STRAIGHT FROM THE POLDER TO EASTERN EUROPE
EVERY DAY, TRUCKLOADS OF UMBELLIFERS BEARING THE SUMMUM LABEL HEAD TO EASTERN EUROPE. MOST OF THE VEGETABLES IN THE ORDINARY SEGMENT ARE GROWN IN NORTH-HOLLAND’S WIERINGERMEER POLDER BY PATRICK VAN BENSCHOP.
His father was a construction worker who, in the 1990s, bought a hectare of farmland. Alongside his job as a builder, he thought growing cabbages would be a nice hobby. At the time he couldn’t have imagined that his son, who like him never formally studied agriculture, would grow more than 200 hectares of vegetables 30 years later. Yet that’s what happened. Patrick van Benschop grows cabbage and celeriac on about 60 per cent of his land. On the other 40 per cent he grows carrots (orange, yellow and purple), parsnips and rooted parsley. He says: “I never grow on spec. I always go by what the market demands. That’s a way of working that suits me.” He farms in close collaboration with processing company Bruin Vegetables and trading and transport firm A.N. Boekel B.V. Their partnership led them to form a company together: White Gold Farm, which markets vegetables under the name Summum. The biggest advantage of this arrangement is that it lets them respond quickly to the Eastern European market. The company’s trucks depart daily for Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, among others.
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BEJO CARROT MAGAZINE
Highly mechanized
Van Benschop has mechanized his farm in Waarland, North-Holland, to a high degree. Sowing carrots is the only work that he outsources; his own people and machinery take care of the rest. “Labour is relatively expensive in this country. We also see Eastern European countries growing more and more of its own produce. So we will have to find our own way to distinguish ourselves in the market. I focus on market demand through the orders we receive at White Gold Farm. We can get a lot of work done with a relatively small crew. When we’re harvesting cabbage I bring in more people via an employment agency. We do the rest ourselves.”
Perspectives
Van Benschop grows cabbage in Waarland and carrots and celeriac in the Wieringermeer polder, about half an hour’s drive away. From the field, the produce goes directly to Bruin Vegetables and from there is sent straight to the market. To guarantee high volume and ensure crop rotation, Van Benschop constantly trades land. He grows his own Japanese oats but prefers to leave potato growing to others. Focus: that’s his strength.