Wageningen World 01 2025 (in English)

WAGENINGEN WORLD

‘Animals live more complex lives than we always assumed’

HOW DO ANIMALS THINK AND FEEL?

The way people in the West treat animals is changing: humans and animals are increasingly seen as equals. What does science have to say about animal welfare and the right of animals to self-determination?

Self-sufficiency rate in the Netherlands, in percentages.

CAN THE NETHERLANDS FEED ITSELF?

As long as world trade flows smoothly, food supplies in the Netherlands and Europe seem to be guaranteed. But our daily diet relies on imports – including soya, energy, phosphate and potassium.

HEALTHY CHOICES START IN SUPERMARKET

We buy 80 per cent of our food in supermarkets, where it is all too easy to choose unhealthy products. ‘Supermarkets can give consumers a subtle nudge in the right direction.’

COLOPHON Wageningen World is the biannual magazine for associates and alumni of Wageningen University & Research Publisher Wageningen University & Research Magazine editor Miranda Bettonville Copy editor Rik Nijland Translator Tessera Translations S.L Art direction & design Petra Siebelink Design Monique Chermin Cover picture Shutterstock Overall design Hemels Publishers Printer Tuijtel, Werkendam ISSN 2212-9928 Address Wageningen Campus, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB Wageningen, telephone +31 317 48 40 20, wageningen.world@wur.nl Change of address alumni alumni@wur.nl Change of address associates wageningen.world@wur.nl, mentioning code on address label Change of career details alumni@wur.nl

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialized research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,700 employees (7,000 fte), 2,500 PhD and EngD candidates, 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants in WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organizations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

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UPDATE

News in brief about research and development at Wageningen University & Research.

TOMATO WITHOUT THE PLANT

It sounds a bit weird: growing tomatoes without plants being involved. But PhD candidate Lucas van der Zee has shown it is possible.

RESTORATION OF EUROPE’S FORESTS

In amongst the dark pines of the Kronenberg woods, you will find clearings with clusters of young deciduous trees. The international SUPBERB project is aiming to make woodlands more diverse and resilient.

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN VAN DER OOST

When John van der Oost arrived in Wageningen all those years ago, no one had heard of CRISPR-Cas — not even him. The path to discovering this revolutionary technique was determined in part by random chance.

FEATURES

LIFE AFTER WAGENINGEN

Lars van Peij fell in love with the countryside around the River Maas, with its many hedgerows full of wildlife. Despite being terminally ill, he has already managed to restore 150 kilometres of hedges to their former glory.

GENE BANK GETS NEW HOME

In locations scattered across Wageningen campus, geneticists store the genetic material of plants and animals, which researchers and plant and animal breeders can then use. Now it is time for a new, dedicated building on campus.

ALUMNI

News for and about Wageningen alumni.

PERSONALIA

Information about the lives and

of Wageningen graduates.

After getting his

sculptor.

Toon Rijkers

Wageningen keeps to its course

‘The knowledge that Wageningen University & Research has is needed more urgently than ever. In a world where geopolitical tensions are putting food security at risk and where climate change and the loss of biodiversity constitute major challenges, there is a growing need for solutions based on solid scientific foundations. Wageningen delivers that knowledge – both to help mitigate these problems and to find smart ways of living with the challenges.

‘You will find inspiring examples in this issue of Wageningen World. You can read about the true state of food security in Europe and the Netherlands. You will also discover how people can be encouraged to adopt a diet that is both healthier and more sustainable. In addition, we bring you news about our gene bank, the restoration of woodland, and innovative visions of the future of arable farming. They are all examples of knowledge that was developed in Wageningen and is now being passed on through the education we give.

‘There is every reason to be proud of Wageningen. However, research and education are coming under increasing pressure in the Netherlands – including at WUR. We now expect our budget to decline by about 10 per cent over the next few years, partly as a result of political choices (for instance in the Dutch Ministries of Agriculture and Education) and partly due to a fall in the funding of international research on food systems and preventive healthcare.

‘Within WUR, broadly based teams have worked out proposals on how best to cope with the decline in the budget. Using the proposals as the basis, the Executive Board has drawn up a plan that aims to protect our education and research to the maximum extent possible, although some painful decisions are unfortunately unavoidable.

