Agricultural Innovation From Above


  • Photographer
    Aya Okawa
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    April 2018

The tiny Netherlands is the 2nd largest global exporter of food and produces 1/3 of all seeds and 2/3 of all tulips on the world market. To achieve this despite the fact that 17% of their land is below sea level, the Dutch stay at the forefront of agricultural tech and innovation, critical for global futures. This photo shows the highly mechanized precision and careful human monitoring of a tulip field in bloom - as a farmer drives a GPS-directed harvester through blooming fields in the springtime.

Story

Agricultural Innovation From Above

The tiny country of the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world, after the U.S., which is more than 230 times its size, produces one third of all seeds and two thirds of all tulips on the global market. To achieve statistics like this despite the fact that 17% of their land is below sea level and that the country has among the highest population densities in the world, the Dutch stay at the forefront of agricultural technology and innovation, which will become more and more critical as the global population increases to record breaking numbers.

This photo series documents both the highly mechanized precision and careful human monitoring that allows for exceptionally efficient agricultural yields - on open air fields at industrial scales tilled by GPS-directed machinery, LED-lit greenhouses, and even small scale local farming on water-surrounded 'polders' - strips of land reclaimed from flood zones. As environmental changes threaten many traditional agricultural methods around the world, the innovation of Dutch techniques play an important role in shaping the future of food production globally.

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