefits of seaweed-based applications for more sustainable agricultural practices. These goals are fully in line with the vision of the Province of Gelderland (Toekomst van de Gelderse Boer 2021–2030) as well as the sustainability ambitions of the EU Green Deal. We believe together this project can be instrumental to create awareness of the impact of seaweeds and to better capture the value of seaweeds for more sustainable agriculture.
Eager to learn more about the sustainability & economic benefits of working with seaweeds
In early 2021, The Seaweed Company met Gert and Gerjo, two front running farmers in Gelderland, who were curious to learn more about the potential of seaweed for their farming practices.
Gerjo
Gerjo with his Boerderij Ruimzicht is a biodynamic, caring farmer who works according to the principles of nature-inclusive agriculture. Together with his partner Jara, they work in a maximally natural way and process the milk into high-quality dairy products, including the Achterhoekse Bergkaas: raw milk cheese with a natural rind. In true circular agriculture, minerals should also be returned to the farm: “In theory, applying the natural seaweed product in my agricultural practices seems like a perfect match. From a nature-inclusive way of farming that I have practiced since 1996, seaweeds can help close the larger cycle of using natural resources that I believe is very important. It is naturally a circular solution. In the province of Gelderland we are dealing with a relatively large amount of sandy soil and the use of seaweed can probably improve the water management and carbon storage capacity of our soils. I am also particularly curious whether the application of seaweed provides additional — currently missing — essential minerals for our soils.”
Gert
“As dairy farmer in Barneveld with 100 cows, 50 hectares of grasslands and a cheese making facility, I am always looking for ways to improving the effectivity, efficiency and sustainability of my farming practices. Some time ago, I started learning about the possibilities of seaweeds and I’m really curious about learning more about its effects and impact. I’m glad to collaborate with The Seaweed Company to jointly gather more insights and data about the benefits of seaweeds to further improve my farming practices. Sustainably improving my grasslands and the performance and health of my cows is of my primary interest.”
At The Seaweed Company, we believe in creating more awareness for seaweed solutions, such as significantly improving the climate footprint of farmers (e.g. carbon, nitrogen). Joost, SeaEO of The Seaweed Company, explains: “We’re really happy with the cooperation with Gert, Gerjo, and the province of Gelderland. This shows that interest for the sustainable impact of seaweeds is there in the market. Next to the improvement in the farming practices, we are using this joint innovation project to also measure and calculate the climate footprint benefits that the use of seaweeds can bring to farmers and the full value chain. We’re jointly pioneering on this area and with that we are strengthening the basis of our Blue Farming concepts, which can then be used by many more farmers in Europe and across the globe”.
Seaweeds bring many benefits for farmers, their agricultural practices, & our environment
Applications with seaweeds have lots of benefits to offer. These benefits are fully in line with principles of the EU Green Deal ta make big steps towards more sustainable agriculture. The table below gives an overview of the benefits that we’re demonstrating and measuring throughout the project. You can clearly see that our seaweed based products (TopHealth Plants and TopHealth Dairy), are seamlessly connected to the sustainable farming objectives that the EU Green Deal and province of Gelderland want to accomplish.
Seaweed contribution to EU Green Deal and Toekomst voor de Gelderse boer 2021–2030
Promising first demonstration results: Grassland water holding capacity increased more than 7-fold
In June 2021, we started the application of our TopHealth Plants biostimulant to 2 hectares of grassland at Gert’s farm and 2 hectares at Gerjo’s farm. Gert started working with these grasslands in 2020 and Gerjo lets his cows graze on his fields for many years already. Next to taking soil samples of the grasslands, which we use to measure the pre- and post-contents and quality of the soils, we have also installed precision monitoring sensors from innovative tech startup Farm21 with the objective of measuring the moisture levels of the grasslands. Our organic biostimulant product has shown positive benefits already after just 6 weeks: the grasslands treated with the seaweed based biostimulant holds significantly more water than the control group (+700% @10cm depth, +14% @20cm, +6% @30cm).
These test results confirm our hypotheses and together with the farmers, we are very happy with the promising results we’re already observing. We are confident that in the course of this year, we will see more of these positive benefits and we’re looking forward to continue sharing them with the public.
Next steps in our project
As we continue to execute our joint Blue Farming innovation project, we will encounter the following milestones (among others) in the coming months:
- In February 2022, we will start our TopHealth Dairy demonstration trial with the cows on Gert’s farm.
- We will continue the demonstration of our biostimulant (which will run until the end of 2022), with different moments of measurements (soil quality, carbon storage, water holding capacity, & palatability).
- We are conducting a Blue Farming market survey among farmers in the Netherlands to gain a better quantitative and qualitative insight into the awareness and interest in working with seaweed for better and more sustainable agricultural practices.
- Soon both farmers will be producing the first batches of their seaweed cheese, with seaweed ingredients from TSC. We are curious about the process, their feedback, and of course the feedback from the customers when the seaweed cheeses are ready to be tasted and sold.
Want to know more about our Blue Farming innovation project in Gelderland?
Contact us if you’d like to learn more about our Blue Farming innovation project. You can also follow The Seaweed Company on LinkedIn, Instagram or Medium. More future updates on the project will be published on our Medium channel.
Many thanks to our partners in executing this joint innovative project
We’d like to express many thanks to all the partners that are working with us to make this Blue Farming innovation project a success: Province of Gelderland, ELFPO, Gert van Middendorp, Gerjo Koskamp, Farm21, Climate Cleanup (ONCRA) and all TSC colleagues and other partners that are working with us.