‘Despite the short-term pain, we still see a flourishing future for WUR. The new strategic plan sets a clear direction, specifying the six themes that WUR focuses on and formulating the ambitions and commitments for the coming years. Even if somewhat leaner, WUR will remain true to its mission: to explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life.’

Sjoukje Heimovaara, President of the Executive Board of Wageningen University & Research

PHOTO DUNCAN DE FEY

New Bachelor’s: Data Science

Starting in the coming academic year, Wageningen University & Research will offer the Bachelor’s programme Data Science for Global Challenges. The degree focuses on applying data science and artificial intelligence to global issues such as climate change, food security and health.

According to the programme director Lukasz Grus, Wageningen will be educating people who can function as lynchpins linking content and methodology in multidisciplinary teams. After their Bachelor’s, the students can choose from various Wageningen Master’s programmes that combine data science with another field, such as bio-informatics, or they can take a Master’s in data science at another university.

Info: lukasz.grus@wur.nl

PROTEIN TRANSITION

Plant-based consumption stagnates

The share of plant-based protein products in Dutch supermarkets rose by six percentage points to 38 per cent in 2024 compared with 32 per cent in 2023. Average prices also fell: plantbased protein products were 27 per cent cheaper than the animal-based equivalent, compared with 17 per cent in 2023. But despite these developments, the Dutch are barely eating more plant-based products. Their share in consumption rose by 1 percentage point. These figures come from the annual protein monitor produced by Wageningen Social & Economic Research for the Ministry of Agriculture. Info: marleen.onwezen@wur.nl

Trials show: bird flu vaccines

protect laying hens

Trials with two bird flu vaccines show that all laying hens that are injected twice are still protected against the disease 24 weeks after their vaccination, whereas 10 per cent of the hens who did not get a booster died.

Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBR) has been commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture to test two experimental bird flu vaccines in an extensive programme. Last year, it was shown that laying hens were still fully protected eight weeks after vaccination. At the start of this year, the effectiveness of the vaccination after 24 weeks was assessed in a field study with 24-week-old laying hens. Egg production peaks after they reach that age. Some of these hens had had a booster injection after 12 weeks. All the

birds were then brought into contact with a highly infectious form of bird flu.

‘All the hens in the unvaccinated control group died,’ says Kim Bouwman, who was responsible for the study. ‘We found a mortality rate of 10 per cent in the group of laying hens that got one vaccination. All of the hens that got a booster survived.’

Further research is being done to investigate how infectious the vaccinated laying hens are. The study will end in autumn 2025.

Info: kim.bouwman@wur.nl

The best and greenest once again

Wageningen University & Research has once again been ranked the best university in the Netherlands, the most sustainable university in the world and the best agricultural university in the world. In the latest University Guide, which ranks Dutch universities based largely on evaluations by students, Wageningen holds the top position – for the 20th year in a row. WUR shares that leading position for the first time with another institution, the Open University. Fifteen of the twenty BSc degrees at Wageningen

are labelled top programmes. The University also received a score of over 9.5 according to UI Green Metric, making it the most sustainable university in the world for the eighth year running. Finally, WUR was ranked the best university for forestry and agriculture for the tenth year running in the QS World University Rankings.

Info: vincent.koperdraat@wur.nl

New strategic plan presented

Wageningen University & Research has formulated a new strategic plan that should allow agile adaptation to a rapidly changing world. Big changes are needed if the world is to stay within the planetary boundaries, according to the strategy document, ‘Shape Responsible Change’.

‘It is more like a compass than a roadmap.’

This is how President of the Executive Board

Sjoukje Heimovaara describes the strategic plan for 2025–2028, which she presented at the University’s Dies Natalis on 7 March.

‘On any given morning, we might wake up to find there has been another major change. That’s why this document is not a fixed point; instead, it sets a course with new themes we identify with. That will let us respond to changes flexibly.’

The six new themes are sustainable food

systems, biodiversity and resilient ecosystems, global health, climate-proof futures, a biobased and circular society, and sustainable water and land use. The themes are in line with WUR’s long-standing mission ‘to explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life’, in other words to search, with partners, for solutions to global challenges and work towards a future in which humankind lives in harmony with nature. A new feature in this strategic plan is the WUR narrative. ‘It’s our story,’ says Heimovaara. In

CONTINUING EDUCATION

brief, that story is that the demands made on nature, water and land must stay within the planet’s capacity to cope.

