‘Enjoying the herb-rich landscape’

At a rural discussion evening, Carin discovers that there is a lot going on in the agricultural sector that she knows nothing about. She has a passion for nature, is active in nature education and makes contact with Emiel to have a chat about this. He has largely switched to herb-rich grassland and is clearly doing more than average. About 90% of his meadows are full of natural herbs, as many as 30 different species. Soil life, birds, hares and insects like bees and butterflies benefit.

Carin: ‘Emiel is trying to farm differently, and came up with the idea of herb-rich grassland.’ ‘Right,’ says Emiel. ‘In the dry summer of 2018, I noticed that the verges with wild plants and herbs did stay green, despite the drought. The idea was to introduce herbs in the meadows as well. You then need to water the land less anyway. And also in drought, you have more nutritious grass and herbs for the cows.’

Carin: ‘During the discussion evening on the liveability of the countryside here in the region, it really appealed to me how Emiel merges his dairy farm with nature and the landscape.’ Emiel: ‘We arranged to talk about it one day and one thing led to another. I must say, Carin didn't waste any time. She invited the members of the nature association to come and have a look together. I showed how to make nature work together with the dairy farm, what efforts farmers all do for nature, landscape and climate and what herb-rich grassland can do for nature.’

‘Almost all our meadows are herb-rich grassland,’ Emiel explains. ‘These are meadows with all kinds of herbs naturally occurring here between the grass. Like red and white clover, chicory, narrow plantain and meadow fescue. We carefully compile the herb mixtures ourselves, and we look closely at what they could possibly do for the vitality of our cows. To learn more about this, Emiel also participates in research looking at the effect of the herbs on the cows and the composition of the milk.

‘Our grassland with herbs attracts a world of insects, they love the flowers. And you see many butterflies here right? Last year we had an incredible number of them, sometimes almost 20 butterflies in a square metre. And all those insects in turn attract whole swarms of birds. Like swallows, which nest en masse in the stables and around the farm. I even had a swallow's nest in my office in the barn!’

‘By the way, we do even more to farm more sustainably. We use solar energy and in the barn everything works electrically. And in the farmyard we have planted hedges and trees, and together with FrieslandCampina we have planted fruit trees of special old varieties. You know, farmers are doing a lot to work in an increasingly sustainable way. Each in their own way.’