Henk Smith is a 39 year old farmer from the Netherlands. Henk and his wife farm on two locations, in the middle and in the north of the country.
They produce a variety of arable crops, fodder crops, and fruit on these farms, using conventional and organic methods, and with the “On the way to planet proof” certification. The crops are sold to wholesalers, supermarkets and directly to consumers in their own farm shop.
In the past Henk was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship and later recognized as national soil manager of the year. Partly due to his Nuffield experiences, he realized that by bringing his opinion to the discussion, policy could change for the better for farmers. Currently Henk is involved in multiple boards, all based on agriculture, nature conservation and education. Among these boards he is a board member for the Dutch farmers union, he is board member of an agricultural nature conservation cooperative in the east of Groningen, and he is a board member for BoerenNatuur (Farmers&Nature).
BoerenNatuur works with farmers who use agriculture to enhance landscape cooperatively with nature. By cooperating they have more impact and more knowledge. Therefore, BoerenNatuur intensively cooperates with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, other governmental organizations, the dairy chain, nature organizations and market parties.
With a joined and area-oriented approach, farmers turn The Netherlands green. To realize this, forty farmers collectives have been active since January 2016. Their members, 9,000 farmers and other landowners, jointly carry out the Agri-Environment climate scheme of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This bottom-up collective approach is unique in the world and it works.
