The other day, a post popped up in my Instagram feed about greenhouses in the Netherlands – and no they weren’t filled with tulips. As it turns out, the Netherlands is the globe’s number two exporter of food as measured by value. The United States with 270 times the landmass is number one.

The biggest reason behind the Netherlands ability to produce so much food is its use of greenhouses.

Back in 2000, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture. In the 25 years since they’ve managed to achieve that goal and then some thanks to the use of massive greenhouse complexes, with some of them covering up to 175 acres.

Crops can grow around the clock and in every kind of weather in these climate-controlled farms using LED lighting at night and modern hydroponics. The result is that one acre of greenhouse space can yield the same amount of food as 10 acres of traditional farmland.

In total, the Netherlands contains more than 9,000 hectares of greenhouses. Just over half of them produce flowers that are exported throughout Europe.

More than 4,000 hectares, or 10,000 acres are used to produce vegetables. By comparison, Canada contains 2,200 hectares of greenhouses, or 5,400 acres, that are devoted to producing vegetables, most of which are exported. Keep in mind that the Netherlands is roughly the same size as Nova Scotia with-out Cape Breton.

If the current trade war with the United States teaches us anything is the fact that we need to become more self reliant in all sectors including energy and agriculture.

According to the most recent figures from 2022, Canada imports 470,000 barrels of mostly light crude oil a day from a variety of countries including the United States, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and several other Middle Eastern countries. Ironically, we do this while exporting 3.9 million barrels of oil a day.

The reason for the difference, is that the lion’s share of oil taken out of the ground out west is heavy crude, while the vast amount of the refineries in the eastern part of the country rely on light sweet crude which we don’t produce nearly enough of, therefore we need to import it.

There’s a similar difference in how much natural gas the country exports compared to what we import. In 2023, Canada exported an average of 8.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, while it imported 2.5 billion cubic feet per day.

Most of the imported natural gas goes to Ontario and Quebec, especially during the peak demand period in winter. The hurdle in getting domestic natural gas, which is mostly produced out west, to those provinces is infrastructure. While Canada has its own pipeline infrastructure, it may not always be able to efficiently transport the necessary volume of natural gas to Ontaio and Quebec during the winter months.

The good news is we produce and export way more oil and natural gas than we import, so we can afford. We also produce enough energy to meet our needs as long as we continue to find efficient ways to get it from where it’s being produced to where it’s needed.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for agriculture. While Canada produces significantly more agricultural commodities and food than we consume, a good chunk of those exports are grains like oats and wheat, feed corn and soya bean.

But when it comes to fruit and vegetables Canada only produces about 70 per of what we consume. That’s down from 20 years ago when we produced 80 per cent of what we consumed. One of the main reasons for the shift is climate change, which is why we need to build more greenhouses in Canada.

In an ideal world every major metropolitan area in Canada would have its own complex of greenhouses in which they can grow everything from potatoes to strawberries.

The Netherlands has shown the rest of the world what can be accomplished through the use of greenhouses. We need to follow their lead.

The federal and provincial governments need to work with the private sector to reverse the our increased reliance on imported food and close the self sufficient gap. It won’t happen overnight, but at least we can start by making a commitment and sticking to it.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)