It’s day 12, and our trip is sadly coming to a close! Unfortunately I’ve had a bit of a cold for the past couple of days, hence the title. We had a late start today and headed out around 10 AM to take a tram to Merwehaven, a port in Rotterdam by the river Maas. There, we saw the Floating Farm within the harbor at the same time we smelled it. We began our tour by meeting Karel, a volunteer at Floating Farm, who gave us an introductory presentation about the founding, operations, and challenges of running Floating Farm. The main goal of the farm is to be a reliable and healthy food source for the citizens of Rotterdam while accounting for the extreme weather resulting from climate change.
The farm has three levels: the cowshed with 26 cows is on the top level, then the middle level houses the production equipment for the farm’s milk, buttermilk, cheese, and yogurt, and the basement has a garden and cheese cellar. Floating Farm has many methods for mitigating their production of waste, and even takes in outside waste to use for their cows! The cows at Floating Farm are fed with grass mixed with nutritious food waste from local supermarkets and beer grain, which is a byproduct of beer production. The main waste products from the farm are the cows’ urine and manure. Floating Farm has an automated system for collecting this waste, using what is essentially a Roomba. After collecting the waste, the urine and manure are separated and the urine is filtered into water that’s used for the garden in the basement. The manure, on the other hand, is used for creating fertilizer pellets.
Floating Farm also tries to stick to using green energy as much as possible through its pad of floating solar panels, electric vehicles for transporting their products, and their in-progress wind turbines! Currently, the solar farm only powers about 65% of the farm’s operations. A large portion of the farm is operated, including the feeding and milking of the cows. Because of this, only five people are actually needed to run the farm each day, one of which is a professional farmer, the rest of which manage logistics and production. Overall, it was very impressive to see how self-sufficient Floating Farm is and how such an unconventional solution has been able to operate so smoothly.
After saying our goodbyes to the cows, we took a water taxi across the river Maas to RDM Rotterdam, located in the Dokhaven port. There, we met Peter, a member of the Rotterdam Port Authority and one of the managers of RDM’s Innovation Hub. RDM used to be one of the biggest shipyards in Rotterdam, but now houses the University of Applied Science of Rotterdam, the Technical College of Rotterdam, and over sixty small businesses. RDM is a unique workspace that encourages the intermingling and sharing of resources between students and small businesses, which is why the COVID-19 shutdowns allowed the majority of the small businesses housed in RDM to remain open. The interior of the Innovation Hub has a mix of labs, makerspaces, and workshops for students and professionals alike to use, which is especially helpful for small startups who might not be able to afford expensive specialty equipment. I can imagine that working in a highly collaborative environment such as RDM would be very fun and freeing, and I found our visit very inspiring.
Notes on Sustainability
Today, when taking the water taxi I realized that the dock had what looked like chargers for the boats! Surely enough, when the taxi briefly stopped to pick us up the driver plugged in the charging cable, which powers the all-electric boat’s lithium-ion battery. It’s very motivating to see such a strong focus on trying to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles, and I hope we’re going to be able to move towards that in America as well!
Tomorrow will be a long day, so I’ll see you later! Tot ziens en welterusten!