Wageningen World 01 2024 (in English)

WAGENINGEN WORLD

Palm oil could be much more sustainable

Page 10: Using existing plantations more efficiently

PFAS are hard to replace PFAS get everywhere; what’s the impact and how do you get rid of them?

AI opens new doors

‘With AI we can upscale to hitherto inconceivable levels’

‘Protect Caribbean nature’ Combatting roaming livestock, invasive species and wastewater in the sea

PALM OIL COULD BE MORE SUSTAINABLE

Research shows that it is possible to meet the growing global demand for palm oil without felling forests, thus reducing the environmental impact of palm oil production.

PFAS ARE HARD TO REPLACE

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are so persistent that you find them in foods and the environment. Researchers are trying to figure out what their impact is, and above all, how we can get rid of them.

AI OPENS NEW DOORS

The use of artificial intelligence in the sciences is opening new doors to research that can’t be done manually. ‘We can now scale projects up to previously inconceivable levels.’

COLOPHON Wageningen World is the magazine for associates and alumni of Wageningen University & Research Publisher Wageningen University & Research Editorial Board Ben Geerlings, Margit Govers, Marleen den Hartog, Miriam Haukes, Marieke Reijneker, Antoinette Thijssen, Laurens Tijink, Magazine editor Miranda Bettonville Copy editor Rik Nijland Translators Clare McGregor, Clare Wilkinson Art direction Petra Siebelink Design Geert-Jan Bruins, Monique Chermin Cover picture Alamy Overall design Hemels Publishers Printer Tuijtel, Werkendam ISSN 2212-9928 Address Wageningen Campus, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB Wageningen, telephone +31 317 48 40 20, wageningen.world@wur.nl Change of address alumni alumni@wur.nl Change of address associates wageningen.world@wur.nl, mentioning code on adress label Change of career details alumni@wur.nl

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,700 employees (7,000 fte), 2,500 PhD and EngD candidates, 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

WAGENINGEN WORLD ONLINE Wageningen World is also available online. All the editions can be found in browsable PDF form at www.wur.eu/wageningen-world. Digital subscribers receive the magazine two times a year by email. Reading online is better for the environment and the climate. To switch from a paper to a digital subscription, go to: www.wur.eu/ww-subscription

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UPDATE

News in brief about research and developments at Wageningen University & Research.

PET OWNERS TEST PET FOOD AT HOME

Pet-food producers usually test their products in research facilities, but pet owners can also test them at home. Evelien Bos developed home tests which she markets through her startup Pet Panel.

INTERVIEW: HEDWIG BRUGGEMAN

Hedwig Bruggeman retired in June after 40 years in international development. ‘It is our moral duty to care about the rest of the world.’

IMPROVING IMMUNE THERAPY

Chemist Bauke Albada received a million-euro grant for research aimed at improving the treatment of tumours. Antibodies can be made even more effective with a smart chemical trick.

PROTECTING CARIBBEAN NATURE

The six Caribbean islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are very rich in nature that need protecting from threats such as overgrazing. Wageningen is doing its bit with research on interventions.

FEATURES

LIFE AFTER WAGENINGEN

Dan Xu knew nothing about greenhouse horticulture when he first came to Wageningen. Now he has built a high-tech greenhouse on the Dutch model in his homeland, China. ‘I want to share my knowledge as much as possible in China.’

COLLABORATING ON FISH WELFARE

The first consultations on improving the welfare of caught fish are being held by the fish industry, trade organizations, research institutes and NGOs from all around the world. The Catch Welfare Platform aims to generate feasible options.

Microbiomes are vital to life

‘It is becoming increasingly clear that communities of microorganisms are vital to life on Earth. Without bacteria, viruses, fungi and tiny algae, life as we know it would cease to exist within a very short time. For a long time, we could only study cultured microbes, which we first had to isolate and grow. Now, genomics has revolutionized microbial research. We can take a sample with thousands of microbes from the skin or gut, and analyse the DNA with the help of new sequencing techniques and bioinformatics.

As a result, over the past 20 years we have gained a fuller understanding of the microbiome in and on our bodies. We used to associate the human microbiome mainly with pathogens and diseases, but once we could sequence the DNA of microbes more quickly and cheaply, we discovered that the human body is inhabited by millions of microorganisms – most of which are beneficial to us. As a result, a lot of probiotics have been developed by the food and drug industry. We can also treat people who suffer from gut diseases with faecal transplants, with amazing results.

At the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, we discovered special forms of symbiosis between microorganisms and marine animals. The marine worms we work on are so well fed by the symbiotic bacteria inside their bodies that they have come to fully rely on them and no longer have a mouth or gut. The bacteria supply nutrition, and recycle their waste compounds. This enables the worms to thrive in nutrient-poor ecosystems.

There is a lot more for us to discover. For example, researchers want to learn more about the microbes that grow in wastewater reactors or that degrade plastics. Most industries in the food and environmental sectors understand the importance of harnessing the power of beneficial microbes for a more sustainable future.’

Professor Nicole Dubilier heads the Symbiosis Department at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany and gave the keynote speech at the Dies Natalis at Wageningen University & Research on 8 March.

Plant-based diets not gaining ground

Dutch consumers still get most of their protein from meat and dairy products, according to the first Protein Monitor, which WUR carried out for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. ‘Compelling interventions’ are needed to change this, say the researchers.

The ministry wants Dutch people to be getting half their protein from plantbased products by 2030. The share of plant proteins is currently 39 per cent, finds the Protein Monitor, which was set

up to track the progress in switching to a more plant-based diet and to assess consumers’ motivation.

In the study, 570 consumers were asked to record what they ate. A survey among

AGRICULTURE

African rice cultivation needs to catch up

There is an urgent need to improve farming methods in African rice cultivation. Only then will it be possible for the continent to avoid becoming even more dependent on rice imports and having to turn large tracts of land into farmland. This finding comes from an international study that Wageningen was involved in. The study appeared in Nature Communications in January. Rice production in Africa is already

lagging behind demand, but demographic changes and dietary shifts will probably make demand more than double in the next 25 years. Pepijn van Oort of Wageningen Plant Research says it is possible to increase production substantially. ‘We discovered that average yields at present are less than half those that can be achieved with improved farming methods.’

Info: pepijn.vanoort@wur.nl

3000 respondents showed why consumers choose plant-based or animal protein sources. Although there has been a tentative shift towards more consumption of plant protein, most Dutch people are still keen on meat and dairy products.

‘Consumers appreciate those protein sources more than plant protein products,’ says Marleen Onwezen, Consumer Behaviour expertise leader at Wageningen Economic Research. The plant-based protein sources that appeal most to consumers are unprocessed products such as nuts and pulses. Meat and dairy substitutes are least popular.

In supermarkets, more shelf space is given to meat protein products than plant protein sources. There are also more special offers for meat and dairy products. That also makes animal proteins a more convenient and attractive option for consumers at present, according to the Protein Monitor authors.

‘The monitor shows that more needs to be done to get to the 50/50 stage,’ says Onwezen. ‘We need compelling interventions. Plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products should be promoted much more by emphasizing their own strengths, for example by telling consumers that you get the tastiest curries with lentils or beans, not meat.’

Info: marleen.onwezen@wur.nl

Carolien Kroeze, the first female rector magnificus

During the Dies Natalis celebration in early March, rector magnificus Arthur Mol handed over the baton to his successor Carolien Kroeze. Mol had held the position for nine years.

Kroeze is taking over at a time when staff and students are asking WUR to speak out on the issues of Palestine and the climate crisis. Kroeze: ‘As a knowledge institution, our tasks are education, research and value creation. We should not be speaking out about political and legal issues. Of course, it’s fine if scientists make statements on climate change, for example, based on their field of expertise. But as an institution, we mustn’t compromise on our independence.’ Kroeze (1964) studied Biology in Groningen,

CONTINUING EDUCATION

got her doctorate in Amsterdam and came to Wageningen in 1995 for postdoc research in the Environmental Systems Analysis chair group. Kroeze was also a part-time professor at the Open University of the Netherlands from 2009 to 2016. Afterwards, she held the chair of Water Systems and Global Change at WUR, and subsequently the chair of Environmental Systems Analysis. In addition, in 2019 she was appointed director of WIMEK, one of the six graduate schools at Wageningen.

Info: vincent.koperdraat@wur.nl

More than 100 courses for professionals

Professionals never stop learning; if you stand still, you fall behind. Professionals who want to keep up to date in the Wageningen domain of healthy nutrition and environments can choose from over 100 programmes and courses offered by Wageningen University & Research – online, on campus or in hybrid form. Every year, Wageningen welcomes over 2000 professionals seeking to expand their knowledge and hone their skills to help create

EDUCATION

WUR the best university again

Wageningen University & Research has been proclaimed the best university in the Netherlands in the 2024 Higher Education Guide. It is the 19th time in a row that WUR has come out top. Every year, the Higher Education Guide ranks Dutch universities and colleges, based primarily on the opinions of students.

Wageningen also heads the list in the category of Agriculture & Forestry in the annual QS World University Rankings.

Info: vincent.kooperdraat@wur.nl

COMMUNICATION

Wageningen World twice a year online

As of 2024, Wageningen World – hitherto a quarterly magazine – will come out twice a year in English and Dutch, in print and online as a browsable PDF. Readers outside the Netherlands will now receive the online edition only – by email, as long as we know their email address.

You can give us your email address and update your details on: www.wur.eu/ww-subscription

Readers in the Netherlands who currently receive the print version but would rather read the magazine online can change their subscription on www.wur.eu/ww-subscription

Info: www.wur.eu/wageningen-world

a healthy, sustainable world to the best of their abilities. WUR’s Continuing Education offers summer and winter schools, MOOCs, seminars, online Master’s programmes and an Executive MBA. The programmes and courses are taught by internationally respected experts and combine new theoretical insights with solid knowledge gained as practitioners. For an overview of all the courses, see www.wur.eu/continuing-education

Grow your own traditional varieties

The Dutch Centre for Genetic Resources, at WUR, has managed the Erfgoedrassen. nl website since the end of 2023. The aim is to preserve Dutch crop varieties from the 19th and 20th centuries — biocultural heritage — and publicize them and make them available to hobby growers. The website contains links to businesses that sell seeds for traditional varieties. There is also a webshop where small quantities of seed can be purchased. Info: lana.debruijn@wur.nl

Bacterium selfdestructs after viral infection

Wageningen scientists have discovered a molecular self-destruct mechanism in a bacterium on seaweed. The bacteria can sacrifice themselves if they become infected with a virus. That way, they protect others of their species from infections.

Viruses use bacteria as factories to produce more viruses. By killing themselves, the bacteria prevent an outbreak of the disease, says Raymond Staals, associate professor of Microbiology. The self-destruct mechanism belongs with the CRISPR-Cas bacterial immune system. Its precision gives it potential in the development of diagnostic tests for diseases. Wageningen scientists will investigate that further in the coming years in partnership with TNO and Staals’s spin-off Scope Biosciences. Info: raymond.staals@wur.nl

COMMUNICATION

New: Wageningen podcasts

For six months now, podcasts have been playing a key role in WUR’s communications. Six podcast series are now available via Spotify, Apple and other platforms.

The series Scientists and Polarization is particularly popular. In these podcasts, philosopher Bart Brandsma talks about what happens when scientists are confronted with an ‘us versus them’ mindset and how they can deal with it.

In the To Be Honest series, corporate director of Communications & Marketing Inge Wallage talks to communications professionals in government, the private sector, nature organizations, consultancy firms and science institutions. How does their work help make the world more sustainable and socially equitable?

In the series Put to the Test, the politician, microbiologist and author Rosanne Hertzberger talks to researchers about animal tests that are used in the contexts of public health, animal feed or ecology.

Questions about topical sustainability issues are addressed in the Wageningen World series. In each edition, two Wageningen researchers talk about their work. The interviews are interspersed with reports on start-ups and other news.

In the CRISPR-Cas series, the journalist Monica Lam talks to six WUR scientists about genetic techniques. The interviews include questions that had been submitted via LinkedIn. These podcasts are available in English and Dutch (all the others are Dutch only).

In Expedition Agriculture, experts from Wageningen Economic Research look at the options for living within the planet’s limits in a way that is fair to everyone.

Info: www.wur.nl/podcasts

Wageningen Microbiome Centre set up

The Wageningen Microbiome Centre is being set up as a place where Wageningen microbiologists in various chair groups and research groups can collaborate. The focus will be on research into the composition and functioning of microbiomes – microbial communities – in natural environments.The new institute will get its own building on campus at the end of 2025. The centre will be unique due to the great breadth of research at Wageningen on bacteria, fungi and other microorgan-

isms, thinks co-founder and professor of Microbiology Thijs Ettema. ‘There are already other centres for microbiome research, but they usually focus on patients and human health. We study that aspect too, but the Wageningen Microbiome Centre will be much broader. At Wageningen, microbial communities play a role in topics such as healthy nutrition, the climate, biodiversity, animal and plant health, and the circular economy.’ Info:thijs.ettema@wur.nl

Mosquitoes surf out of your hand’s way

When you try to slap a mosquito in flight with your hand, it escapes by surfing the resulting airflow. This finding comes from researchers of Experimental Zoology and the Laboratory of Entomology.