Another new element in the plan – seen by Heimovaara as crucial for the compass – is the specification of WUR’s values: sustainability, responsibility, trust, courage, curiosity and collaboration.

The plan also discusses the changing role of researchers in society. More reflection, awareness and internal debate are needed so they can fulfil that role. Wageningen will continue to organize dialogues as a way of combating polarization and fostering a better understanding of competing perspectives.

The document was given the title ‘Shape Responsible Change’. ‘We are educating the people who will be responsible in the future for making changes,’ Heimovaara explains in the University magazine Resource ‘Students often end up in jobs where they are in charge. We need to inculcate an awareness that things have to be done differently. Big changes are required. Without them, we will exceed the planetary boundaries, which would be devastating for the climate.’

Unlike previous plans, this strategic plan does not aim for growth in student numbers. Heimovaara is expecting numbers to stabilize or even fall. ‘We know the demographic profile of the Netherlands is changing, and the number of students choosing the sciences is falling. There’s more competition too, as more universities here and abroad are operating in our domain.’

Info: hilde.bos@wur.nl

150 degrees and courses for professional development

The Continuing Education programmes at Wageningen University & Research help professionals stay ahead in their field.

Choose from more than 150 innovative programmes, from short courses to online Master’s degrees. Every year, over 2,000 professionals gain knowledge through these programmes that lets them drive change in their sectors.

The programmes are:

• Directly applicable at work

• Designed for professionals – practical, focused and science-driven

• Flexible – study online, on campus or in a blended format

For more information, see www.wur.eu/academy

BIODIVERSITY

Genetic diversity can be saved

A meta-analysis of the genetic diversity in populations of animals, plants and fungi shows that diversity is declining in two thirds of these populations –including in species that are not rare. However, the study also shows that measures such as habitat restoration and the reintroduction of animals can help stabilize or even increase genetic diversity. The analysis was carried out by an international team of scientists including four from Wageningen, using data for the period 1985 to 2019. The results were published in Nature in January 2025.

Info: joukje.buiteveld@wur.nl

AQUATIC ECOLOGY

Walrus Freya ate well

Walruses are usually only found in the Arctic, but a young female walrus known as Freya swam across more southern waters in 2021 and 2022, including the Wadden Sea. Researcher Sophie Brasseur of Wageningen Marine Research analysed the walrus’s excrement. This showed Freya ate razor clams, an invasive shellfish that is found in large numbers in the Wadden Sea. Brasseur thinks it is highly likely more walruses will head south as walrus populations continue to grow. The relatively warm water does not seem to be a problem for them.

Info: sophie.brasseur@wur.nl

AGRICULTURAL

Rise in multifunctional agriculture turnover

The turnover of multifunctional farms increased by nearly two thirds between 2020 and 2023, from 1.0 to 1.6 billion euros. That result comes from the 2023 Monitor of Turnover in Multifunctional Agriculture, carried out by Wageningen Social & Economic Research and Wageningen Plant Research for the Ministry of Agriculture.

More and more farms in the Netherlands have additional activities alongside arable and livestock farming as sources of income. In 2023, 37 per cent of farms had such additional activities, compared with 30 per cent in 2020. Farm shop sales were the most important sideline, generating 595 million euros, followed by care farms (450 million euros) and recreation (362 million euros). Other activities made a more modest contribution: farm crèches generated 158 million,

MATERIAL ANALYSIS

agricultural nature management 116 million and the revenue from farm education, where school groups visit farms, was only 0.9 million euros.

The growth in the turnover is explained in part by the addition of new activities such as direct sales of decorative crops, higher prices due to inflation, and increased demand for recreation, local products and professional care services.

Info: harold.vandermeulen@wur.nl

Model for plastic accumulation

Scientists at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research have developed the Plastic Accumulation Indicator. Researcher Marieke Brouwer: ‘It lets us predict how long different kinds of plastics – both fossil and biobased –will remain in nature and in what quantities.’ Product developers can use the model to analyse a product’s lifespan while the model can help policymakers

formulate rules on plastics. The model looks at how plastic is converted into CO2. It has been tested with data from biodegradation experiments in the soil at a temperature of about 25 degrees Celsius. In future, the researchers plan to extend the model to cover more conditions, such as degradation in salt and fresh water.

