For our first full day in Rotterdam, we visited a floating farm in the Rotterdam harbor and toured the RDM facilities. The floating farm is one of the few prototypes able to break even as they sell the products they produce in their general store, to local buyers, and to businesses in the area. They grow micro-greens using a solar panel powered lighting system and house 30 cows to produce milk for dairy products. The company behind it works with local grocery stores and takes their orange peels leftover from making juice to ground up and feed to the cows.
Every part of this business is centered around sustainable farming and producing the most fresh products with a faster farm to table time. We learned that lots of food waste comes from the extended time it takes to transfer food from farms to the places they are sold and then purchased and eaten. By creating a farm that is closer to cities, this cuts down the amount of time it takes to transport food which effectively cuts down waste. They also plan to use this model in different areas to expand food access which is one of the UN’s sustainable development goals for areas that do not have enough land for farms and growing fresh food or have been hit by natural disasters.
During our lunch before touring RDM, we enjoyed many traditional Dutch sandwiches like fillet American which is a sandwich with a raw beef spread. Although originally a Belgian dish, it has become part of Dutch dining and food culture as well. In fact, most of the food within the Netherlands contains influences from their neighboring countries or countries they had originally colonized as seen with the large presence of Indonesian cuisine. It was very good, especially when dipped in the tomato soup included in our lunch. Over the past week, we have been able to enjoy many different kinds of Dutch foods and meals yet this has been my favorite overall.
The tour of RDM was fascinating as it allowed us to see different sustainability centered inventions housed under one roof. My favorite invention was the coral reef printer as it can rebuild the coral reefs lost to rising global temperatures and ocean acidification. It uses natural materials like sand and minerals infused with carbon emissions which helps the environment as well. I was also fascinated by a new form of concrete created by a company called Paebbl that uses olivine minerals to remove carbon from the atmosphere and put it into their concrete for building. It is a much cleaner way of producing concrete and could revolutionize building in the future.