We all know how difficult it is to swat a mosquito zooming around your bedroom at night. According to researcher Antoine Cribellier, mosquitoes regularly escape thanks to their sharp senses and rapid reactions. The airflow that is generated plays an important role in the process. For example, he showed that a perforated fly swatter has twice as much chance of ‘making contact’ than a fly swatter without perforation. That confirms the widely held assumption that it is easier to swat a mosquito with a fly swatter with holes than with your bare hand. He also found that a mosquito’s escape manoeuvre consists of two stages. When a threatening object approaches, first the mosquito makes a sharp turn and flies away from the attacker. Then it is passively pushed away by the airflow. To carry out this study, the researchers

DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

used high-speed cameras that record 12,500 images per second. They are needed to capture the details of the movement of the mosquito wings, which beat approximately 500 times a second. AI image recognition software was used to analyse the video images of almost 500 escape manoeuvres. ‘Combining these measurements with simulations of the airflows let us estimate the aerodynamic forces generated by the airflow and by the

Temporary vaccination centre more effective

Temporary vaccination centres are an effective and affordable way of substantially increasing the vaccination rate in rural areas of Africa. This is shown by research by Maarten Voors of the Development Economics group on COVID vaccinations in Sierra Leone. He published his findings in March in Nature

Most vaccination campaigns focus on boosting demand, says Voors, but they have little effect. ‘In Sierra Leone, it can take someone several hours and a week’s wages in costs to get to where vaccines are being administered.’ Unsurprisingly, the vaccination rate was very low: less than 10 per cent. But when temporary vaccination centres were set up in 100 villages, the

number of people vaccinated increased by a factor of seven. This solution is also a lot cheaper than conventional vaccination programmes.

Info: maarten.voors@wur.nl

mosquitoes themselves,’ says Cribellier. The research was published in March in Current Biology

In future studies, the team wants to find out which sensors – such as sensitive hairs or antennae – mosquitoes use to detect the incoming airflow. They also want to investigate how this new knowledge can be used to improve traps that use airflows to catch mosquitoes.

Info: antoine.cribellier@wur.nl

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

Extracting lithium from wastewater

A method developed by Professor Louis de Smet of the Organic Chemistry chair group for extracting useful chemicals such as phosphate and lithium from wastewater will be tested on a larger scale. It involves using capacitive deionization, a technique that is already used for desalinating brackish water. The European Research Council has awarded a proof-of-concept grant of 150,000 euros for further development of the method. With this grant, De Smet can continue to develop his method of recycling useful substances effectively and sustainably.

info: louis.desmet@wur.nl

Searching for early indicators of dementia

A team of Wageningen researchers will start searching for early indicators of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. They will also investigate possible links between these diseases and diet and lifestyle. To this end, samples from the blood, brain and cerebral fluid of Parkinson and Alzheimer patients will be compared against similar samples from test subjects who are aging healthily. The researchers will make use of techniques from chemistry and of artificial intelligence, in the hope of finding signals at the molecular level that will be helpful for diagnosing the diseases at an early stage. The Dutch Research Council is supporting the research with a grant of over one million euros. simone.ruggeri@wur.nl

FOOD WASTE

Supermarkets throw less food away

In 2022, supermarkets sold 98.6 per cent on average of the food on sale; 1.4 per cent did not end up with consumers but was instead burned, fermented or fed to animals. This is a reduction of nearly 14 per cent in the food waste in supermarkets compared with 2020. These results come from a study by WUR based on self-reported figures from eight supermarket chains.

Info: martijntje.vollebregt@wur.nl

Life’s work results in database on plant virus transmissions

As of March, WUR has a Plant Virus Transmissions Database. This overview of the transmission of plant viruses by insects contains the life’s work of the virologist Dick Peters, who recently died aged 91. He survived just long enough to see the trial version.

The database contains data on more than 1600 plant viruses and is based on over 3500 scientific publications from the past 100 years. It shows for example that as many as 328 plant viruses are transmitted by aphids. Peters spent his whole career working at WUR as a plant virologist. After retiring in 1997, he continued to keep up that work, says professor of Ecological Plant Virology René van der Vlugt. ‘Years ago, I discovered he was going through all the scientific literature looking for information on how plant viruses are transmitted. It would be a real shame if he had kept all

LIVESTOCK AND CLIMATE

that information to himself. It’s unique data, and who has time these days to do that kind of work? Who even has access to the old literature, some of which is not available online? So I contacted the library.’ The information specialists there were able to put the data Peters had collected into a database. That was technically challenging. There were two documents: an Excel sheet with more than 4,600 lines with all the viruses and their data, and a 286-page Word document with references. There was a code system for cross-referencing between the documents. Info: rene.vandervlugt@wur.nl

Breeding low-methane cows

Roel Veerkamp of Wageningen Livestock Research will lead a worldwide programme to coordinate and speed up breeding cows with lower methane emissions. The programme was made

possible by a grant of 5 million dollars from the Bezos Earth Foundation in collaboration with University Fund Wageningen’s Global Methane Hub. Info: roel.veerkamp@wur.nl

Coffee helps stop bowel cancer

People who drink a lot of coffee have less chance of their bowel cancer returning and a smaller risk of dying from the disease. This finding comes from a team that included WUR researchers.

MARINE ECOLOGY

Predatory lionfish is taking over the Mediterranean

The lionfish, a notorious predator, has now settled in the colder parts of the Mediterranean. It was previously thought these areas were not habitable for this invasive exotic species. This result comes from a study by WUR researchers that was published in April in the scientific journal NeoBiota. The predator’s invasion started ten years ago in the warmer eastern waters of the Mediterranean, and the fish have rapidly expanded their territory. Genetic studies show the fish come from the Red Sea and probably entered the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. Lionfish are generalist

predators and can have a dramatic effect on local fish communities and biodiversity. Because the prey species are not used to this new predator, they usually don’t try to flee from the lionfish.

Info: davide.bottacini@wur.nl

Previous research had already shown that drinking coffee reduces the risk of getting bowel cancer. To study whether coffee has a beneficial effect on the progress of the disease, 1719 people with bowel cancer were asked to complete a questionnaire about their lifestyle, including questions on how much coffee they drank. The results show that the risk of the cancer returning is one third lower in people who drink a lot of coffee (more than four cups a day) than in people who don’t drink much coffee (less than two cups). The risk of death was smallest when drinking three to five cups a day.

Every year, bowel cancer is detected in about 12,000 people in the Netherlands.

Info: ellen.kampman@wur.nl

PLANT SCIENCES

How do plants sense contact?

Biochemistry professors Dolf Weijers and Joris Sprakel will spend the next ten years tackling an age-old biological conundrum: how do plants sense contact? 'We’ve known for more than a century that plants have a sense of touch,’ says Sprakel. ‘They can feel the wind, and they register when a fungus is trying to get into them. Grass senses that you’re walking on it, for instance, which leads to processes in the plant that make it sturdier. But how does that work, exactly? That is still a real blind spot in our knowledge.’

The GreenTE (Green Tissue Engineering) consortium led by the professors is going to look for the answer to this question. In March, the Dutch Research Council NWO awarded a Gravitation Programme grant of 22.9 million euros available for the research.

info: joris.sprakel@wur.nl

PHOTO SHUTTERSTOCK

Palm oil could be much

Research in Indonesia shows that it is possible to meet global demand for palm oil without felling forests, thus reducing the environmental impact of palm oil production. ‘We must help both large- and small-scale farmers to exploit the existing plantations more sustainably and efficiently.’

TEXT RENÉ DIDDE PHOTO MAJA SLINGERLAND

INFOGRAPHIC STEFFIE PADMOS

more sustainable

‘Most of the biomass of the oil palm goes underexploited’

Palm oil has had a bad name in Europe for many years. Demand for this multipurpose oil has soared since the 1980s. It is used in an incredibly large range of products from cookies to cosmetics, and from noodles to biodiesel. And the result has often been the loss of forest and of biodiversity.

In Indonesia alone – the world’s biggest palm oil producer – more than 10 million hectares of new oil palm plantations have been created since 2000. Many of them replaced other crops such as rubber and rice: oil palms are more productive per hectare with lower labour costs, but about one third of the new plantations are on recently deforested land and vulnerable peatlands. That entails biodiversity loss and drainage, causing the land to dry out. Furthermore, deforestation and drainage cause considerable CO2 emissions. For this reason, the Indonesian government declared a moratorium on deforestation for timber and oil palms in 2019.

THREE TONS OF OIL

Yet palm oil deserves better than this, claim the Wageningen researchers Maja Slingerland and Wolter Elbersen. ‘With its three tons of oil per hectare per year, the oil palm produces far more oil per hectare than alternatives such as soya and oilseed rape – although these crops also produce a valuable protein co-product, unlike the oil palm,’ says Elbersen, a biomass expert at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research. ‘And the oil palm requires less fertilizer and pesticide per litre of oil,’ adds tropical agriculture expert Slingerland, of the Plant Production Systems chair group.

Both researchers have been working on improving the ecological and economic status of the oil palm in Indonesia for many years, in collaboration with farmers, research institutes and the government. Even without felling trees or using virgin peatland, it is possible to meet the growing global demand for palm oil for use in food, Elbersen and Slingerland believe. Existing plantations achieve barely half the theoretically possible yield, calculated Slingerland and Indonesian researchers. And that can be significantly improved, as shown by research that WUR carried out between 2019 and 2023 together with the University of NebraskaLincoln and the Indonesian Oil Palm Research Institute. Slingerland: ‘In a trial in six areas with 200 farmers

each, we saw increases in production of up to 35 per cent. Farmers started pruning better, and fertilizing, weeding and harvesting more precisely.’

In 2022, WUR began working in the SustainPalm programme with Van Hall Larenstein, IPB University and Lambung Mangkurat University on reducing the ‘yield gap’ and saving land by using different techniques and developing new business models in small-scale experiments with farmers, companies and research institutes. In these ‘living labs’, an exchange of experiences takes place through ‘communities of practice’.

INTERCROPPING

According to these researchers, there is scope for reducing the environmental impact of palm oil production too. One way of doing this is to practice intercropping. The farmers in the trial are experimenting with temporary crops, for example when their oil palms have to be replaced after 25 years. For the first four years, until the new oil palms bear fruit and therefore generate income, crops like maize, pineapples and above all, watermelon, are a promising option. ‘It’s an attractive prospect that we save on land elsewhere like this without losing any palm oil production,’ says Slingerland. ‘What is more, that can generate some nice extra income. We know farmers who even want to stop producing palm oil because watermelons are more lucrative.’

More permanent forms of intercropping, with pepper, cocoa, coffee, bananas or tree species for light timber, are also possible. By planting the palm trees a bit closer together, you can create 15-metre-wide strips in which there is enough light for low-growing crops, says Slingerland. ‘Dozens of small farmers as well as a few large companies are experimenting with bananas, with the enormous leaves staying on the land as fertilizer after the harvest.’

Such experiments sometimes have a positive genderrelated impact too, she adds. In Riau, on Sumatra, women make cookies and juice out of pineapples that grow between the palms. ‘And the banana growing in Kalang, in Central Kalimantan, has prompted a lot of women to fry banana chips in palm oil, and sell them at local markets.’ Livestock farming can also benefit the environment and offer opportunities for additional earnings. If cows are allowed to graze under the oil palms that spreads

MORE SUSTAINABLE PALM OIL

The yields of existing palm oil plantations can easily be increased, and their environmental impact reduced, shows field research. The growing demand for palm oil can then be met without felling forests.

Increasing yields

Existing plantations often only get half their potential yields.

Potential additional yield

This yield gap could be reduced with better pruning, fertilization, weeding and harvesting.

Multiple crops

When old palm oil trees are replaced and as long as the newly planted trees are small, maize, pineapples or watermelon can be grown as a stop-gap.

Grazing livestock on the plantations provides manure and keeps down weeds.

If palm oil trees are planted a bit further apart, there is space to grow pepper, coffee or bananas in between them (intercropping).

Palm oil makes up 20% of the oil palm’s biomass.

Around 80% of the remaining biomass goes underexploited.

Making use of the byproducts

Pressing the palm kernel produces palm kernel oil for use in cosmetics.

A lot of starch can be extracted from the top few meters of the tree. It can also be converted into sugar.

Felled palm trees are left lying on the land, while the timber is suitable for furniture-making.

Fermenting empty fruit bunches and the waste streams from oil mills produces biogas. The residue from the fermentation can be used as fertilizer.

the risks of disappointing harvests and price fluctuations. The animals also eat the weeds, which saves on herbicide, and they provide manure for the oil palms.

‘Of course the livestock can only start grazing on the plantation after five years, otherwise they eat up the young palm trees,’ says Slingerland. She points out that the rising standard of living in Indonesia means that the population is eating more meat. ‘At the moment, a lot of expensive beef is imported from Australia. Homegrown meat could cut costs. We are still studying the effects on oil production, but up to now we are seeing more of a positive influence than a negative one.

Using the land on palm oil plantations for multiple purposes means saving land elsewhere from use for plantations and livestock, not to mention timber. The savings on the purchase and maintenance of that land, the reduced expenditure on import of meat and the reduced

environmental impact, including CO2 emissions, will boost the economic and ecological score of the oil palm considerably: that’s the idea. The initiatives also aim at improving the biodiversity on the plantations, by not using herbicides for one thing. ‘We are seeing potential for an increase in subspecies, more carbon sequestration in the soil and an improved soil life.’

REFORESTING

Studies are also being done on the idea of not replacing some oil plantations in peatland areas at the end of their lifespan, but reforesting the land instead or preparing it for wet crops such as jungle rubber, sago, reeds and rice, by raising the water level. ‘We are monitoring both intensification of the existing plantations, and reforestation and other farming options on phased-out plantations. One of the challenges is for the small-scale

Experiments with growing watermelons in an oil palm field; grazing livestock on a plantation; a banana harvest in an oil palm field; sugar juice tapped from felled old oil palms; the production of palm veneer.

farmers to get the same income from the alternative crops as they used to get from oil palm. We also calculate the savings on greenhouse gas emissions,’ says Slingerland. There are also numerous byproducts of palm oil that could be better exploited, with both environmental and economic benefits, claims Elbersen, who has been doing research on this with his fellow researchers for years. ‘Don’t forget that the oil constitutes only 20 per cent of the oil palm biomass. About 80 per cent of the remaining biomass still goes largely unused.’ Besides the crude palm oil that is extracted from the palm fruit, the palm kernel can be cracked and pressed. ‘That produces valuable palm kernel oil, which is used in cosmetics such as lip balm.’