Info: marieke.brouwer@wur.nl

Duckweed can go on the menu

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) gave its official approval in February 2025 for various species of water lentils, better known as duckweed, to be used for production and human consumption as a vegetable in the EU. The approval follows almost ten years of research by Wageningen.

Researcher Ingrid van der Meer submitted the approval application to EFSA herself. ‘We had to provide an extensive dossier proving that the water lentils can be grown using hygienic and sustainable methods and that they are healthy and safe to eat.’ Greenhouse cultivation was set up for

the research and the plant was analysed in detail, looking at such aspects as the protein and starch content, the amount of minerals and the presence of pathogens, allergens, pesticides and toxins. Then the digestion, health effects and perceived flavour were studied using test subjects.

More attractive for pollination

Wageningen scientists are working with French colleagues to find what makes crops attractive to pollinating insects. Better pollination leads to bigger yields. Eighty per cent of the species that are grown as crops depend on pollination; that accounts for a third of agricultural production. ‘Yet plant breeders have often showed little interest in the attractiveness of flowers,’ says Andries Temme, a researcher at Wageningen Plant Research. ‘As a result, insects tend to prefer wild flowers.’ But there are ever

fewer wild flowers, which is negatively affecting biodiversity.

It is hoped that trials with broad bean and sunflower varieties in France will show what makes one crop more attractive to pollinators than another. Cameras record what insects visit the various crop varieties. Artificial intelligence will then be used to analyse the images. The knowledge derived from this will help plant breeders develop more attractive varieties.

Info: andries.temme@wur.nl

For example, a taste panel tried various dishes, including soups and hotpot. ‘Water lentils have a slightly nutty flavour and quite a bite, despite being so small.’

According to Van der Meer, water lentils can play a key role in the protein transition, the effort to increase the share of proteins from plant products in our diets at the expense of animal proteins. ‘They contain a lot of vitamins and minerals, and they have a good protein profile that scores well for the essential amino acids. A particularly interesting feature of water lentils is their exponential growth, which leads to very high yields per hectare. They are cultivated in a closed environment in shallow water. Cultivation therefore does not require farmland or pesticides and relatively few nutrients are needed.’

Van der Meer is working on projects to get companies and consumers excited about water lentils, and she is studying ways to package and store them. ‘You could sell them fresh, or as deep frozen blocks, or incorporated in products such as pesto, soup and ravioli. Now it is up to the food industry to decide what to do. It would be wonderful if we could have water lentils on sale in supermarkets in a year’s time.’

Info: ingrid.vandermeer@wur.nl

Trees absorb more and more CO2

In the past 100 years, tropical trees have become better and better at absorbing carbon dioxide and converting it to glucose. This is shown by research by PhD candidate Sophie Zwartsenberg, who analysed the chemical composition of tropical red cedar trees. She used annual rings to look back over the past 100 years. She found that over that period, the ratio of carbon dioxide uptake (photosynthesis) to oxygen uptake (photorespiration) shifted in favour of photosynthesis. That is good news for trees because the sugars produced by photosynthesis can be used for maintenance and growth. It is also good news for humans because trees that photosynthesize more remove more CO2 from the air, which could slow down climate change. The study was published in early 2025 in the journal New Phytologist.

Info: pieter.zuidema@wur.nl

BIOPHYSICS

Ticks get stuck in

Ticks latch on firmly to the skin by producing a cement-like layer from their saliva. Siddharth Deshpande, an assistant professor in the Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter chair group, worked out how these glycine-rich proteins lead to ‘cement’ formation. The proteins accumulate, stick together to form globules and then solidify into a cone-shaped hard layer. Deshpande thinks this knowledge can be useful in developing a ‘tick vaccine’.

Info: siddharth.deshpande@wur.nl

Restoration of Ukraine’s farmland will cost millions

Ukraine’s highly fertile soil has been severely damaged by the war with Russia. Restoring it will cost at least 20 billion dollars, calculate researchers at Wageningen University & Research.

The Ukrainian region of Kharkiv has one of the most fertile soils in the world. Grain is grown there for the local and global markets. However, cereal production has fallen by over half since the Russian invasion in 2022. Over 160,000 hectares of land in Kharkiv has been damaged by the war. Explosions have created 420,000 craters, for example.

