Farm Visits

G’day, Team!  Put on your overalls and boots, cuz we’re headed to the farm! 
Today was an especially exciting day in Belgium.  The morning started
at Boerenbond, the Belgium Farmer’s Union, after a 30-minute walk
through the curves and hills of Leuven.  At Boerenbond, the team heard
a brief presentation about new agriculture policies regarding farm
subsidies for land conservation.  One interesting fact from the lecture
is that farmers must plant buffer zones between fields to reduce soil
erosion to allow a place for wildlife to live.  Policies like this are
the new European style of subsidies where farmers are no longer paid
per metric ton of production but instead on the preservation of their
land. 

Following the presentation, we then traveled via charter bus to four different
farms and a sugar beet research institute.  The first farmer, Franc
graduated from college in Leuven with a degree in agriculture
engineering.  After working several years in another job, he then took
to farming.   He now farms 100 hectares (approximately 280 acres) of
wheat, sugar beets (one of the most popular crops in Belgium), and 200
head of contract hogs.  Franc spoke good English, was very hospitable,
and was quite funny (he wore a threadbare red t-shirt that said
“World’s Greatest Fisherman”.)  The next stop was a fruit farm.  A
father and two sons had an apple and pear farm, some of which were
organic.  90% of the crop was sent to an auction and the other 10% was
sold at his store.  This entrepreneur had a shed that doubled as a
storage shed that would make most Illinois farmers drool with it’s
cleanliness, size, and construction.

A box lunch was eaten at the Sugar beet Institute.  We heard a
presentation about the research and improvements of sugar beets over
the past several decades.  Then, the group headed to an extremely
impressive farm.  Mr. Gelijns (the brother of our host from the day
from Boerenbord) was farming the farm he and his brothers grew up on.  
Farming over 600 hectares of potatoes, onions, carrots, pears, and
sugar beets, the family had very modern equipment.  In fact, they were
working on the sprayer while we were there.  

Before arriving at our next stop, the group “spoke” to two women who were very
proud of their town’s heritage.  They showed us a book one of their
family members wrote.  The third farm was very diverse as well, raising
cattle and white asparagus.  The cattle were quite different than
anything we had ever seen before as they were bred to have twice as
much muscle as usual.  The last farm was an alternative farm.  The
farmer seemed a little bit like Old McDonald, having all sorts of
different animals:  horses, goats, a pig, rabbits, chickens, geese, and
dogs, to name a few.  The farm was quite different than the farms we
saw the rest of the day because he raised horses to be used for
therapeutic use of disabled individuals. 

The bus then took everyone back to Leuven to have dinner with some students
from the College.  The students took us to dinner at a student-dining
center and to play a game to see how much we knew about Belgium. 
Surprisingly, the group knew quite a bit.  Then, the group spent some
time exploring the social scene in Leuven with the students. 

E-I-E-I-O,

The Team

Posted by Meredith Blumthal