The watery effluent from the oil mills can also generate income. ‘That is currently discharged into rivers or returned to the land after anaerobic treatment. That gives the soil some nutrients, but it also releases methane when processed in open ponds.’ It is smarter to ferment the waste together with the empty fruit bunches, as Elbersen and his colleagues have tested. ‘Biogas produces enough energy for the palm oil mill. Currently they burn the mesocarp fibre and shells for that purpose, whereas you could sell it for making biobased products, for example, or generating electricity, replacing coal. And even the digestate, the waste product of the fermentation process, is usable too. It is a nice, stable fertilizer which provides both nutrients and organic matter that improves soil quality.’

The researchers are going to do further tests on this circular process with IPB University in Bogor in an IPB trial mill on a demonstration scale.

STARCH AND WOOD

And even the discarded palm trunks could be of more value. When an oil palm plantation is felled after 25 years, the trees are left to rot in the field. ‘Decomposition products and nutrients trickle back into the soil, but it could all be made much more circular,’ says Elbersen. The researchers discovered that you can extract a lot of starch from the top of the 10-metre-tall trunks: they estimate that up to five tons of starch is stored in a hectare of old palms. ‘That could meet some of the demand for starch in Indonesia or in other markets. You can also convert the starch

‘The oil palm can meet some of Indonesia’s demand for starch’

into sugar. Indonesia currently imports sugar,’ says Elbersen. The researchers estimate that oil palm sugar could theoretically halve those imports. And then there’s the palmwood itself: about 70 cubic metres per hectare. Elbersen places pieces of palm veneer and a block of palmwood on his desk. ‘This is lightweight wood that is suitable for building or for furniture making. The CO2 stored in it then stays put for another 50 years at least, rather than escaping through rotting or burning. We should try to interest IKEA in this,’ thinks Elbersen. ‘The products could be included in the existing sustainability certification systems for palm oil.’

REDUCING THE FOOTPRINT

But if the suggested improvements prove viable and are rolled out on a large scale, wouldn’t there be a downside that more forest would be felled because the big companies would smell a profit? ‘We are not directly addressing deforestation but trying to reduce the footprint of palm oil,’ says Elbersen. ‘Indonesian policy is based on a moratorium on palm concessions. Deforestation has gone down dramatically, but is not yet at zero.’

Slingerland agrees that you don’t have to cut down forest to boost production. ‘Deforestation must stop of course. We focus on measures that make that possible economically and ecologically.’ In the time remaining for the project, the researchers want to calculate the environmental and economic advantages more precisely, including the amount of agricultural land that is spared Both large concession holders and small farmers, who account for 40 per cent of the palm oil production, should benefit from the Wageningen research. One option, for instance, is to admit landless farmers with experience of growing watermelons onto the oil palm plantations. ‘Then the oil palm farmers can leave that work to them,’ says Slingerland. ‘But the main thing is that we shouldn’t dwell on everything that goes wrong.’

Elbersen: ‘We shouldn’t just say, “Thou shalt not destroy forests”, but should help both large- and small-scale farmers to exploit existing plantations more sustainably and efficiently.’ W

www.wur.eu/palm-oil

Pet owners test dog and cat food at home

Pet-food producers usually test their products for flavour and digestibility in research facilities, but pet owners can also test them at home, shows research by alumnus Evelien Bos. She developed home tests and markets them through her startup Pet Panel.

TEXT TESSA LOUWERENS

Pet-food producers usually test the tastiness and digestibility of their products on cats and dogs in testing facilities. That has its advantages: the conditions are standardized and controlled by the researchers who carry out the tests. But how closely does it resemble the real world for dogs, cats and their owners at home?

For her PhD research in the Animal Nutrition chair group, Evelien Bos developed a protocol for testing the tastiness and digestibility of pet food in the home. The protocol can provide producers with important information about how the foods do in practice, and it offers an alternative to keeping animals in testing facilities. Bos: ‘My passion is to improve

animal welfare and to bridge the gap between science and the real world, In the course of my study I visited a lot of people at home, and it was really worthwhile to do the research with them.’

ACCEPTANCE TEST

Owners receive weighed portions of the pet food in the post, and the first test is an acceptance test: does the animal want to eat the food? In another test, the animal gets to choose between two kinds of food. The owner retains the uneaten food and keeps a diary about the pet’s behaviour. ‘Pet owners know their pets inside out, and can evaluate their behaviour themselves,’ says Bos. ‘What is more, they are the customer in the end, so their opinion is very relevant to a producer.’

Pets get used to the new pet food within a couple of days, and they can soon make clear which pet food they prefer, says Bos. And that’s important, because however healthy and nutritious a pet food is, if the pet turns its nose up at it, that’s irrelevant. ‘Tastes vary, it’s quite simple.’

Bos also asks owners to take samples of poop from their pets, because that provides valuable information. ‘We can determine the nutritional value, meaning how many of the nutrients actually get digested and absorbed.’ This is monitored through markers in the food. ‘A good marker is indigestible. From the ratio of marker to a nutrient such as protein in the food and the poop, we can calculate how much of a particular nutrient has been

Dog owners test such things as whether their dog likes a particular food. digested without having to collect all the food and all the poop.’

That varies between animals because factors such as sex, age, body weight and activity levels can affect it. ‘With the home tests, animals of all breeds and sizes can take part, and so we can gather information about the whole pet population. Or we can create testing panels with a representative group of animals which a particular product is made for.’

COMPETITORS CONTRIBUTE

The study was partly financed by nine companies in the animal feed industry. All the companies donated a sum to University Fund Wageningen, amounting to a total

of about 325,000 euros. Bos: ‘It is quite unique for all these companies, who are normally each other’s competitors, to invest jointly. That shows how important this is to the whole industry.’

Bos got her PhD at the end of 2023 and started her company Pet Panel early this year, together with two partners. Pet-food producers can request tests from them. ‘I already got lots of requests for home tests from pet-food producers when I was doing my PhD. I couldn’t provide them then, but it did make me think. I have the expertise and the network. And I don’t want my research results just gathering dust on bookshelves.’

Meanwhile, Bos is already working on upscaling her startup. ‘Normally, when

‘I don’t want my research results just gathering dust on bookshelves’

you start a business, you start from scratch but because I was already working on it during my PhD research, the test applications are coming in thick and fast. That’s terrific, but it’s a challenge as well because we need a lot more test panel members.’

And as if she wasn’t busy enough already, Bos is starting a postdoctoral study soon. She wants to develop an indigestible marker with which she can study digestibility even better in uncontrolled conditions like the home situation. ‘My idea is to spend about 70 per cent of my time on Pet Panel and about 30 per cent on my postdoc.’ W

www.wur.eu/petpanel

PHOTO ARJAN LIGTERMOET

HEDWIG BRUGGEMAN ON DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION:

‘Relationships

really have

Hedwig Bruggeman retired in June after 40 years in international development. ‘Wageningen University & Research is a world-renowned institute, so noblesse oblige. It is our moral duty to care about the rest of the world.’

TEXT

JORIS TIELENS PHOTOGRAPHY ALDO ALLESSIE

become more equal’

‘Igrew up on an arable farm in ZeeuwsVlaanderen on the border with Belgium,’ says Hedwig Bruggeman, who has been business unit manager of Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (WCDI) – WUR’s international institution for research and knowledge exchange – since 2015. ‘I always wanted to do more with my life than just earn my keep. An uncle of mine was a missionary in Africa, and I wanted to go to Africa too.’

She went there for the first time in 1983, overland: she and her husband, who had been a fellow student she met when

studying tropical livestock production fin Deventer, travelled by boat up the Nile and on to Zimbabwe by bus, train, and hitch-hiking. ‘Zimbabwe had just gained independence, a lot of white Zimbabweans had left and the ministry of Agriculture was emptying out. They welcomed us as agricultural advisors. We were politically engaged 25-year-olds, and we wanted to help build the new Zimbabwe.’

After three years in Zimbabwe, she returned to the Netherlands to study tropical livestock production in Wageningen, and went on to work for 20 years as an agricultural advisor

and manager in development cooperation in African countries including Chad, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Cameroon. In 2004, she came back to the Netherlands –now with three sons – to head the network organization AgriProFocus, and she was one of the founders of the Netherlands Food Partnership, a platform for international knowledge exchange on agriculture and food, with which AgriProFocus merged in 2020.

If she has learned anything since her first visit to Africa 40 years ago, it is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to providing

enough healthy food for all on the planet without harming the environment and the climate. ‘We can’t just flick a switch in the food system. We have to take a fresh look at every situation to see what is needed and what is lacking. And we must research and tackle that together with all stakeholders.’

And that is how Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation works in various countries in the global South. It means, for example, ensuring that farmers in Uganda get access to good seeds so they get better harvests, or improving horticulture entrepreneurship in West Africa so that urban populations can buy healthy vegetables, as well as organizing the transfer of knowledge and expertise for lasting impact.

Has development cooperation really changed in the past few decades?

‘It used to be all about food production and preventing hunger; now a liveable planet and social justice are at the forefront. That can be about a living income for farmers, and about maintaining biodiversity and dealing with climate change. We still have a long way to go, and that goes for the Netherlands as much as anywhere else. We don’t have all the answers. We collaborate with national governments, research and educational institutions, as well as with civil

society and farmers' organizations on an increasingly equal basis, whereas in the past, WCDI implemented projects itself. Recently, our role has become that of a knowledge partner. We do research and develop innovative approaches – to consultations between different stakeholders, for instance – together with our partner organizations, who then implement the new approach independently.’

In the past, did we too often think we knew best?

‘We certainly did. Dutch researchers and companies have often promoted the Dutch agricultural model abroad, based on the idea that our form of agriculture is the best. That was the wrong way of thinking. Different kinds of agriculture are needed, depending on the situation. The intensive agriculture practised in the Netherlands is reaching its limits. We can learn from that, in order to prevent it happening elsewhere. We should work with people in the countries to identify what is desirable and feasible, and how different food systems complement each other. WCDI advises governments in various countries on that, as do other WUR institutes that work internationally. In exactly the same way as WUR advises the Dutch government, actually.

‘The idea that the Netherlands should feed

the world is mistaken, incidentally. There are a lot of good initiatives in Africa aiming at growing the local dairy sector, but those farmers can’t compete with cheap imported milk powder from the Netherlands. Or take chicken farmers in Ghana or onion growers in Senegal, who are faced with cheap imports from Europe. Years of liberal trade policies have been detrimental to the development of national, regional and local food systems. There are still big imbalances in political clout. And we didn’t manage to address that sufficiently over the past few decades.’

Do you think the relationship between the Netherlands and partners in the South has become more equal?

‘Something has definitely shifted. Horrible as the Covid-19 pandemic was, it did catalyse change. Before that, if there was a project in Rwanda, our staff used to go there. During the pandemic that wasn’t possible and our partners in Africa took on more responsibility for managing and implementing projects. And it has continued that way since the pandemic. In retrospect, you think: we could have done that much sooner. And of course, all the possibilities offered by ICT help tremendously. Every day, I consult people in Ethiopia, Uganda, or wherever from my office. But we also

The 2018 launch of the Sustainable and Inclusive Landscapes programme, which consists of four MOOCs. With partners Sara Scherr (Eco-Agriculture Partners), Cora van Oosten (CIFOR-ICRAF), Musonda Mumba (RAMSAR Convention), Hedwig Bruggeman (WCDI) Pooja Munsshie (UNEP) and Parashina Lampat (SORALO).

‘Recently, our role has become that of a knowledge partner’

think about it differently now.

‘We are partly funded by the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs, our chief financier, and we have to report on how we spend that funding. The next step is to make a change there. The Swedish government is already doing that: it makes funding available to organizations in the countries where the projects are. The Netherlands wants to do the same, according to the government’s latest Africa strategy paper.’

That brings us to the question that is as old as development aid itself: what role will be left for us then?

‘We are indeed doing some soul-searching. Where does our added value lie? The important thing is that our attitude is the same whether we are working with a university in the UK or in Kenya. That is also why our role has become more that of knowledge partner, and involves less project implementation. WCDI used to run a project in Uganda aiming at improving the seed sector, with an in-country Dutch programme leader. The former project team established themselves as an independent organization and now they do the implementing and they hire us if they have a need for particular expertise.’

Have you seen changes in education too?

‘Long ago, the International Agriculture Centre, WCDI’s predecessor, provided three-month courses for professionals from all around the world. Gradually we went over to lifelong learning, with shorter courses. And since Covid-19, we give blended courses, partly online and partly taught by a trainer who runs the inperson part of the course in Africa or Asia in collaboration with a national institute. One example of that is our leadership programme, the African Food Fellowship,

in which future African leaders learn and exchange knowledge about food systems.

‘When it comes to university education, the business model has got to change. Wageningen currently still recruits international students abroad. Whereas we could also invest more in collaboration with educational institutes in the South and have our best professors teach their students online.’

A right-wing cabinet is being formed that aims to cut back on development aid. Will WCDI be affected?

‘The Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of our main partners and financiers. We also get some funding from international organizations, but we shall have to diversify further. WCDI is going to merge with Wageningen Economic Research to form one resilient socio-economic research institute. That is appropriate nowadays, given that the same problems affect the Netherlands and the South, and food systems are all interlinked. The staff of the new institute will continue to do the same work, but the divide between national and international will be less pronounced and the collective knowledge will be more effectively valorised.’