Wilfred Dolfsma, professor of Business Management & Organization, worked with Ukrainian and Dutch colleagues to make an estimate of the damage in the region by analysing satellite images. They then calculated the cost of restoring the farmland, for example by filling the craters and removing mines – the soil is estimated to contain over two million landmines. Using data on the Kharkiv region and assumptions about damage in other regions, they arrive at a total figure of 20 billion dollars. The research results

will be published in September in the Journal of Economic Issues

‘The war is affecting the soil in various ways,’ explains Serhii Sydorenko, a researcher in the Soil Physics and Land Management chair group. ‘There are mechanical effects, such as soil compacting due to heavy military equipment, trenches and craters. Then there are chemical effects, such as contamination of the soil with metals and rocket fuel.’ Bombs have another effect too. ‘The explosions churn up the soil layers, which harms the soil life. That makes the land much less fertile.’ The researchers think it will take many years after the war ends for Ukraine’s agricultural soil to recover fully. Some areas may remain unusable for years because it is difficult to remove the landmines there.

Info: wilfred.dolfsma@wur.nl.

EDUCATION

Wageningen awards first EngD degree

In February 2025, Wageningen awarded its first Engineering Doctorate (EngD), the degree for completion of the two-year programme Design for Agrifood and Ecological Systems.

The recipient was Bram Kok, who received his EngD for the design of a prototype fish sensor for measuring substances in a fish’s bloodstream. Such internal biosensors could be used for example to determine the state of health of the fish.

The Engineering Doctorate is a postMaster’s programme, like the PhD, and aimed at developing a technical design for use in industry and society at large. Other Dutch technical universities have had similar design programmes for a while as a complement to the standard PhD programmes.

Wageningen is aiming for an annual intake of 10 to 20 EngD candidates, most of whom will have funding from both Wageningen

METEOROLOGY

and a client. The client can be a research institute, company or government body. The next two Engineering Doctorates will be awarded in June and July 2025. One of the two candidates, Salma Rian, has a grant

Extreme blazes can be predicted

Sometimes, wildfires can suddenly turn into fierce, life-threatening blazes. This phenomenon, which is termed pyrocumulus, has always been difficult to recognize or predict. A new model, called Heatmaps, can now help anticipate that tipping point. The model was developed in part by Wageningen wildfire specialists and meteorologists. To be able to say something about the risk of pyrocumulus in a particular location, the local fire brigade can send up a weather balloon to collect data about the atmosphere. The model uses the data to create a risk profile for that location. If there is a big risk of pyrocumulus, the safety services can choose an appropriate strategy, such as evacuating residents living in the vicinity of the fire as a precaution. Info: cathelijne.stoof@wur.nl

from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Faculty of Impact that will let her develop her design for an innovative poultry feeder system further as a start-up.

Info: engd@wur.nl

AGRICULTURE

More land and water needed than expected

The world population needs more land and water than was expected for producing food and animal feed. This will be at the expense of nature. These conclusions are drawn by researchers in the Water Resources Management chair group in collaboration with international water and agriculture organizations after analysing farm data from the period 2000 to 2020. They hoped to find significant progress in increased yields per hectare and in more efficient use of water, but the opposite turned out to be the case. According to the researchers, unless we make radical changes to our use of water, the world is heading for the worst possible scenario in which water usage and farmland area in 2050 are at twice the level of 2000.

Info: chris.seijger@wur.nl

How animals feel and think

The way people in the West treat animals is changing; humans and animals are increasingly seen as equals. What does science have to say about animal welfare and the right of animals to selfdetermination? And what does that mean for livestock farming?

TEXT MARIEKE ENTER ILLUSTRATIONS RHONALD BLOMMESTIJN

When the Wageningen animal scientist Karel de Greef was doing his degree, ‘quite a while ago’ as he puts it, nobody had any doubt that fish could not feel pain. Yet nowadays the catfish that are fitted with a small transmitter in their abdominal cavity for a Wageningen Marine Research monitoring project are first placed in a tank containing 2-phenoxyethanol to anaesthetize them before the researchers make an incision in their abdominal wall. That is because these days the precautionary principle is applied for fish: it has to be assumed they can feel pain. There is sufficient consensus among scientists about that at any rate, although it has yet to be proven incontrovertibly whether pain stimuli penetrate their consciousness. ‘That same precautionary principle will be applied to insects too one day,’ predicts De Greef, referring to society’s changing views about animals.

