APPLICATION OF PROGRAMMING MODELS TO SPECIALISED BULB-GROWING FARMS

The bulb acreage in the Netherlands has not shown rapid development in recent years.
The most important crops are tulips (6000 ha), gladiolus (2200 ha), narcissus (1600 ha) and hyacinths (800 ha), the total area being about 13.000 ha.

Table 1 shows the development in the three most important production regions.
It shows:

1. A significant decrease of the acreage in the South, a constant acreage in West-Friesland and an increasing acreage in the North.

2. The number of holdings growing bulbs is decreasing rapidly in all regions.
   The strongest decline is shown in West-Friesland, and the slightest in the North.

3. The average bulb acreage per holding is increasing significantly in all regions.
   This trend is most obvious in the North and least obvious in the South.

These figures demonstrate an important enlargement of scale in bulb growing, which is not only finding expression in the average bulb acreage per holding but also in a rise of the production per labourer.
The developments mentioned above took place during a period in which the number of labourers has been strongly decreasing.

This enlargement of scale has been enabled by far-reaching improvements in growing techniques, which resulted in an important decrease of labour requirements in bulb growing.
For instance, a few years ago the labour requirement of tulip growing was about 200 hours per ha (800 hours per acre), nowadays this is about 700 hours per ha or even less.
Further labour rationalisation can still be expected, on sandy as well as on clay soil.
At the moment very modern production methods have already been put into practice at some holdings, especially in the sandy region of the North, the only region with a growing bulb acreage.
It is interesting to know which cropping schemes are used on such progressive holdings.

II International Symposium on Flower Bulbs

W.G. de Haan

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1975.47.58