Holland is pretty crowded
our land is quite expensive
labour is expensive
so we have to be as efficient as possible
we have to be more efficient than others to compete.
And that competition drives innovation and technology.
We decided to go
for not more hectares
but for more yield per hectare.
And that’s the moment
that we start looking into precision ag,
precision technology.
A lot of people think
it’s science fiction but it really is not.
We have only 14 and a half hectares
and we are producing around
100 million tomatoes a year.
The idea about this greenhouse
is we even use less water
we use 50% less energy.
Our tomato plants grow in a hydroponic system
so we know for sure that everything is clean
and we can steer everything very precisely. 
We use all the new techniques
and all the innovations
with the minimum impact on environment.
My definition of precision farming
is doing the right thing
on the right moment
on the right place.
Of course we’re more sustainable
because we use less input
and that’s economically good for me.
We use a range of technology
we are using soil scans
that measure the soil quality
and the availability for nutrients in the soil
and then the thermal cameras
can detect diseases or water stress.
Implementing precision farming
is a way of getting a better yield
and a better quality.
I still believe that farming is the job of the future.
There will be more people
more mouths to feed
and less area.
We have to expand the yields of our food
that much
that we actually need the precision farming to do that.
Sometimes sustainable solutions
are costing a bit more in the short term
but in the long term they should be more effective
and that’s actually what we are seeing.
You need to have the guts
to invest in those kind of things
for the long term.
