This morning, 21 students and faculty gathered in front of the hotel, bikes in-hand. We pedaled our bikes for about 45 minutes west of Delft to Tomatoworld, an educational center focused on the Dutch greenhouse horticulture sector. Our tour guide gave us coffee, tea, and an introduction to sustainable agriculture in the Netherlands. We toured one of the 8-meter high greenhouses filled with different varieties of tomatoes. The tomato vines are grown using a ”lower and lean” technique, and one stem can reach up to 15 feet. A few students used a lift to prune and care for the plants! We sampled more than 20 different varieties of tomatoes, and left with some complimentary tomato soup.
After leaving Tomatoworld, we gathered at the hotel to learn about Building with Nature, a program in the Netherlands that focuses on how hydraulic infrastructure can work with natural processes, not against them. One example, Room for the River, shows us that allowing rivers access to their natural floodplains instead of restricting them decreases the likelihood of flooding downstream and helps restore the natural ecosystems.
