ATMAC European Study Tour: Tomatoworld
On our final day in the Netherlands we visited Tomatoworld, an education and demonstration site for the Dutch greenhouse sector.
The facility is located in Westland, which boasts the world’s largest concentration of greenhouses. The Netherlands is the biggest supplier of high-tech greenhouses in the world, and most of those systems come from the Westland region. Fifty percent of the region’s workforce is employed in the greenhouse sector.
At Tomatoworld, we were given a tour by Ab van Marrewijk, Senior Grower and Master of Horticulture. He walked us through the unique features of the region’s greenhouse sector, including a CO2 pipeline direct from local industry, as well as a dedicated geothermal plant that powers the region’s growers.
We finished off with a quick stop at Rotterdam’s famous Market Hall before bidding ‘afscheid’ to the Netherlands and heading across the Channel to the next leg of our trip in the UK.