Today was our last day in the Netherlands. I can’t believe how fast time passed, but I’m so grateful to have shared this experience with my fellow students and professors.

We started our day at the Floating Farm, which was one of our most anticipated visits of the trip. We attended a brief presentation on the origins and sustainability of the Floating Farm. Our guide, Karel, talked about how population growth, urbanization, and climate change are making it more difficult to feed everyone sustainably. Sustainable food production is what the Floating Farm is all about, so it was really cool to hear about how they’re fighting this problem.

I was amazed to learn how sustainable the Floating Farm is. The farm is equipped with solar panels and collects rainwater to use as drinking water for their 26 cows. Additionally, the cows are able to choose whether they want to remain in the stable or graze in the field via a ramp connection the farm and field. The farm also delivers to local markets and uses electric vehicles to reduce the carbon emissions produced from transportation and refrigeration. Another way the Floating Farm commits to sustainability is by feeding their cows with grass mixed with local food returns. This is significant because these food returns would normally be burned, releasing methane into the atmosphere. The farm also collects and buffers the cows’ urine to be used as water for herbs and vegetables. The creativity when it comes to recycling at the Floating Farm is incredible.

Next, we toured the RDM Innovation Hub, which was easily up there with my favorite visits of the program. The hub was once a shipyard that now is a center for innovation and sustainability. Over 60 companies, universities, and research facilities work at the innovation dock, bringing many different ideas together in the same place at the same time. Our guide explained to use the different sustainable aspects of the innovation dock itself, including the greenhouses and innovative heating systems within the building. To further show the hub’s commitment to sustainability, our guide explained to us how business go about applying to work in the innovation hub and accessing its network. In order to rent out a space, an applicant has to show that they can make the port smarter or more sustainable in some way. Our guide especially emphasized the sustainability part – the hub wants to be a leader in sustainable innovation. The coolest thing we checked out in the innovation hub was a team working to make a hyper loop. A hyper loop would use magnetism to power public transport, which would absolutely revolutionize transportation as we know it because it is so clean.

Overall, there was no better way to spend our last day in the Netherlands. I’ll never forget you the Netherlands.