INNOVATIVE FARMING ▶▶▶
Floating farm connects farm and consumer
About 70% of the earths surface consists of water and with land becoming scarce, that is the place to innovate. Innovation platform Kip van Oranje and Floating Farms is in the middle of realizing a dream, the Floating Egg Farm, in the harbor of the city of Rotterdam. The pilot project will explore new interactions between farm and city, benefiting both.
BY FABIAN BROCKOTTER L
arge cranes unload a bulk carrier while a tug boat pushes an empty barge to its new destination. The in- ner city harbor of Rotterdam is still in full swing, but with ships increasing in size the port operations are
moving to a new facility. The docklands will be converted to residential areas and commercial space. The actual harbor however awaits another purpose, farming. Two years ago the company Floating Farm started to build a concrete 3 deck barge for a dairy farm, which is now in full operation. About 35 dairy cows reside on the top deck with a fantastic few over the harbor. On the lower decks feed is mixed, manure is treat- ed and milk is processed to sellable end products. One could
say that realizing a floating farm is over complicating things, but the opposite is true. Owner Minke van Wingerden: “On the water there is still space to innovate, it helps us to be close to our consumers and it makes our operation climate adaptive. Our farm is essentially stationary, it only moves up and down 2 meters with the tide, but in other parts of the world it could be anchored in different ways so it can survive flooding or storms.” The whole operation is high tech and low impact. The farm is largely self sufficient in energy and water usage. The city is not only consuming the dairy products, it also supplies a large part of the feed ingredients as a return. Local industry by products are used as input in the cows feed rations. Van Wingerden explains: “We want to be an integral part of the
Floating Farm owner Minke van Wingerden (r) and Kip van Oranje initiator Noud Janssen.
12 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 1, 2020
PHOTO: FABIAN BROCKOTTER PHOTO: FLOATING FARM
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