Researching the agriculture of the future, together with citizens. Not a mock-up situation in the lab, but directly in real life, in the polder. Polderlab Vrouwe Venne is a unique experiment in both research and education. Who are these researchers, and how does it work?
Ecologist Maarten Schrama is one of the instigators of the polderlab. Maarten is project leader of research in the polder and teaches there. Passionate as he is, he often talks about his favourite project in the media.
‘The Vrouwe Vennepolder is an incredibly beautiful, typical peatland polder. The fact that we are doing this together with citizens and farmers is very special. It gives us a unique research ecosystem in the middle of the Dutch landscape. A place like the polderlab is indispensable if we want to take bold steps!’
Meanwhile, Maarten also knows the risks of the polder: ‘I have drowned several phones in the ditches of the polderlab in recent years.’
Biologist and ecologist Krijn Trimbos has been involved in research at the polderlab from the beginning. Krijn teaches about field research and collects data together with the students.
Krijn is extremely happy with the cooperation in the polderlab. ‘The polderlab brings different parties together. This allows us to come up with solutions together for food issues and problems in agriculture.’
And that is sorely needed. Agriculture is facing considerable challenges, such as soil subsidence, salinisation, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Krijn likes to focus on solutions: ‘This research gives me hope for the future. If we join forces, together we can shape this agriculture of the future.’
Fleur van Duin is a PhD student at the Insititute of Environmental Sciences (CML). She studies various forms of land use (and use of waterways) and monitors the impact on biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality.
‘The aim of my research is to find out what interventions you can use to strengthen biodiversity. And how to stop problems such as peat degradation and soil subsidence. With large scale field experiments, we hope to better understand the environmental impacts as well as the underlying processes.’
Land van Ons provides the land for this polderlab. Fleur really likes the fact that this puts her research close to the real world. ‘Hopefully, this research will provide insight into what sustainable agriculture in a peat meadow area should look like.’
Research sociologist Thomas Franssen became involved with the polderlab in 2023. Thomas conducts research into the role of scientists in society and follows ecologists in their research practices.
For Thomas, the polderlab is an ideal testing ground. 'Because the polderlab brings together various parties who all want to develop solutions for issues in agriculture, scientists are required to work completely differently from how their colleagues usually expect them to.'
We are increasingly looking to science for new solutions to societal problems such as biodiversity loss and soil subsidence. The polderlab shows that scientists do not come up wiht new solutions alone, but in collaboration with farmers and citizens. Thomas will see how the solutions from the polderlab are taken up by politicians, policymakers and farmers in other areas; 'What role can the polderlab play in the transition of agriculture and does it do that? That's what I'll be following.'
Anthropologist Mandy de Wilde has been doing fieldwork in and around the polder lab since 2023. Mandy conducts research into changing agricultural practices and how these will take shape in the Dutch cultural landscape of the future.
Polderlab is part of a polder landscape with meadows, cows and ditches: “‘Typical Dutch”, you often hear. People usually mean the landscape. But indirectly this also shows that we have come to think of it as normal, this form of livestock farming.' But less livestock farming is needed to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis. In the polderlab, the farmers are therefore experimenting with wet soil crops. Think of crops like cranberry, crab shavings and even rice. Mandy is going to see how that works in the recommended years farming practice: 'What knowledge, skills and chains do you need as a farmer to grow these crops in the polder in a profitable way?' But not only that: 'What does such a wet cultural landscape look like? What animals and plants live there? And how are 'we' going feel at home?'