The unidentifiable beauty of innovation.
While North-European farmers expand their livestock and businesses as far as subsidised borders will take them into Eastern Europe, more than 30% of the milk-producing farmers went bankrupt in Portugal. While supermarkets are full of subsidized oranges from Spain, the local farmers don’t even bother trying to sell them because the gasoline costs for the deliverance wouldn’t leave any profit left. Our only tree produces more than we can handle and so our friends get blessed with a bag full of sweet “navel” oranges when we visit. While food authorities have to take a few million kilos of “coloured with poison” olives out of French, Dutch and German supermarkets, we get another bottle of free olive oil from a neighbour. All that’s big enough to be subsidized is making a profit, all that is not on the way to extinction. Banks, big corporations in food and agriculture industry are soaking up “European” money, too big to fail as they call them. Transporting meat, grocery’s and fruit for thousands of kilometres and still selling it at a cheaper price than local products, does tell us that there must be something wrong.
While some, or maybe even a lot, are complaining that certain brands or products aren’t available in the country where they decided to immigrate to, the local farmers and producers see that their products are forced out of the market. But is it all just because the big companies have more power, more lobbyists in Brussels, more tax discounts and subsidies? For one part that will be the case, but for a good percentage, it’s also good business-like behaviour. Take a city like Amsterdam, no matter what product you are looking for, it is available. Oh yes, sometimes it comes with a price tag, but in a Metropole, there’s no such thing as “to exotic”, “to rare” or “to strange”. If there’s a demand for a certain product, some Dutch manufacturer or farmer will produce it. Things and processes that technically weren’t possible decades ago are now produced with modern techniques and innovative solutions. Not all is good, some even worse, but to buy these products is a consumers choice.
Not far from our village there’s a young “businessman” turning a piece of land into a “Cranberry farm”. Straight lines, drainage, automatic water supply, rows planted with machinery in mind. The locals are looking at it, laughing. “A waste of the cut-down olive trees, a waste of money”, is the most common reply when asked what they think of it. It seems a big risk to spend over 100.000 Euro to start a project like that. But, there’s more to the story. Behind this agriculture adventure there’s a business plan, something the locals won’t (are can’t) understand. He won’t produce to sell at the local market, this young man has an education at a business school, wrote a business plan, got a contract with a “juice manufacturer”, in short, knows what he’s doing. It’s a bit like when my neighbour realized that his wine was sold on by others to family and friends, just because of the quality. He invested in better equipment, forgot about the other things he produced (well except for the olives), planted more grapes and in the end found out that “biological produced” on the label seem to work. Of course, the locals won’t pay 4,99 a bottle, but a certain fancy restaurant in Lisbon does! It’s all about marketing, innovation and leaving unrewarding ways of doing things behind, although we all do like that plastic canister with local wine for a few dimes per litre.
We, they, you, should support the young people coming back to the rural areas with innovative ideas, educated enough to convince local authorities that other ways than cultural excepted ones will work. There’s a place for immigrants with different backgrounds and alternative ideas on how to use the land. For those who come to this country with a certain amount of savings, there are opportunities to act like an entrepreneur and invest in the ideas of a new generation, just because we need the right people instead of the wrong, to invest in this country. There’s a future in local production when there’s a marketing talent behind the scenes, not to only get things sold but also to make it blend in with cultural habits. A flourishing economy, even a local one, mostly is the result of innovation and mixing the good from the past with the better from the future. Nowadays even the past has innovative ideas that have been forgotten or deliberately been put on a sidetrack to gain corporate power. In the end good ideas will be executed. The first electric carwas builtd over a 100 years ago, even before the first fuel driven vehicle was invented. The rich and crooked managed to keep it under a dusty blanket for a long time, bribing politicians, paying of inventors, buying up patents. But you can’t stop a good idea forever. At some point, at someday there’s a time that even money and power can’t stop good and innovative ideas. That’s why it’s so important that the right people invest in the future, namely me, you and all others. It’s not about money, it’s about responsible behaviour and supportive actions in your own local and regional society, no matter how small the impact might seem to be.
While some, or maybe even a lot, are complaining that certain brands or products aren’t available in the country where they decided to immigrate to, the local farmers and producers see that their products are forced out of the market. But is it all just because the big companies have more power, more lobbyists in Brussels, more tax discounts and subsidies? For one part that will be the case, but for a good percentage, it’s also good business-like behaviour. Take a city like Amsterdam, no matter what product you are looking for, it is available. Oh yes, sometimes it comes with a price tag, but in a Metropole, there’s no such thing as “to exotic”, “to rare” or “to strange”. If there’s a demand for a certain product, some Dutch manufacturer or farmer will produce it. Things and processes that technically weren’t possible decades ago are now produced with modern techniques and innovative solutions. Not all is good, some even worse, but to buy these products is a consumers choice.
Not far from our village there’s a young “businessman” turning a piece of land into a “Cranberry farm”. Straight lines, drainage, automatic water supply, rows planted with machinery in mind. The locals are looking at it, laughing. “A waste of the cut-down olive trees, a waste of money”, is the most common reply when asked what they think of it. It seems a big risk to spend over 100.000 Euro to start a project like that. But, there’s more to the story. Behind this agriculture adventure there’s a business plan, something the locals won’t (are can’t) understand. He won’t produce to sell at the local market, this young man has an education at a business school, wrote a business plan, got a contract with a “juice manufacturer”, in short, knows what he’s doing. It’s a bit like when my neighbour realized that his wine was sold on by others to family and friends, just because of the quality. He invested in better equipment, forgot about the other things he produced (well except for the olives), planted more grapes and in the end found out that “biological produced” on the label seem to work. Of course, the locals won’t pay 4,99 a bottle, but a certain fancy restaurant in Lisbon does! It’s all about marketing, innovation and leaving unrewarding ways of doing things behind, although we all do like that plastic canister with local wine for a few dimes per litre.
We, they, you, should support the young people coming back to the rural areas with innovative ideas, educated enough to convince local authorities that other ways than cultural excepted ones will work. There’s a place for immigrants with different backgrounds and alternative ideas on how to use the land. For those who come to this country with a certain amount of savings, there are opportunities to act like an entrepreneur and invest in the ideas of a new generation, just because we need the right people instead of the wrong, to invest in this country. There’s a future in local production when there’s a marketing talent behind the scenes, not to only get things sold but also to make it blend in with cultural habits. A flourishing economy, even a local one, mostly is the result of innovation and mixing the good from the past with the better from the future. Nowadays even the past has innovative ideas that have been forgotten or deliberately been put on a sidetrack to gain corporate power. In the end good ideas will be executed. The first electric carwas builtd over a 100 years ago, even before the first fuel driven vehicle was invented. The rich and crooked managed to keep it under a dusty blanket for a long time, bribing politicians, paying of inventors, buying up patents. But you can’t stop a good idea forever. At some point, at someday there’s a time that even money and power can’t stop good and innovative ideas. That’s why it’s so important that the right people invest in the future, namely me, you and all others. It’s not about money, it’s about responsible behaviour and supportive actions in your own local and regional society, no matter how small the impact might seem to be.
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