Today we had our final visitations of the trip, marking our last full day here in the Netherlands. I have to say, we really saved the best for last. Today’s visits were two of my favorite of the whole trip. We started off with a quick tram ride over to the Floating Farm, a company focused on sustainable farming practices.
The concept of the floating farm is that the human population is expanding and therefore the land with ground rich enough to grow food and graze animals on is becoming more and more limited. The Floating Farm is the solution to this issue. With the ability to house several floors of different kinds of farming, including both cattle and produce, the Floating Farm has a significantly smaller footprint on the environment while also a physically smaller footprint, and it’s on water!
We met with a representative of Floating Farm where we were given a short lecture on the concepts and history of the company, as well as what they have been developing recently and where they are headed for the future. Some things I found incredibly interesting were the metrics that inspired this concept. In 2018, the Netherlands wasted nearly 1 billion kg of food. That obviously is far too much, so they helped with that by feeding the cows grazing on the Floating Farm the food-waste and then producing milk which the company then sells to coffeeshops or other businesses that require milk locally.
Our guide took us through the lower part of the farm where some of the operations like food production for the cows occurs, but we were not able to go up to the farm and actually get up close and personal with the cows. We headed over to their store where we were able to see the various flavors of milk and other local goods that were offered. A testament to the company’s commitment to sustainability was the shipping containers that the store was made up of, reusing something for an entirely new purpose without expending much any additional resources.
We had a quick milk tasting and then headed back to the hostel in advance of our tour of the RDM facility at the port of Rotterdam. We took a trip over to the RDM facility where we met up with some representatives of the organization that toured us around for a few hours. Our guide explained RDM had a previous translation but nowadays it stands for Research, Design, Manufacturing; which is exactly what goes on here.
He took us around to a facility that focuses on making money enough to break even here, and said something I found especially interesting. “This is an investment in the future, profit doesn’t matter here”, which was very profound because it speaks to the sustainability of this operation and how the actual profit of the operations is not important if the ideas are able to get from concept to consumer and help make society a better place.
He showed us around a few of the companies that operate out of the facility on floorspace that is rented out. He told us that though they encourage payment, if a company is offering something that will truly contribute to society in a good way, and they are not able to pay, they are given some leniency and are able to operate there.
The company I found most interesting was Hardt Hyperloop. This company is planning to create hyperloop technology that could potentially replace domestic flights as a whole. The hyperloop is not a new idea of technology, Elon Musk claimed to be working on a project to create one from San Francisco to Los Angeles for nearly 10 years now. That company just went bankrupt, and it seems that Hardt will create the technology that will make this idea work.
After a few more interesting company descriptions, we wrapped up our rather interesting tour and headed off to a delicious farewell dinner. I truly have taken away so much from this trip. Not only a whole lot of new information, but a great group of new friends. This truly has been a trip I will never forget, and I’m so excited to experience more of Europe in my future endeavors.