Day 3
“Say potato, say Agrico”, is the slogan of potato cooperative Agrico, where we were welcomed by chairman Adrie Vermeulen. Main reason for our visit was to learn from Peter Kemmeren (vice-chairman Youth Council) what the position, authority and activities of the Youth Council in Agrico are: formally only to give advice, but in practise the young farmers are being involved in a lot of important decisions. After that,
...Harry Iwema showed us the renovated greenhouse of Agrico Research, the ‘nursery room’ where the new varieties are being developed.

In the afternoon, we visited the 130 hectare big organic farm of arable farmers Aalt and Sijbrand Westra, who are a member of Nautilus Organic, the only organic farmers’ cooperative in The Netherlands. The fact that their farm in Dronten is 4 meter below sea level was a scary idea for some of the Indonesian farmers, but the challenges they face, are similar to the Indonesian (organic) farmers. Aalt also shared his experiences as a member of the supervisory board of Nautilus with the Indonesian chairmen and managers.