Is there still a place for international development at WUR?

‘I see it as noblesse oblige. We are a worldrenowned institute, so it is our moral duty to care about the rest of the world. Especially fragile states. Soon, the majority of the world’s population will be living in countries that are vulnerable due to conflict, political instability, or climate change. We must apply our knowledge and expertise there too, however hard that may be, and not take the path of least resistance.’ W

www.wur.nl/wcdi

HEDWIG BRUGGEMAN

Hedwig Bruggeman studied tropical livestock production in Deventer and Wageningen (1982-1988) and worked in several African countries for governments and development organizations. After 20 years in Africa, she became director of the network organization AgriProFocus in the Netherlands, and went on to become director of Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, WUR’s research institute focusing on international development.

PFAS: stubborn and hard to replace

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), make clothing waterproof and paper grease-resistant, but they are so persistent that you find them in foods and the environment. Researchers are trying to figure out where the substances end up, what their impact is, and above all, how we can get rid of them.

TEXT ARNO VAN ’T HOOG PHOTO ANP/PETER HILZ

PFAS pollution has only recently become a hot topic, but a lot of researchers have been aware of this group of problem substances for at least 20 years, says Stefan van Leeuwen, senior researcher into contaminants at Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR). ‘We are starting to pay attention to them now because it has become clear in the last few years that these substances have a certain toxicity after all. We know now that PFAS in the environment and in our food can affect our health.’ Last year, this led to warnings against eating certain foods, including fish from the Westerschelde and eggs from hobby chickens throughout the Netherlands. Van Leeuwen’s work is all about analysing chemical substances in the environment and in our food. These might be pesticides, flame retardants, PCBs or dioxins. Van Leeuwen: ‘They are all persistent substances, which don’t break down easily and therefore stay around for a long time. PFAS

are a prime example of persistence in that respect. The combination of carbon and fluorine makes PFAS extremely stable. If you wanted to destroy them, you would have to heat a furnace to 1200 degrees before they would fall apart completely.’

TRACES EVERYWHERE

The dirt-, grease- and water-resistant qualities of these ‘forever chemicals’ make them handy as a coating on wrapping paper, clothing, shoes, furniture and carpets. PFAS are also used for making non-stick pans, lubricants, pesticides and heat-proof foam for fire extinguishers. Since the 1950s, PFAS have been used all around the world on a large scale, and you can therefore find traces of them everywhere: in household dust, garden soils and surface water. If you measure carefully, you’ll find some PFAS in everyone’s blood: once you’ve ingested them, you don’t urinate most PFAS out again.

In laboratory analyses, a couple of widely used PFAS stand out, particularly PFOS and PFOA. But there are many more kinds of PFAS: over 500 different PFAS have been reported by industry to the European register of chemicals (REACH) alone. But they cannot all be measured in the lab yet, says Van Leeuwen. ‘We know there must be more, because we have demonstrated the presence of a number of them in our research. Varying numbers are mentioned, ranging from hundreds to even thousands of kinds of PFAS. We don’t know exactly how many there are, and nor do we know what concentrations they occur in.’

About five years ago, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded from its research that exposure to four commonly found PFAS had a negative impact on the human immune system. Van Leeuwen: ‘New limits were established on the basis of that knowledge. If you stay below them, you can

Research on PFAS levels in the blood of people living within a radius of five kilometres around the 3M factory in the Belgian town of Zwijndrecht.

‘Replacing PFAS is one of the toughest challenges we face’

be fairly sure nothing will happen. Since the new limits are 10 times lower than the old ones, you get into the danger zone sooner, through food, for instance.’

In 2022, the new limits led to warnings being issued in Dordrecht to people living near Chemours, a company that has been producing PFAs for decades. WFSR analysed fruit and vegetables in the area. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment RIVM then carried out a risk analysis, and said that residents

of Dordrecht, Papendrecht and Sliedrecht should not exclusively eat home-grown vegetables but interchange them with vegetables from the supermarket. This year, the same advice came for the whole country with regard to eggs from hobby chickens: eat them in moderation and interchange them with shop-bought eggs.

MINUTE AMOUNTS

It is not easy to measure PFAS, says Van Leeuwen. ‘We’re talking about minute

NEW PFAS FILTER

PFAS are very difficult to capture. Drinking water companies use colossal filters with active carbon. The filters have to be replaced regularly and the carbon is disposed of as chemical waste, which costs millions of euros per year. An international team led by Fedor Miloserdov and Han Zuilhof of the Laboratory for Organic Chemistry published research results in April that provide hope for an alternative. The researchers succeeded in removing PFAS from water efficiently using special ring-shaped molecules (pillararenes).

The reason the new material works so well is that two mechanisms reinforce each other, says Zuilhof. ‘Pillararenes have five locations with a positive charge and they attract the negatively charged side of PFAS. The fluorine tails of the PFAS molecules also attract each other, which makes the compound extra strong. After that, we can concentrate the PFAS in a small volume. You only have to rinse out the filter material with a bit of alcohol and then you can destroy the PFAS.’ Zuilhof has handed over the patent on this discovery to Wetsus research institute, which wants to continue developing this water purification technique together with WUR and industrial partners.

amounts. In vegetables from Dordrecht we’re talking about picograms of PFAS per gram. You can compare that with one and a half grains of sugar dissolved in an Olympic swimming pool. And there is laboratory equipment that contains PFAS, which can distort your measuring. So you need to be very aware of what equipment you buy for your research.’

Van Leeuwen and his colleagues are developing new laboratory techniques with a view to obtaining a fuller understanding of PFAS pollution in things like food and livestock feeds. One approach involves chemical screening that measures the total organically bound fluorine content. ‘If the fluorine content is much higher than you get in well-known types of PFAS such as PFOS and PFOA, you known that there must be something else as well. That is reason to investigate further using mass spectrometry.’

SHRIMPS AND FISH

In the Westerschelde estuary, PFAS are prominently present in shrimps and fish, shows research by Wageningen Marine Research. This pollution comes from waters from the densely populated Flemish hinterland, including from discharge from factories such as 3M near Antwerp. What the PFAS contamination does to nature is still largely unclear, says marine biologist Martine van den Heuvel of Wageningen Marine Research. ‘PFAS are relatively new in ecotoxicology. What is more, these substances behave differently to the classic pollutants such as PCBs. PFAS stick to proteins and cell membranes, whereas PCBs get into body fat. This means we can’t make much use of existing ecotoxicological knowledge. What we do know from research on people and lab animals is that PFAS are not acutely toxic but that they can have subtle effects over the longer term. These can include a sub-optimally functioning immune system, a lower birth weight and disruption of the

thyroid hormones. These things are not easy to spot or measure, so long-term studies are needed to find out whether plants and animals are affected by them.’

Concern about PFAS pollution led in 2021 to extensive Wageningen research in the Westerschelde at the behest of the province of Zeeland. Measurements were taken in mussels, oysters, shrimps and several fish species such as bass and flounder. Marine vegetables such as sea lavender were also analysed. For RIVM, the research results were sufficient reason to recommend not eating more than two portions of self-caught flounder or shrimps from the Westerschelde a year, or more than seven portions of mussels and oysters; the PFAS levels are lower in shellfish.

ACCUMULATING IN THE FOOD WEB

The analyses show that not all animal species absorb PFAS to the same degree. Their environment and diet and their place in the food web play a role, because some PFAS tend to accumulate. Van den Heuvel: ‘PFAS consist of substances with both short and long carbon chains. The short ones are more water-soluble, and the long ones less so. PFAS with long chains attach themselves more to organic matter in the soil and accumulate more readily in a food web. You can imagine that bottom-feeders like flounder have more contact with the PFAS that can accumulate through the food they

get from the riverbed. Seals eat flounders and then never get rid of the PFAS. We are now working on research on different species of organisms, such as worms that live in the soil , to see how these substances are passed on in the food web and what the consequences can be.’

In 2023, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden submitted a proposal for a ban on PFAS to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). Working out the details, including possible exemptions, is going to take at least three years, but it is clear that the end is in sight for the large-scale use of PFAS in Europe. ‘Banning and phasing out cannot be done without replacing them. There’s a reason PFAS are in all kinds of products and processes. You’ve got to look for other chemical substances or new materials that can take over the function of PFAS. Far too little attention is being paid to that problem,’ says Jacco van Haveren, the programme manager for Safe and Circular Biobased Products at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research. He has long been working on how to replace problem substances such as acrylate in paint and plasticizer in plastics.

‘Sometimes PFAS are used as a kind of soap or cleaning product, and that is relatively easy to find substitutes for. But in protective coatings for pipes in industry it’s not so easy, and the same goes for the production of medicines or the manufacture of chips and

high-tech electronics. In discussions with industry, we are trying to get a better idea of the massive diversity in the applications.’

Many of the useful properties of PFAS, such as protecting cardboard and paper, come from the fluorine in its ‘tail’. It is not easy to imitate that structure with other chemical building blocks, says Van Haveren. ‘Fluorine compounds are both water-resistant and grease-resistant and they hardly react to anything. You can’t find that combination of properties in many other materials.’

LANOLIN AS AN ALTERNATIVE

In the coming years, his group is going to work with the University of Amsterdam and RIVM on a study of the potential of biodegradable lanolin as an alternative to PFAS for making clothing waterproof. ‘The question is whether you can use it as the basis for then optimizing the properties, or as a model for making other molecules resembling lanolin, with even better properties.’ According to Van Haveren, it is probably unrealistic to expect to find a comprehensive alternative to PFAS. ‘We might have to compromise on quality a bit. After all, replacing PFAS is one of the most difficult challenges we face. If water resistance is the most important property, maybe you can accept a slightly lower level of greaseresistance.’ W

www.wureul/pfas

Researchers from Wageningen Marine Research collect lugworms in the Westerschelde estuary for PFAS analysis. September 2023. PHOTO:

AI is opening doors for

large-scale studies

The numbers of scientific applications of artificial intelligence are growing rapidly. Smart computers and robots are opening new doors to research that isn’t feasible manually. ‘We can now scale projects up to previously inconceivable levels.’

‘You always need human intelligence at the front and back ends’

Willem-Jan Knibbe, the head of the Wageningen Data Competence Centre and its Artificial Intelligence programme leader, sees AI as a great way of extracting knowledge from data. ‘AI was already excellent at pattern recognition; it can for instance tell you what kind of animal or tree is in a picture, and it can recognize faces and look for relationships. That’s making research faster, more efficient and more productive. But over the last couple of years AI has also become creative and generative. You can make it write, draw, talk and construct things, for example with ChatGPT. That’s a radical change that affects all of us.’

Knibbe and his colleagues at the data centre want to create value from Wageningen’s data.

‘The data centre was set up in 2017, when the Big Data explosion came along with the exponential growth of data and the sheer quantities of data being produced and stored. Larger and more complex datasets led to the rise of data science as a way of gleaning understandings from the data. And now we have to deal with the developments in AI. Responding sufficiently quickly to all those changes is a continuous challenge in research and education, where the possibilities for rapid adaptation are more limited because the programme is generally fixed for a year. Bringing it all together is pretty complex.’

INSPIRATION

Knibbe believes that AI tools offer boundless opportunities. ‘You can ask ChatGPT for a good study design, for instance. That doesn’t work perfectly yet, but it helps you find inspiration. AI can also help you construct, correct and combine ideas more quickly. AI has capabilities that you can’t even conceive of and it reads through more material than you can. That’s where you have to be care-

ful, though, because AI can read the wrong things too. But if you do it properly, AI is a powerful and helpful sparring partner.’ AI is already being used avidly in innovative projects: for recognizing food quality using camera images, for the fully automated cultivation of land, for monitoring livestock health, or in the search for the hereditary characteristics of resistant strains.

COMPUTER VISION

Erik Pekkeriet is the manager of Vision + Robotics, the programme that is bringing together experts in computer vision – image interpretation by software – and robotics and AI from all corners of WUR so that the technology can be utilized in agriculture, horticulture, fishing, livestock farming and the food supply chain. He thinks Wageningen’s researchers are still a bit traditional in their attitudes to AI. ‘We don’t really trust it yet and want to do a lot of measurements and counts manually, just to be sure that it’s all correct. AI-based image processing systems are so good and efficient nowadays, though, that they do the job better and more completely than we do, as well as saving a lot of effort. The technology has genuinely turned a corner over the past ten years. Manual measuring and counting is going to be largely redundant in future and will be replaced by AI-based, robotized systems. On top of that, researchers will often have a lot more data points available, for instance because they can now use drones to fly over an area to gather data.’

Jeroen Hoekendijk, a marine biologist and computer scientist at Wageningen Marine Research, knows all about that. For his doctoral thesis, he used AI to automate the counting of seals in the Wadden Sea using aerial images. In current research, birds

above the North Sea are also being counted using photographs, he tells us. ‘In the past, birds were counted by an expert from a plane; nowadays, modern aerial cameras can photograph large areas at high resolution and the images are analysed automatically. The initial results are very promising, but a lot of example data from the experts is currently needed if the process is to be improved. The algorithm has difficulty with similar-looking bird species in particular.’ Although he started in biology, over time Hoekendijk has shifted towards computer science. ‘At the moment, I’m helping ecologists and biologists to use AI tools in their research. Because I know both sides of the coin, I’ve got a kind of bridging role.’ As an example, he gives research into determining the age of a fish. That is done by looking at growth rings in otoliths, the small ossicles in the fish’s ears, which get annual growth rings just like trees do. Researchers have been taking photos of these for years, and these old datasets can be used for machine learning and teaching the algorithm to count the annual rings. ‘You do that by showing the computer one photo at a time along with the corresponding number of rings until it can count them correctly on new photos. It’s got to be accurate and the research is very labour intensive, so it’ll be great if AI is able to take it over.’

