Farm of the Future
Contact Infrastructure Provider
Summary
Description
Farm of the Future is a Dutch initiative in which WUR and Dutch farmers of the future are working together on feasible solutions to the challenges faced by agriculture in the Netherlands. The farm is located in Lelystad, a region of predominantly arable farming. The Farm of the Future is a resource for everyone working in the sector. It’s a hub featuring all the best practices and techniques related to agronomy, ecology and technology. Farm of the Future draws on the expertise and practice of both organic and mainstream agriculture to create business models with sustainability at its core. The agro-ecological approach taken by Farm of the Future is based on three mutually reinforcing elements: Soil quality as a fundamental, Crop diversity and Landscape maintenance. At the Farm of the Future, you can see how to put these elements into practice in your own business. You can learn how to: restore and make use of biodiversity in and around an arable farming business, maintain and improve soil quality through arable crop rotation, achieve strong crop yields with minimal use of chemicals and minimal emissions, and organise your soil and water management system to mitigate the risks of extreme weather events. At Farm of the Future, you can find information on: how to avoid soil compaction in arable farming on clay soils, how to use smaller and lighter machinery for various arable farming systems, without increasing your labour requirements, and you can use data and technology to make your work simpler and more efficient, and to reduce the use of inputs on your arable farm. At Farm of the Future, you also can see: how to achieve the objectives of circular agriculture in your business with only a minimal increase in costs, and where the future recouping opportunities lie for circular businesses, and the role of governments and markets in that. In addition the ‘NPEC' facilities in Wageningen and Utrecht provides scientists and the industry with an ultramodern (horticulture) phenotyping facility that can unravel the genetics underlying the interaction between plant genes and the environment, which determines the (growth) performance of the plant.
https://farmofthefuture.nl/en/
https://www.wur.nl/nl/product/NPEC-The-Netherlands-Plant-Eco-phenotyping-Centre-.htm