Walking through the Groningen villages and fields, you will not only see traces of the battle against the water and special birds, but also high-tech agriculture. That is what the authors of the new book 'Voorland Groningen' show.
Occasionally there is a tree and a farm, but otherwise there is mainly flat land as far as the eye can see. This is the north of Groningen, the so-called Hoogeland, near the Wadden Sea. Buzzards, gray buntings and harriers fly here. When you walk through this natural beauty, you would not think that farmers here are busy with the latest technological gadgets.
But it is. Precision farmer Frederik Schulte Ostermann works here, just outside the village of Usquert. He has a satellite-controlled combine harvester, hires drones to map his fields and thus determines where additional fertilizer is needed.
High-tech agriculture
Schulte Ostermann is one of the Groningers who passes by in 'Voorland Groningen'. It's a remarkable book that wants to be quite a lot at the same time. Not only farmers are discussed, but also biologists and anthropologists. It also contains hiking tips and there is even an app with hiking routes associated with this book. On one page the authors write about high-tech agriculture, on the other page it is about beer brewers. The writers thus mix knowledge about science and technology with entertainment. They also have different backgrounds. Dirk-Jan Visser is a photographer, Marten Minkema journalist and Christian Ernsten historian.
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With this book, the authors want to show how man shapes the environment in the so-called Anthropocene, a name for the current era in which man shapes the earth to his will. The north of Groningen is a good place for this, they say, because the land there was largely reclaimed by the closure of the Lauwerszee. In addition, you will find the construction of the large industrial area Eemshaven here and of course there is gas extraction. This makes this area a 'foreland where you can see how we are reaching the limits of our ecosystem'.
There is something ominous about it. The north of Groningen used to have a large salt marsh landscape, where salt water penetrated the country considerably. As a result of land reclamation and reclamation, fresh water started to make a great advance. At the same time, economies of scale took place. As a result, the landscape lost diversity and the number of animals also decreased sharply. Add to that the threatening consequences of climate change and gas extraction and you get the picture of people who want to get as much out of the land as possible, while taking little account of nature.
On expedition
The authors show that this picture is not entirely correct. This means that there is more and more space for animals, also on farmlands. For example, places where birds can breed. Or take the already mentioned farmer Schulte Ostermann. He wants to farm with technology that is less harmful to the environment.
'Voorland Groningen' is also about the landscape where I grew up. I spent my childhood on the Hoogeland, lived for years in the small town of Usquert, which appears frequently in the book. 'Voorland Groningen' is therefore a feast of recognition for me:I immediately see the landscapes and natural beauty in front of me. But it also contains many new things, such as the vision of landscape architect Maike van Stiphout. She wants people and nature to work together more. She wants to exchange economies of scale for small-scale. Then you put the emphasis on a wooded embankment, ditch or a rough patch – the habitat of small animals, such as insects, hedgehogs and birds. They get more places to live. These critters don't travel great distances and by focusing on the small instead of the large, you create a good environment for them and a diverse nature.
This book has many aims:to give attention to science, technology, landscape architecture and biology. And then also be a kind of expedition with four walks around Hornhuizen, Loppersum, Usquert and the Eemshaven. That's a lot at once, but it still works. That's because you look at the same landscape in different ways through the eyes of the different experts. That is precisely where the strength of this book lies.