RECOGNIZING SOUNDS

AI is also being used increasingly often in biodiversity research, not only for image recognition but also for recognizing the sounds made by birds, marine mammals, bats and fish. This can create better understandings of where animals are located and how they behave. According to Hoekendijk, the added value of AI is in the scale. ‘Automation opens >

CLASSIFYING FISH CATCHES

In the Fully Documented Fisheries project, work is being done on a system that creates a picture fully automatically of fishing catches, without the trawler crew or observers having to be involved. The catch is automatically detected and classified by number and by species as it passes along the conveyor belts. The system uses GPS, sensors and cameras plus an onboard computer.

Researchers at Wageningen Marine Research are developing computer vision methods for analysing and interpreting the images. This technology makes complete documentation of the fish catch possible, which will help the sector become more sustainable and allow fish populations to be managed more responsibly.

PREDICTING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION

Researchers at Wageningen Environmental Research are working on making the Forest Foresight system of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) even smarter. This is a system that uses radar images from the Sentinel-1 satellite to make a detailed map in which AI can show where felling is likely to happen, up to several months in advance. It can for instance determine every few days where new roads have been created, which shows where heavy vehicles are going to be used, for instance for tree felling. The system is undergoing trials in the tropical rainforests of Suriname, Gabon and Kalimantan. The initial results are promising, according to Johannes Reiche, an assistant professor of Radar Remote Sensing. ‘The nice thing is that we can now also teach the system about the causes of deforestation. It can recognize activities such as mining, agriculture and tree felling and it also knows about various types of forests. That means the system can estimate accurately where the risk of illegal deforestation is highest. Felling is less likely in wet woodlands, for example. Local rangers can use this system to see where they need to send their patrols instead of just reacting to what has already happened.’

new doors for research that was impossible before because it wouldn’t be feasible manually. We can now scale projects up to previously inconceivable levels: we’re doing plankton research, for instance, at a scale that would have been unimaginable in the past. The latest technology lets us photograph 10,000 plankton particles a minute and we then use smart algorithms to analyse the photos. The quantities, species and locations of plankton all vary with the seasons, so using this tool lets us do monitoring at a much larger scale and pick up the changes more quickly.’

AI USES A LOT OF ELECTRICITY

The United Nations and the World Economic Forum predict a major role for AI in the battle against climate change. AI could help make things greener, for instance by automatically switching off energy sources when they aren’t needed. That doesn’t alter the fact that AI itself has a substantial ecological footprint, though, for instance for producing and transporting all the hardware, for water to cool the servers in data centres and for the large amounts of electricity needed to train the AI models and keep them running. According to the International Energy Agency, data centres use about 3 per cent of all the electrical power on the planet and are responsible for 1 per cent of global CO2 emissions. That may not sound much, but even the aviation sector ‘only’ emits twice as much. The penny is slowly starting to drop in the academic world that digitalization comes at an ecological cost. Hoekendijk is positive about it nevertheless. ‘The climate impact varies from one project to the next. And AI can also have a positive impact too: we are now able to use existing satellite images, for example, which is more environmentally friendly than

'We're doing plankton research on a scale that was unimaginable in the past’

flying. You can also use an underwater drone to film the ocean floor and see what’s living there, without fishing or ruining the seabed by scraping it away. And images from Google Earth enable us to detect new forests of darkgreen seaweed, which we can then protect. These kelp forests are crucial for biodiversity. AI tools can't save the climate; human beings must do that. AI can help us, though.'

LOSING CONTROL

Vincent Blok, professor of the Philosophy of Technology and Responsible Innovation, notes that society also has concerns about AI. ‘In a well-made marketing video about Lely milking robots, you see fully automated cowshed systems – without any people. This has an alienating effect on the general public, though: they no longer see any relationship between the humans and the animals. This had already become much less in livestock farming, but the robots draw attention to the fact.’

Blok thinks people sometimes wonder whether we’re losing control, with AI taking over. ‘Scientists need to address that concern, so that ordinary people can assess the potential, the opportunities and the risks. If public opinion turns against AI, that could work against the scientific technology. So this is something for interdisciplinary cooperation between the philosophers and the technologists.’

Blok is leading a project about the ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) of AI in sustainable food systems. The ELSA lab aims to develop responsible, human-centric AI. ‘We’re working with various chair groups to provide critical reflections on the negative and unforeseen effects of AI on humans, animals and society. What are the ethical issues, and who is ‘in control? In the Netherlands, we’re thinking carefully

about the ethics and philosophy of AI.’

Hoekendijk has seen AI building up momentum massively over the past five years. ‘It’s difficult to say where we’ll be five years from now. I’d expect AI to need less and less example data from experts and that the tools will become ever more accessible to people who aren’t computer scientists.’ Pekkeriet believes WUR still has a way to go, and that researchers will have to learn what AI can do for them. ‘We understand which data items can be linked together, but AI doesn’t. With generative AI such as ChatGPT or Google, you often don’t know where the information has come from and so you regularly get lousy answers: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). When we’re doing research, we know the origins of our data – and we have colossal amounts of data available.’

HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

Sometimes, it is not clear whether AI would actually solve a particular problem. Selflearning machines don’t always outperform humans. ‘AI does not possess human intelligence,’ says Blok emphatically. ‘I think that we’re heading for a sort of hybrid intelligence. You always need human intelligence at the front and back ends. We need to utilize the user’s expertise in a positive way. Human-centric AI can help increase human capacities.’ According to Blok, that also raises the question of whether we aren’t defining the concept of intelligence too narrowly. ‘Why do we assume it’s either artificial intelligence or human intelligence? Maybe we ought to move from human-centric to biocentric AI. There are forms of intelligence in non-human systems too – take a flock of birds, for instance.’ W

www.wur.eu/ai

TRIAGE OF DISEASED GREENHOUSE SEEDLINGS

Selecting and sorting young seedlings before they are transferred to the greenhouse to develop is a labour-intensive task. Scientists from the Vision + Robotics programme are working on a technique for automating that selection process in which diseased and non-viable plants are recognized and picked out.

The new technology uses a camera that records the shape and colour of the seedling roots and shoot. Image processing and machine learning are then used to determine whether it is a viable plant. The AI technology can moreover help determine which characteristics are predictors of plant health.

‘We’re currently in the middle of our feasibility study,’ says Lydia Meesters, the project manager. ‘Can we genuinely produce the images we need of the plant properties so that its health can be determined? And if so, how can we create the best possible picture of these characteristics using simple, scalable technology?’

RECOGNIZING THE SOUNDS OF THE SEA

New sensors can provide valuable information about the state of biodiversity in the oceans. Researchers from the Marine Animal Ecology chair group and others in the Next-Level Animal Sciences innovation programme are developing a smart biodiversity sensor box. This box makes underwater video and audio recordings and takes water samples for analysis of what is known as eDNA (environmental DNA). The ultimate aim is for the biodiversity box to take eDNA samples whenever the video or audio has detected an organism. An acoustic machine learning model will help detect and identify the sounds made by marine animals. The box can be deployed in places such as offshore wind farms for example in the North Sea, where diving is forbidden or hazardous, or where visibility is limited. The project is intended to generate an online database of the sounds of the North Sea. A dashboard will also be developed that combines sounds, video images and eDNA, which will allow anyone to observe marine animals in real time.

Chemical trick improves tumour treatment

Chemist Bauke Albada has received a grant of one million euros for research on improving the treatment of tumours. A smart chemical trick could make antibodies even more effective, while reducing the unpleasant side effects for patients.

TEXT ARNO VAN ’T HOOG ILLUSTRATION MAARJTE KUNEN

‘I use my knowledge of chemistry to tackle diseases’

‘I’ve been a rather diverse organic chemist but in my research there’s always a link with medicine and biology. I look at how life works at the molecular level, and what happens when diseases occur. Then I try to use my knowledge of chemistry to think of a way of tackling a disease,’ says Bauke Albada, associate professor at the One of Albada’s sources of inspiration is immune therapy for cancer, such as dosing patients with antibodies that inhibit the division of tumour cells. One way this immune therapy is used is in treating certain forms of breast cancer, alongside chemotherapy. The advantage of immune therapy is that it works in a more targeted way because antibodies seek out the tumour. A few years ago, Albada developed a method for equipping antibodies with a chemical ‘hook’ to which you can quickly and precisely attach other things, including drugs that kill cancer cells. This gives the antibodies a dual function.

DEALING WITH REACTIONS

For this ‘biogenic click chemistry’, Albada used an enzyme in order to change one of the amino acids (tyrosine) in the antibodies very precisely so that it starts chemical reactions with other specific substances. Albada: ‘The nice thing about this approach is that you can use antibodies that have already been approved as medical drugs. So with click chemistry you can easily attach all sorts of things to them, like toxins which make an antibody extra harmful for a cancer cell. With click chemistry you can also link two

different antibodies and study whether that produces new treatments.’

There are no applications yet, but the patent on this chemical technology is now in the hands of Synaffix, a Dutch biotechnology company that applies various kinds of click chemistry at the behest of pharmaceutical companies. ‘We have sold the intellectual property rights to the tyrosine click chemistry to Synaffix. The company was allowed to patent the technology as long as it supported our application for followup research. Synaffix has allocated 75,000 euros to the new project.’

At the end of 2023, Albada’s group received a grant of nearly one million euros from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for joint research with Radboud University Medical Centre on using the same click chemistry in another way, namely to temporarily deactivate antibodies with a ‘mini-mask’. Albada: ‘The fact that a private company was investing in our research certainly helped us get this NWO grant.’

CUT OFF THE MASK

The aim of the new project is to use click chemistry to equip antibodies with molecules that literally get in the antibody’s way until an enzyme in the tumour cuts off the ‘mask’.

Currently, if patients are given a dose of antibodies, less than 0.1 per cent of them end up where they are intended, says Albada. Along the way, the antibodies also attach themselves to places where they don’t belong, in organs and healthy tissue. ‘That causes unwanted side effects and

makes the treatment less effective. Our idea is to make masks that prevent this, so that much more of the injected dose ends up at the right place in the tumour. If that works, the antibody dose can be increased, while the side effects would be reduced. That would be the ideal scenario, taking us a step further in the way we treat cancer.’

FAST CLICKS

Albada can build on research published earlier: in the literature there are quite a lot of examples of masking antibodies. But earlier experiments were not very successful and making the masks is very time-consuming. The unusual thing about Albada’s method is its combination of enzymes and chemistry. ‘With our click chemistry, we can attach many different masks – such as proteins or polyethylene glycol – more quickly to antibodies and then test whether enzymes can cut them off again. Then we’ll get an idea of which strategy works best.’

Two PhD researchers and one postdoc are going to work on this for five years. ‘We expect to get a long way in that time. I would be satisfied with a method that works well for attaching precisely targeted masks to different antibodies. It would be even nicer if we could demonstrate in a study in rats that this approach works. Ideally, of course, this generates a series of nice scientific publications, and hopefully a patent too, with which we can get funding for further research.’ W

www.nanochemicalbiology.com

‘The conservation of Caribbean nature requires courage’

The six Caribbean islands that are part of the kingdom of the Netherlands enjoy very rich nature that needs protection from threats such as overgrazing and lionfish. Wageningen’s contribution is intervention-focussed research. ‘Without interventions, you will just be describing continued deterioration and we can’t afford that any longer.’

TEXT KOEN MOONS PHOTO

Mangrove restoration work in a bay on Curacao formerly used for salt production.

‘Goats are disastrous for the vegetation’

The 2018 Wageningen report ‘The state of nature in the Dutch Caribbean’ contains a long series of warnings of dangers to nature, from invasive species to climate change, overfishing, eutrophication, and the devastating impact of roaming livestock. Ecosystems on the brink of collapse, you might think. And yet nature on the islands is flourishing, says Dolfi Debrot, a senior tropical marine ecologist at Wageningen Marine Research. ‘If you take a helicopter view, nature is in much better condition here than in the European part of the Netherlands’ says Debrot on a video call from Curacao. The Caribbean islands are very rich in nature, he explains, referring to both the ‘Caribbean Netherlands’ (the Dutch municipalities of Bonaire, Sint-Eustatius and Saba: the BES islands) and the independent countries that are part of the kingdom of the Netherlands: Curacao, Aruba and Sint-Maarten.

‘The islands have 130 endemic species, species which only occur here,’ says Debrot. Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao all have their own unique whiptail lizards. The islands are also home to species such as the unique Tudora land snails, the Bonaire palm, the Saba least gecko and the Lesser-Antillean iguana, as well as internationally endangered species including many marine animals such as the black-capped petrel, the whale shark and the hawksbill turtle. Debrot: ‘The islands have not been nearly as spoiled by agriculture and infrastructure as the European Netherlands. But nature here is extremely vulnerable because these are small islands and the

INVASIVE EXOTICS

Researchers at Wageningen University & Research estimate that there are more than 210 non-native species on the Dutch Caribbean islands, including 27 marine species, 65 terrestrial plants, 72 land and saltwater animals and 47 agricultural pests and diseases. All six of the islands have been affected by the lionfish that spreading fast and reduce juvenile populations of many local reef fish. Aruba has problems with the boa constrictor, Sint-Maarten with the green monkey, and SintEustatius with exotic iguanas and the rampant ornamental plant corallita. Sometimes Wageningen researchers recommend eliminating or controlling exotics that are already established, but usually the focus is on how prevent the introduction of new species, for instance by means of better control of freight transport.

pressure is high. There are some positive developments going on, though. Wherever there are interventions, such as on Curacao, recovery is quickly apparent. Species that had almost disappeared, such as the endemic tree Myrcia curassavica and breeding seabirds, are coming back. That gives hope.’

