This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: In a soggy field between Amsterdam and The Hague, farmer Sander Roeleveld plows a small white combine harvester into his crops, gathering a grain never before harvested in the Netherlands: rice. The surroundings could scarcely be more Dutch.
Canals crisscross polders lying 2 meters (6.6 feet) below sea level. Windmills grace the horizon as cows—for centuries the country's agricultural staple—graze in the nearby grassland. But the warming climate is allowing Dutch farmers to produce wine and now even experiment with rice, previously unthinkable in such a wet, temperate country.
And researchers behind the project hope rice cultivation could help address one of the country's most pressing environmental challenges: peat soils that are sinking as they dry out, pushing parts of the low-lying Netherlands ever lower. "It's extraordinary," said Philippe Terheggen, chairman of the Land van Ons association that has provided the fields for the rice harvest. "We would never have thought maybe 20 years ago that we would be able to grow rice in the Netherlands," the 68-year-old told as the harvester whirred behind him.
"But it's also scary because it tells you what is possible ... now the climate has changed," he said. For now, the project is a pilot, consisting of just 0.6 hectares (1.5 acres), with organizers hoping to produce around three tonnes of short-grain rice suitable for sushi or risotto. The team is working with around 30 different rice cultivars from as far afield as Russia, China, Japan and Uzbekistan to see which grows best in the Dutch climate.
Roeleveld, who describes himself as a "pioneer," said he wanted to show other farmers that rice could grow in boggy Dutch soil. "My goal is to show that more things are possible on wetland than just grass," the 53-year-old told AFP. "Of course, when you have had cows for 600 years, it's really hard to imagine that you want to do something else than having milk from your cow," he laughed.
"I just want to show that things can be changed for the benefit of the future." But the project is about much more than crop diversification. Researchers believe it could help tackle one of the Netherlands' most persistent environmental problems. Roughly one-tenth of the country is peatland, which farmers drain for grass to feed their cattle.
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