Wastewater is a serious threat to coral reefs, research by WUR has shown. ‘Coral reefs are extremely vulnerable to nutrient enrichment,’ says Debrot. ‘Our studies show that reefs thrive much better along undeveloped coasts than close to hotels, restaurants and villages.’ In addition to nutrients, which can cause reefs to become overgrown with algae, another problem is pesticides, which kill fish and shellfish. Wastewater is sometimes even dumped directly in the sea, but from many drains and cesspools on Bonaire the water eventually reaches the sea through the porous limestone soils. ‘So it is important to concentrate construction on the islands in certain areas, where it then becomes feasible to install a sewer system, purify the water and protect the corals that way,’ says Debrot. He grew up on Curacao and currently lives in the Netherlands, but he can frequently be found conducting research on one of the islands. ‘This afternoon I’ve got an appointment at the ministry here, to talk about fisheries. We have interesting new data about annual and seasonal trends in the masbangu catches around Curacao. This small mackerel-like fish is one of the most commonly eaten fish on the Leeward Islands, but very little was known about it until recently. ‘Now we know that they pass the island mainly early and late in the year and that the shoals yield an average of 1500 kilos of fish.’

HOLISTIC APPROACH

The topics that Debrot and his Wageningen colleagues are working on are exceptionally broad. Debrot calls it holistic, or integrated, research. ‘Especially on small islands like these, everything is interlinked. What happens on or around the islands affects the islands’ resilience in the face of climate change. One example is how erosion during the rainy season can cause muddy runoff that suffocate the corals and mangroves that serve to protect the coast. The condition of the nature here is also crucial to the economy of the islands – their fisheries and tourism for example,’ says Debrot. On the other hand, fisheries and tourism can themselves pose a threat to the region’s nature.

One thing that has ecological implications at many levels is the overgrazing by roaming livestock, especially goats. This is a problem on all the islands, and it is generally not being addressed. The goats eat anything that isn’t thorny, preventing the recovery of original hardwood forests. The result is a bare landscape, sometimes dotted about with thorny shrubs and cacti, and with loose soils that are easily washed away by heavy tropical rains. ‘It’s a sad story, because goat farmers earn very little from their goats, but everybody pays a high price for the damage they cause,’ says Debrot. ‘Not only are goats disastrous for nature, but the population is directly affected by it too. Just look at all the road accidents. And rich agricultural soil gets washed away, making farming practically impossible. You can’t plant anything without it being devoured, there is erosion, and houses and computers are beset with dust.’

FAST INDUSTRIALIZATION

Relocating and culling the goats are sensitive options on the islands. Not for reasons of animal welfare but because they have become part of the scenery. ‘An oftenused argument for not doing anything about it is that roaming goats are part of the cultural heritage. Which is utter nonsense,’ says Debrot decidedly. ‘Actually it’s a deterioration of culture. Small-scale domestic agriculture really is part of the cultural heritage, but has become almost impossible now due to roaming goats.’

The Caribbean islands went through fast industrialization in the 1950s, which spelled the end of agriculture there. ‘People began to work in the refineries and later in tourism and the financial sector. Since then,

people have turned a blind eye to roaming goats because there’s no more agriculture to protect.’

On Bonaire, nature manager Stinapa started capturing goats in Washington-Slagbaai National Park. ‘Last year they caught or shot 1400 goats, but that is way less than 40 per cent of the animals present. If you get rid of less than 40 per cent, due to their rapid reproduction rate, the population will just grow back to the same level again, so you can go on catching and shooting them forever. Fortunately they have recently come up with a new approach to goat removals.’

FENCED-OFF AREAS

In several experiments he led, Debrot saw that nature can recover after goats are removed from the scene. ‘On Bonaire, we fenced off several areas and in no time the vegetation started to grow and flourish. On Curacao, rare plants have been growing all over the national park again since the goat problem was radically tackled in the 1990s and systematic control of the goat population was put in place. Nature really has a very big capacity to recover.’

And by tackling the problem of roaming livestock, you also reduce the pressure on the coral and the mangroves, which is ultimately good for your fisheries; you make farming possible again; natural reforestation is more likely to happen, which makes the island more climate-proof; and there is less erosion of roads and fewer falling rocks.’ Besides measures to protect it from threats, nature sometimes needs a helping hand with recovery. In recent years, WUR and local partners have been running a recovery project on Aruba called Turning the Tide. The funding came from the EU Resilience,

Roaming goats on the Caribbean islands create a bare landscape with loose soils, which are easily washed away and clog up mangrove swamps and coral reefs.

PHOTO'S

Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity programme for European territories overseas, and Wageningen researchers have been running the pilot project for three years with nature management organization Fundacion Parke Nacional Aruba (FPNA), the Scubblebubbles foundation and the University of Aruba. The aim is to identify the right methods for restoring corals and mangroves.

‘We didn’t have any experience with European subsidies or with leading such big projects,’ says Natasha Silva, director of FPNA. ‘Wageningen had previously had good results in comparable projects involving many partners, so it was a logical step to make them the lead partner in this one.’

Two types of artificial reef were laid down on 26 loca-

‘Wherever there’s an intervention, recovery is soon visible’

tions, to test and compare how they worked. One of them was made by the Dutch company BESE, which makes modular reef structures from biopolymers from potato waste streams. Little bits of live coral are attached to the structures, with the idea that the coral will grow to cover the artificial reef with a natural reef, after which the artificial material will eventually disintegrate. The other system, Mars reef stars – a product of Wageningen alumnus Jos van Oostrum’s company –

makes use of concrete reinforcing steel. Silva says both systems seem to work well. ‘Nearly all the bits of coral have stayed alive and have spread.’

Turning the Tide is also working on the recovery of mangrove swamps, important nurseries for fish. ‘The mangroves can play an important role as buffer zones for everything that gets washed off the land and which has a negative impact on coral,’ says Silva. ‘Here on Aruba, we have dry riverbeds that only transport water at tremendous speed during the rainy season, filling up the mangrove systems and covering the corals with sediment. We are trying to catch that sediment in constructed “silt traps”. We are also going to dig a lagoon in the mangroves, which should allow saltwater to flow into the mangrove swamp again and restore the natural balance of fresh and saline water.’

SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES

The work done by Wageningen University & Research is not limited to nearshore areas. Extensive studies of fish catches, coral cover and ecosystems have been going on for 10 years at the Saba Bank, a submarine atoll of 2000 square kilometres located six kilometres south of Saba. The research is being carried out by WUR and local authorities under the Saba Bank Management Unit, at the behest of the Dutch ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

‘It is a vast area with relatively few fishers, and they are collaborating very nicely with the research,’ says Debrot. ‘We are doing our best to keep them up to date on the latest developments, such as whether fish stocks are increasing or decreasing, but the main objective of our support is to monitor the various fish stocks. So when

Left: restoration work in a mangrove swamp; right: artificial reefs that corals latch onto.

PHOTO

JEF

PATTYN

it’s the spawning season for a vulnerable species, or when certain fish stocks are low, fishers can focus on a different species for a while. One of the species that has benefitted from management recently is the Caribbean queen conch, a large edible sea snail. Because the Netherlands intervened and chased foreign fishing boats off the bank, the population recovered so well that a limited amount of fishing is now possible. It is a species that the CITES treaty on trade in threatened species bans from free trade, but catching and consuming conch locally is no problem. Spiny lobsters are doing quite well, and so are the various species of red snapper. If such populations thrive, together we can create and enhance sustainable fisheries for the Saba Bank. Whenever there might be a need to impose a moratorium on a particular species, there will still be alternatives for the fishers to harvest and earn a good living.’

THE RETURN OF FARMING

Much of the research targets the sustainable exploitation of nature. However, some research has also been done on how to bring back farming to the islands. ‘Not to produce cheap staples like grains; the islands are too small for that,’ says Debrot. ‘You have to focus on small-scale farming like there used to be, and like there still is on Saba, especially. The question is what highvalue crops you should go for. With colleagues from Wageningen Plant Research and others, we have looked at what types of small-scale farming could be used to increase self-sufficiency.’

There have been various successful agricultural pilots on the islands, says Debrot. ‘The most appealing examples are one for producing cactus wine, one for growing vegetables in greenhouses on Bonaire, and one for growing aloes on Curacao for making a range of food and cosmetic product. It is best to target indigenous species that don’t require much water and that can be used to make creative and high-quality products for the market. There are a lot of cacti growing on most of the islands. They have tasty fruits, you can use them for brewing or making soup, and they have medicinal value. If you want to make sustainable use of the limited resources on an island, you should also keep the value chain local. So instead of exporting raw materials, you produce high-value drinks and skincare products yourself and sell them to tourists and locals, thereby avoiding expensive imports.’

Whether it addresses fisheries, coral or agriculture, most WUR research focuses on active intervention. ‘Traditionally, tropical sciences were a matter of passive observation, evaluation and description. But we have already known for 50 years that the coral reefs are deteriorating. Without intervention, you will just be describing the deterioration, and we can’t afford that any longer. It’s time to focus on what can be done to halt or reverse the trend. So we are doing research on interventions that facilitate recovery. Questions like how do you restore coral or mangroves, or how do you get rid of an invasive iguana that is pushing out the indigenous iguana, and do so as quickly as possible. With an eye on the limited budgets available for nature management and conservation, setting impactful priorities is key and it becomes your moral duty as a researcher to make sure your research has impact.’

Debrot also stresses that 'the restoration of nature takes courage on the part of local governmenst. For example, the governments of the islands have long been reluctant to intervene when it comes to goats, or getting rid of other harmful exotic species. Far too little money from the island budgets is being spent on nature. Although we are all dependent on it, too often we take nature for granted. But we can’t do that anymore. The islands have got to start taking nature seriously, make funding available for it and muster the courage to implement interventions. Our role as Wageningen University & Research is to provide the governments with options for action. And luckily, there are plenty of options.’ W

www.wur.eu/cariben

COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF ARUBA

Early this year, collaboration on the Turning the Tide mangrove and coral project led to a long-term plan for collaboration between the University of Aruba and Wageningen University & Research. The institutions are going to work on joint research initiatives with an emphasis on sustainability, ecological resilience and the socio-economic welfare of island communities. The collaboration agreement paves the way for exchange programmes for students at Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD levels.

DOLFI DEBROT senior tropical marine ecologist, Wageningen Marine Research

DAN XU:

‘I want

to share my knowledge as much as possible in China’

When he first came to Wageningen, Dan Xu was not yet familiar with greenhouse horticulture. Now he has set up a modern greenhouse based on the Dutch model in his home country of China. ‘I want to show future generations what the future of agriculture looks like.’

TEXT TANJA SPEEK

When a Chinese delegation visited the greenhouse complex and research centre Demokwekerij (now Vertify) in Westland in 2013, a translator was needed. Dan Xu had just graduated with a Master’s degree in organic agriculture from Wageningen; he had time on his hands and could help. He didn’t really know anything about greenhouses. The tour was a revelation to him, introducing him to a whole new method of food production: in a covered greenhouse, with an adjustable climate and light. This proved to be a turning point in his life.

CONSCIOUS CHOICE

In China, it is common for young people to choose to study agriculture for financial rea-

sons, as the state pays for the education. But that was not the case for Xu, who had an uncle who worked as an agronomist. Xu admired how his uncle looked at plants, and his decision was a conscious choice. He heard good things about Wageningen from his uncle so in 2010 he came to WUR for his Master’s degree. He chose to specialize in organic agriculture, and this programme taught him to look carefully and to have patience. ‘For my Master’s thesis at Unifarm, I studied the cultivation of cabbage. I had to wait a long time for the cabbage to grow big enough, as it was a cold season, too cold for cabbages. Then I watched as pigeons damaged 20 per cent of my cabbages and another 20 per cent were lost to caterpillars.

And I realized that not all birds eat caterpillars. Organic cultivation turned out to be more difficult than I thought.’

Yet Xu saw a future in research into organic agriculture. He had already been accepted as a PhD student at WUR for research into a cropping combination of soy and maize. But the guided tour in Westland had opened Xu’s eyes to a different form of agriculture. No caterpillars, no birds, and a climate you can regulate. He decided not to start that PhD but to look for a job in greenhouse cultivation, as a grower – much to the concern of his family. ‘They saw a future for me in which I would work in the lab, not as a simple grower. They thought I had gone crazy.’ Xu got a job with the greenhouse horticul- >

ture company Royalpride in North Holland province. There he learned a lot about greenhouse horticulture. ‘On my first tour of a greenhouse, I remember being asked by a grower whether a bean plant looked good. I saw a healthy plant with no brown edges on the leaves, so yes, I thought the plant was looking good. That turned out to be wrong. There were far too many leaves, and the plant needed to invest more in flowering. I obviously had a lot to learn.’

How did you come to set up your own company in Beijing, when you were just starting as a grower in the Netherlands?

‘I had once met someone from a Chinese company when he came to visit Royalpride. Naturally, I stood out as a Chinese employee at a Dutch company. He worked for a construction company, Beijing Urban Construction Group, and they had a piece of land on the outskirts of Beijing for which they were looking for an agricultural use. In 2016, they asked me to use my knowledge to help

build and manage a high-tech greenhouse. A big step, but I wanted to bring this technique to China, so I took up the challenge. It was a three-hectare greenhouse with mainly tomatoes and also some lettuce grown in water.

This hydroponic system is an efficient method for growing lettuce in greenhouses. The company is called Beijing Hortipolaris, after the polestar that can guide travellers, just like I want to guide horticulture in China.’

And how did you source the necessary equipment and materials in China?

‘The high-tech greenhouse system was almost unknown in China, so all the knowledge and equipment had to come from elsewhere, mainly the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Only the glass and steel came from China, via the construction company that hired me. We had 58 containers shipped from Europe. We imported everything, from special aluminium ventilation systems to substrate.

Two years ago I was involved in the construction of a new greenhouse in China, in

Jiangsu province, with two and a half hectares of tomatoes. The situation was completely different then. Last time 95 per cent of all the materials came from elsewhere, now 95 per cent came from China. This reduced the cost price by 50 per cent.’

How do you find staff if this method of cultivation is still unknown?

‘I had to train everyone myself. It is difficult to convince people who have been growing tomatoes in the same way for 30 years to start growing them in a completely different way. That’s why I was mainly looking for young people. When we started, about 100 local people joined us. They all underwent in-company training, and by the end 20 of them stayed on who were a good fit. Not everyone likes to work in the humid climate of a greenhouse or can tolerate the buzzing bumblebees that we use for pollination. I also bring in Chinese alumni from Wageningen, through WUR contacts I still have. For example, in 2019 we formed a team of Hortipolaris staff and WUR scien-

As a pioneer in China using hydroponic cultivation in a high-tech greenhouse, Dan Xu had to train all his staff himself. He also conducted many guided tours for horticulturalists and students, as well as for primary school pupils.

tists to compete in the international WUR Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge.’

And those first employees believed in this form of cultivation that you envisioned?

‘No, not right away. People are used to plants growing in the ground, which feels more natural and better. I also still had to convince my family of my plan. The first time we were able to taste tomatoes from our own greenhouse was an important moment. We had planted them in the winter. In China, winter tomatoes come from plastic tunnels in the southern regions, and they tend to be tasteless tomatoes. Our first harvest was a nice surprise for everyone. The first tomato was for my daughter, who was one year old, and then my employees were allowed to taste them. I was surprised to see everyone enjoy them: the taste was so much better than they expected.’

Are you also working on making your greenhouse system more sustainable?

‘Certainly, I want to be a pioneer in that too in China. I want to try to recycle all the water we use. For this we have converted an abandoned fish pond into an artificial swamp, with stones, sand, plants and fish in it. That filters our used water. We feed the fish on lettuce waste from our own greenhouse, which works well and looks quite natural. We are also the first in China to close the screens at night when the artificial lights are still on, so that we do not cause light pollution, which can affect neighbouring villages and nature. We also reuse the CO2 released from our gas boiler. We give it to the plants to make them grow just a little bit faster. That saves 1000 tons of CO2 per year.’

How far does your dream extend?

‘I want to show future generations what the

‘Ten thousand schoolchildren a year visit the company’

future of agriculture looks like. They are the ones who will soon be feeding the world. That’s why I want to share my knowledge as much as possible in China. So I organize a lot of tours of my greenhouse, for growers, for students, and for primary school children. For most of my employees, farming wasn’t their dream job. They opted for agricultural training because of the low costs. I want a generation that chooses it because they believe a better way of farming is possible, students who start with a different motivation. Ten thousand schoolchildren visit our greenhouse every year. If one per cent of them start studying with that motivation, then we will potentially have 100 talented youngsters who will be managing hundreds of hectares of greenhouses all over China in a few years. The way I did 10 years ago. I want to set up many more modern greenhouse horticulture companies in China.’

How do you envision that expansion?

‘I’m already looking for new locations. These must be places with a suitable climate. And of course the energy requirements of modern greenhouses remain quite high. That’s why I’m looking for a place where you can use geothermal heat, or heat from nearby industry or power stations. For feasibility studies we used WUR models to calculate things like greenhouse gas emissions and energy requirements.’

What do you remember most about your time in Wageningen?

‘That it is important to find a good balance between ecology and technology. That we need both. And to consider the needs of the whole world. That so many people are still poorly fed, in parts of China and in other parts of the world. If you have the right knowledge and skills, it is your duty to help.’ W

2016 Founder of Beijing Hortipolaris

2013 Trainee at Royal Pride Holland

2013 Master’s in Organic Agriculture from Wageningen

2010 Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy from Sichuan Agriculture University China

DAN XU (36)

CATCH WELFARE PLATFORM:

Collaborating on fish welfare

For the first time the fish industry, traders, research institutes and NGOs around the world are holding consultations about improving the welfare of the fish that are caught. The Catch Welfare Platform aims at finding ways of reducing stress and injury in the catch and the bycatch

TEXT RENÉ DIDDE PHOTO ANGEL FITOR/ANP

Of course fish have feelings. Hans van de Vis, an animal welfare researcher at Wageningen Livestock Research, is quite clear about that. ‘From neurophysiological research and behaviour studies, we know that fish have feelings and communicate with each other,’ he says. ‘It varies from one species to another, making it difficult to generalize about their sensitivity, since there are 36,000 known species of fish.’

The issue of the wellbeing of fish is here to stay, he notes. ‘Supermarkets too are starting to insist that the stress and injuries in the catch and the bycatch must be reduced.’

To that end, the Catch Welfare Platform was created in November 2023, partly at Van de Vis’s instigation.

This platform, run by WUR, the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research and the Nofima Institute (also in Norway), aims to promote the welfare of caught fish by finding practical solutions for catches and processing on board fishing boats. Through this platform, fisheries, traders and retailers, research institutions and NGOs are now consulting

‘Fishers shouldn’t have to fill in lists’

each other for the first time with a view to making improvements, with the welfare of the fish and the efficiency of the sector going hand in hand.

A LOT OF INTEREST

That there is a lot of interest in the initiative was clear from the 121 attendees at the kickoff conference in Bergen, Norway at the end of last year. Van de Vis was surprised that more than 60 representatives of the fishing industry signed up at once, including fisheries companies, trawlers, processers and their branch organizations. There were attendees

from 17 countries and five continents. What are the main welfare issues? ‘Fish are hauled aboard in large quantities,’ says the researcher. ‘Many fish get injured in the process, including much of the bycatch that is returned to the sea later.’ One of the improvements that are possible is in the kind of net that is used, he believes. ‘There is promising research on the use of a net fitted out with a waterbag at the end of the net, which reduces the pressure on the fish and therefore the injuries,’ he explains. Stunning the fish can help too, as well as improving the product quality and streamlining the processing on board. Several research groups in Wageningen and elsewhere are developing stunning equipment. Stunning on board is usually done with electricity. In the next three years, a group of experts will establish a standard for stunning equipment.

Injuries are also incurred in the pumps that draw the mackerel out of the nets onto the ship. ‘Because the fish get squashed together, they can suffer from oxygen

Marine mackerel fisheries. deficiency, which is extremely stressful. So that must be improved.’

The Catch Welfare Platform works on the One Welfare principle, which takes into account the environment, the welfare of the fish, that of the consumer (food security) and that of the fishers (conditions on board).

So the platform aims to work out guidelines and fish welfare modules for fisheries training courses. Van de Vis: ‘Fishers shouldn’t have to fill in lists on board. They need indicators with which they can quickly see whether the entire process is causing less stress. The less stress the fish experience, the better the quality of the fish as well. The increased chance of survival for the bycatch that is returned to the sea also contributes to a more sustainable fishery.’

CERTIFICATION

Besides the fishing industry, NGOs are represented in the platform, including the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which certifies sustainable caught fish independently. Fish

welfare is not yet an aspect of MSC certification. Van de Vis: ‘I hope they will include the guidelines we are going to develop for animal welfare during the fishing process in their criteria for MSC certification.’

One of the participating companies, SafetyNet Technologies, which develops precision fishing technology, has high expectations of the platform, says project leader Tom Rossiter. ‘We can contribute with our special cameras. They provide underwater footage that gives an immediate overview on board of the catch.’

Another participant is the Aquatic Life

ONE MILLION EUROS

Institute in New York, which targets improvements to the living conditions of sea animals in the wild and in fish farms. ‘We are taking part because there is still too little attention being paid to fish welfare,’ says lobbyist Christine Xu. ‘In the new Catch Welfare Platform I meet new companies, researchers and retailers. For me the platform can be considered a success in three years’ time if we develop a new fisheries management policy that includes fishing methods that cause fish less stress and suffering.’ W

www.catchwelfareplatform.com

The Catch Welfare Platform is getting around one million euros in support over the course of four years from the American organization Open Philanthropy. Maruscha Clarke, grant development manager at University Fund Wageningen, led the application process for the American fund and ensured an equitable collaboration between WUR and the two Norwegian research institutes through ‘direct subgranting’ to the three funding recipients. www.universityfundwageningen.eu/research

ALUMNI RELATIONS

With alumni, not just for alumni

The Alumni Relations department at WUR will be making more use of input from graduates, for example when developing courses, for career talks and in WUR research.

‘WUR has some 65,000 alumni, a community we can be proud of and that has a lot of knowledge,’ says Maarten van Schaik, the Alumni Relations team leader. ‘They can tell us what society at large needs and whether Wageningen’s research and education are keying into that sufficiently.’

For instance, alumni could play a role in developing courses and evaluating lesson materials. They could also make an active contribution to research. ‘We invited local alumni to take part in the I-CHANGE citizen science project in Amsterdam that maps heat in cities, and the response was so good that we soon actually had more applications than we could use. Lots of alumni enjoy getting actively involved rather than just receiving

Reunions for 1999 and 1974 cohorts

On Saturday, 2 November 2024, the Alumni Relations department will be organizing the annual reunions on Wageningen campus for the cohorts who started 25 and 50 years ago in 1999 and 1974 respectively. Alumni for whom we have email addresses will have received an invitation. If you have not heard from us, let us know your contact details via www.wur.nl/gegevenswijzigen.

Info: www.wur.eu/reunion1999 www.wur.nl/reunie1974

information about the research.’

Contributions to the education side are another option. ‘Wageningen Academy develops courses for professionals. In that context, it contacted graduates with three to five years of work experience and asked them how much they knew about lifelong professional development and what knowledge needs they had after a few years of work. The response was high here too. Alumni like to do their bit and they said they’d definitely be interested in lifelong professional development.’

‘We also want to organize career talks,’ continues Van Schaik. ‘This is where graduates who work for big international organizations such as the World Bank or United Nations

talk to students about what that’s like and how they got their job. Students then have an opportunity to ask questions, about internship options or what steps they should take if they want to work in such an organization.’

Another plan is to connect young alumni with students online who are doing the same degree subject as they did. ‘Based on their experience, they can pass on tips to students who are looking for their first job.’

‘We’re shifting from a unidirectional information flow to more of a reciprocal exchange with the alumni,’ explains Van Schaik. ‘We want to make use of our alumni’s wealth of experience and we’re proud of their huge commitment.’

Info: alumni@wur.nl

Conference for future-oriented farmers

Last year, the New Network organized the conference ‘The Farmer of the Future is...’, with financial support from the KLV Fund. The fund supports oneoff activities and new initiatives by and for alumni that reinforce Wageningen’s expertise.

‘The transition in agriculture involves abstract concepts such as sustainability, business models and innovation,’ says the organizer, Tamme van der Wal (Land & Water Management 1992).

‘This conference aimed to introduce

the human dimension. We held nine workshops in which farmers showed how they planned to future-proof their farms. In a plenary session, people from government, the business sector and academia reflected on the transition and how they could help shape the process, working in partnership with farmers.’

Alumni who would like to organize an activity in the Wageningen domain can apply for a grant from the KLV Fund. Info: wur.nl/klv-fonds

PHOTO

Covid influenced graduation

The Covid pandemic negatively affected the completion of their Master's degree programme for a substantial proportion of students. The pandemic had less effect on their subsequent job hunt, though. These findings come from the latest National Alumni Survey, a nationwide survey of recently graduated Master’s students.

‘The alumni filling in the questionnaire had all graduated during the Covid pandemic,’ explains Silvia Blok, Education and Labour Market policy officer. ‘They were asked to assess the effects of the pandemic. A large proportion of the WUR alumni, 43 per cent, said the pandemic had had a negative or very negative effect on the completion of their Master’s programme. The reasons were quite varied. For example, some respondents said they found it difficult to get an internship.’

The impact of the pandemic on finding their first job was smaller, though. Over half of WUR alumni did not notice any effect. Only a small proportion, 17 per cent, saw a negative or very negative effect. ‘Alumni had good prospects in the job market,’ says Blok, ‘but the lack of networking opportunities made it harder for them to find appropriate internships and, as a result, they were more likely to end up in a different organization to their preferred place of work.’

Info silvia.blok@wur.nl

4TU alumni in Paris

The 4TU alumni network had its first event of this year on 20 March in Paris. Over 100 alumni from WUR, Delft University of Technology, the University of Twente and Eindhoven University of Technology who live in or near

the French capital met up at the Dutch embassy. They listened to researchers and people from start-ups talk about their work and their ambitions for the future. The speakers included WUR alumnus Wahid Awad (Plant Biotechnology 2011), who set up the company Rosetta Omics in 2022 to develop predictive tests for precision treatments in cancer, based on data and AI. ‘The event was an opportunity for me to reconnect with my alma mater,’ says Awad. ‘It also brought back memories of the Netherlands, such as cycling to and from the university every day.’

Wageningen alumni form a worldwide network of almost 65,000 Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD graduates. There are various ways to keep in touch with each other:

LinkedIn

The LinkedIn group Alumni @Wageningen University & Research has around 16,000 followers and continues to grow. It is a source of information about interesting events run by and for alumni around the world as well as job vacancies, news and interviews with former classmates. For example, you can read about Roosmarijn Knol, Dutch broadcaster NOS’s new weather presenter.

Alumni website

A symposium on the future of the dairy industry or a 4TU alumni trip to London: the WUR alumni website has a wide range of activities for alumni in the Netherlands and abroad. www.wur.eu/alumni

Networks

The alumni community also has 14 independent Study Circles and Networks. They organize lectures, excursions and network meetings and promote the interests of their field of study.

www.wur.eu/studycircles

Alumni newsletter

The alumni newsletter keeps you informed about interesting developments at Wageningen, plus activities and stories. To subscribe, go to www.wur.eu/alumninewsletter.

Moved or new job?

Submit changes to: www.wur.eu/changecontactinfo

CONNECT!

A graduation ceremony new-style: in a living-room setting.

PHOTO GUY ACKERMANS

PHOTO WEERPLAZA

Prof. Lydia Afman, Human Nutrition 1993, has been appointed professor holding an endowed chair in Nutrition, Metabolism and Genomics. 11 April 2024.

Prof. Hans Bouwmeester, Biology 1997, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in Advanced Cell Models in Toxicology. 29 January 2024.

Prof. Tânia Vasconcelos Fernandes, PhD Environmental Technology 2010, head of Pollution Prevention and Resource Recovery at Delft Institute for Water Education, has been appointed professor holding an endowed chair in Ecotechnology for a Circular Economy. 25 March 2024.

Inge de Graaf PhD, Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management 2011, associate professor of Water Systems and Global Change, has received an Early Career Award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). 21 November 2023.

Prof. Jan-Willem van Groenigen, Soil Science 1994, has received the Philippe Duchaufour Medal from the European Geosciences Union for his research on the role of worms in soil. 18 April 2024.

Prof. Bert Holtslag, WUR PhD 1987, emeritus professor of Meteorology, has been appointed a scientific member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). 11 February 2024.

Gerrit Hiemstra MSc, Farming Technology 1986, a meteorologist, former weather presenter and businessman, has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen for his achievements in meteorology and climate change. 24 May 2024.

Prof. Marleen Onwezen, WUR PhD Consumer Behaviour 2014, has been appointed professor holding an endowed chair in Behavioural Economics in Sustainable Food Choices. 19 March 2024.

Gorben Pijlman PhD, Bioprocess Technology 1999, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in

Arbovirology and Medical Biotechnology. 1 November 2023.

Prof. Jantine Schuit, Domestic and Consumer Studies 1990, vice-rector magnificus of Tilburg University, has been appointed a member of the board of the Universities of the Netherlands association. 1 January 2024.

Prof. Maarten Schutyser, Bioprocess Technology 1999, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in Drying and Dense Food Processing. 1 January 2024.

Prof. Sven Stremke, WUR PhD Energy Landscapes 2010, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in Postcarbon Landscape Design. 1 January 2024.

Prof. Gerard Velthof, Soil Science 1988, has been appointed professor by special appointment in Soil Nutrients and Carbon Management. 1 December 2023.

Prof. Patrick Verkooijen, WUR PhD 2010, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, has been appointed rector of the University of Nairobi by Kenya’s president, William Ruto. 1 February 2024.

Prof. Hannah van Zanten, Animal Sciences 2009, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in the Farm Systems Ecology group. 1 December 2023.

Wageningen’s city poet

Bob ter Haar MSc Resilient Farming and Food Systems 2024, has been appointed Wageningen’s city poet. Over the next three years, he will pen poems, whether commissioned or on his own initiative, to mark events or locations in Wageningen. Woodland and the nature around Wageningen will be a recurring theme in his poems. 25 January 2024.

Cycling 550 kilometres in Kenya

Bram Berkelmans MSc, International Land and Water Management 2019, SNV Field Officer in Kenya, cycled the Kenya Survivor Ride, 550 kilometres in five days, with a group of 20 in April. ‘Our aim was to raise money for cancer survivors in Kenya.’ The campaign raised over 7000 euros. It was an initiative of the Princess Máxima Centre for paediatric oncology, which has a special programme for training healthcare professionals in developing countries.

19 April 2024.

Research Awards

In accordance with tradition, a research award was handed over by University Fund Wageningen and the Wageningen graduate schools during the Wageningen University & Research Dies Natalis Rob de Haas PhD, Biotechnology and Molecular Life Sciences 2019, won the Research Paper of the Year Award for his work on digital designs of antifreeze proteins.

This year, there was also an award for the Supervisor of the Year. It was won by Lenneke Vaandrager PhD, Human Nutrition 1989, an associate professor, who is described by her PhD students, postdocs and researchers as ‘open, friendly, inspiring and someone who motivates you’.

8 March 2024.

IN MEMORIAM

Alumni and current and former employees of Wageningen University & Research who have recently passed away.

Mr J.H. Aalberts MSc, Rural Economics 1962. 14 January 2024.

Mr J.M. van der Bas MSc, Dairy Production 1960. 14 November 2023.

Mr C.A. Beerepoot MSc, Rural Economics 1964. 25 December 2023.

Mr J.G. Bokhorst MSc, Soil and Fertilization Sciences 1976. 15 October 2023.

Mr A. Bons MSc, Tropical Land Development 1973. 15 November 2023.

Mr C.A.M. Boon MSc, Rural Sociology of the Non-Western Regions 1979. 1 February 2024.

Mr G. van de Brink MSc, Tropical Forestry 1972. 15 August 2023.

Ms L.J. Coops MSc, Landscape Architecture 1977. 10 July 2023.

Mr H.P.F. Curfs PhD, Farming Technology 1970. 24 July 2023.

Mr E. Denig MSc, Land Development 1954. 19 October 2023.

Ms J. Dijkstra PhD, doctorate 1964. 14 November 2023.

Mr C.J. Eisma MSc, Soil and Fertilization Sciences 1978. 2 April 2024.

Ms A.J. Frowein MSc, Domestic Science 1987. 19 April 2024.

Mr W.B.M. Genet MSc, Tropical Land Development 1967. 26 July 2023.

Mr G. Hekstra PhD, Tropical Plant Breeding 1957. 9 November 2023.

Mr P.A.W. Hendrix MSc, Farming Technology 1975. 8 August 2023.

Mr D.A. Hoekstra MSc, Rural Economics 1973. 7 January 2024.

Mr G.W. Hofstede MSc, Plant Breeding 1972. 22 November 2023.

Mr M. Hoogerkamp PhD, Agricultural Plant Breeding 1961. 26 March 2024.

Mr E.J. Kadijk MSc, Agricultural Plant Breeding 1964. 13 December 2023.

Ms T.L. Kapsenberg-Lindenbergh MSc, Horticulture 1951. 20 September 2023.

Mr J.A. Kester MSc, Land Development 1964. 7 February 2024.

Mr J.H. Kingma MSc, Land Development A 1976. 27 September 2023.

Mr J.R. Kolkman MSc, Human Nutrition 1983. 10 October 2023.

Mr J.R. Kuin MSc, Environmental Protection (water purification) 1987. 12 January 2024.

Ms M.E. Kuipers MSc, Domestic Science 1966. 31 December 2023.

Ms A.W. Leistra MSc, Rural Economics 1965. 9 January 2024.

Mr J.F.C. Magendans PhD, Horticulture 1966. 27 July 2023.

Mr B. Meyboom MSc, Tropical Forestry 1956. 29 November 2023.

Mr A.A. Moen MSc, Biology 1980. 21 October 2023.

Mr E.R. Mulder MSc, Rural Economics 1962. 22 January 2024.

Mr J.G.W. Nieuwenhuis MSc, Land Development B 1972. 10 November 2023.

Mr D. Peters PhD, Phytopathology 1961. 8 November 2023.

Ms G.P. Rauwerdink MSc, Biology 1988. 17 November 2023.

Ms N. Roeper-Spanjer MSc, Domestic Science 1960. 10 November 2023.

Mr G.S. Roosje MSc, Horticulture 1952. 4 November 2023.

Mr C.P. van Rossum MSc, Agricultural Plant Breeding 1956. 10 September 2023.

Mr E. Schreuder MSc, Plant Breeding 1965. 15 December 2023.

Mr H.L. Tiesinga MSc, Economics of Agriculture and the Environment 2000. 12 August 2023.

Mr A.H. te Velde MSc, Farming Technology 1987. 8 January 2024.

Mr T.G. Welle MSc, Dairy Production 1953. 24 November 2023.

Mr J.J.F.E. de Wilde PhD, Forestry 1958. 2 November 2023.

If you would like to inform us of the death of a fellow former student or relative, you can email alumni@wur.nl or send a death announcement to the Alumni Department, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB Wageningen,The Netherlands.

Honours

Cor de Jong MSc, Tropical Land Development 1968, was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau for his efforts on behalf of the Study Circle for Development Issues (SKOV). 26 April 2024.

Prof. Floor van Leeuwen, Human Nutrition 1981, was appointed Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion on her departure from VU University Amsterdam in recognition of her achievements in cancer research.

19 January 2024.

BOOKS BY ALUMNI

Jan Karel Mak MSc, Environmental Protection (water purification) 1983, was appointed Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau in recognition of his efforts for a sustainable and fair world. Mak was chair of Wageningen University Fund for 12 years. 26 April 2024.

Annemiek van Vleuten, Animal Sciences 2007, was appointed Commander of the Order of OrangeNassau in recognition of her impressive achievements in cycling, her perseverance and her ability to inspire others. 27 November 2023.

Seven animals bite back

Following in the steps of the sixteenth-century explorer Willem Barentsz, bestselling author Frank Westerman (Tropical Land Development 1989) travels from the islands of Texel and Terschelling to the Arctic Circle and beyond. He gives a fascinating account of the survival skills and struggles with death of seven unusual Arctic animals: the lemming, narwhal, eel, polar bear, brent goose, reindeer and king crab. As temperatures on Earth rise, their fates show us the consequences, which turn out to be inextricably linked with our existence at our own latitudes. Querido Fosfor, 24.99 euros

No.10

The tenth collection of stories from hikes and cycle trips by Jan Siemonsma (Tropical Plant Breeding 1974) has been given a most appropriate title. Join him on his journeys to Gambia and South Africa, or on his day trips to places all over the Netherlands with a fascinating history. Mijnbestseller.nl, 18.50 euros

The rhythm of eating

Dietician Eldy Kaldenberg and Gerda Pot PhD, Human Nutrition 2003, explain how eating well can help combat the negative effects of irregular shifts, such as an urge to snack on sweets or a bloated feeling. People working in healthcare, the transport sector, aviation or other jobs with irregular shifts get tips for a carefully thought-out diet that will help them optimize their performance. info@hetritmevaneten, 28.95 euros (excluding postage)

Marina van Damme Award

Monicah Mburu PhD, WUR PhD Medical Entomology 2019, and Pey Sze Teo PhD, WUR PhD Sensory Science and Eating Behaviour 2018, both received a Marina van Damme grant of 9000 euros. The grants are awarded annually to talented female alumni of the 4TU universities. Mburu, from Zambia, is Entomology Manager at the PMIVectorlink Malaria Project. Teo, from Singapore, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation. January 2024.

Dutch beach markers

Martijn de Groot MSc, Rural Sociology of the Western Regions 1981, walked the entire coast of the Netherlands taking photos of all the kilometre markers on the beaches and turning them into postcards. What started as a kind of art project turned into a study of cultural heritage under threat. During his journey, De Groot spoke to beach wardens, environmental managers, road workers and carpenters. He also delved into archives. This gave him a better picture of the history of the markers (starting in 1843) and their use in the past and today.

Anoda Publishing, 27.95 euros

Extracts from my memories

After a career in development work in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Alex Bartelink (Tropical Plant Breeding 1969) reflects on events he experienced in the places where he worked. He has recorded his impressions in texts and paintings that he shares with the reader. The result is like a photobook compiled after a trip around the world, to share with family and friends. Boekscout, 21.50 euros

‘I try to change how people look at things’

Bea Bozon, artist

Food Technology 1993

‘At secondary school, I did a typical science package – but with drawing and art history as my eighth subject. I chose the Food Technology study out of curiosity. The applied aspects of the degree appealed to me, as I grew up on a farm and was taught that you have to be able to fend for yourself. I did an internship at Mars in England plus a traineeship in Veghel and then worked for the company for 12 years. It was everything I hoped for in a job; I was working internationally, there was scope for personal development and I could use my creativity in areas such as product development. By 2005, I had a family and I was beginning to wonder if I really wanted to keep doing this work until I retired. Curious

about new opportunities, I started two degree programmes: a post-vocational programme in career guidance, in which I then worked as a freelancer, and a part-time course at an art academy in Belgium, one day a week.

After graduating from the academy in 2013, I started working as an artist. I have now developed my own style. I do uncommissioned work and commissioned family portraits. The abstract landscapes and silhouettes are characteristic of my style. I’m working more and more with how nature is changing. I try to express that in my work and change how people look at things, to trigger a reaction. I can see myself doing this for another 20 years.’

Research on seaweed farming in Indonesia

Indonesia has the largest expanse of seaweed in the world, at 1.2 million hectares. Seaweed has a lot of nutritional value and is processed to make various products, such as jelly, agar-agar powder and nori sheets, as well as animal feed, biofuel and medical drugs. Seaweed farming is relatively straightforward and it has become an important source of income for households on the Indonesian coast, especially in Sulawesi, Java, Nusa Tenggara and East Kalimantan. Seaweed cultivation requires no land, artificial

fertilizer or fresh water. Seaweed extracts its nutrients from seawater and provides a habitat for fish and shrimps. Seaweed seeds are usually attached to lines hanging just under the surface of the water, and the seaweed is harvested about 40 days later, dried in the sun and sold to the processing industry. Wageningen has been doing research on sustainable seaweed farming in Indonesia for several years. A short documentary has been made about a recent research project (see

website). Together with Hasanuddin University, the NGO JaSuDa and stakeholder farmers, WUR investigated whether higher yields were gained with a higher starting weight of the seaweed seed. That does not seem to be the case, but it was found that smaller seeds fall off the lines more easily, reducing production. The study was financed by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. Info: www.wur.eu/seaweed-indonesia, ingrid.gevers@wur.nl, pepijn.vanoort@wur.nl