It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg question: is our relationship with animals changing because we know more about them thanks to research, or is that changing relationship in itself the reason why we want to do research to learn more about them? Regardless, there has indubitably been a shift. Take relatively

recent initiatives such as the Dutch Party for the Animals, the Kalverliefde brand of milk whose unique selling point is that the calves are kept with their mothers, or the dating service to help find rabbits – social animals by nature – a suitable mate. ‘The point of view that humans are entitled to rule over animals is slowly making way for an attitude that is typified by concern for animals and acceptance of their unique nature. We are heading towards a new relationship between humans and animals,’ concluded the Council on Animal Affairs back in 2019. These words come from the first State of the Animal report, on a major survey of the Dutch general public’s views on animals. In the second survey four years later, it turned out people attached even more importance to animal welfare. The respondents gave a score of 8.4 out of 10 for how much animal welfare matters to them. Moreover, over a quarter of the respondents thought humans and animals are equal, while the proportion who though humans are superior had fallen to 36 per cent.

ANIMALS’ LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

There are solid scientific foundations for that paradigm shift, says the animal ethics

specialist Bernice Bovenkerk, an associate professor in the Philosophy chair group. ‘Increasingly, research on behaviour and language is showing that many animals live far more complex lives than we assumed in the past.’ It turns out, for example, that animals can have cultures. ‘It has been known for a while that primates use tools and pass on knowledge about that to each other –which is a form of culture. But now the same turns out to apply for bumblebees and honeybees.’ That has been revealed by the work of the German behavioural ecologist Lars Chittka. He used classical conditioning – the Pavlov method, if you like – to train bumblebees to solve a puzzle together that required a combination of actions a single bumblebee would never be able to perform. He carried out the same experiment with pairs of trained and untrained bumblebees. Although the untrained bees didn’t know what the intention was, they were soon doing what was needed to solve the puzzle. That shows bumblebees transmit knowledge amongst themselves. Animals have also been found to use much more complex language systems than was previously assumed. Bovenkerk: ‘You were never allowed to call the sounds animals

‘Animals have a perspective on their own lives’

make “language” because language was seen as something characteristic of humans that had to include at the very least a sentence structure – grammar and syntax. The American biologist Slobodchikoff made short shrift of that idea. After years studying the calls of a group of prairie dogs, he demonstrated that the meaning of a call is partly determined by the order in which the sounds are made. Which is syntax.’

MORE HUMILITY

Bovenkerk says the recent findings suggest humans ought to have more humility. ‘We often reckon we know what is good for an animal, but we can’t really assume that is the case. Animals can decide better for themselves. Methods have been developed for some animals, mainly domesticated ones, to find out what they want. For example, horses are well capable of indicating whether or not they want a blanket. Cats can also make perfectly clear what they want.’

That has to do with agency, an important concept in animal ethics. According to Bovenkerk, you can define agency as the ability to act. ‘The crucial thing for animal ethicists is that it’s a relational concept: the context can increase the animal’s agency or restrict it. In a very sterile environment with hardly any room for choice, an individual animal may find it hard to develop any agency at all.’ She spent the past four years investigating the concept in a research project funded by a Vidi grant. She will be publishing a book on the topic for a general readership this autumn. In practice, agency is often measured by the extent to which an animal has selfdetermination, freedom of choice and control over its own life. Those are key factors in determining the welfare of animals, says Bovenkerk. ‘Animal scientists are now agreed that animals have a perspective on

their own lives. They have personal preferences and make their own choices on how they want to lead their lives.’

In dairy farming practice, such insights are reflected in the modern barns with freedom for the cows to roam, in contrast to the barns with cubicle stalls. Milking robots also give dairy cows more agency than the traditional milking setup, as the cow rather than the farmer decides when it is milked. Agency doesn’t mean the animal should always be able to do exactly what it wants, emphasizes Bovenkerk, if only because one animal may exercise its agency at the expense of another animal. That is a relevant issue not just in the savannahs of Africa, for instance, but also in Dutch gardens. Think of the agency of pet and stray cats versus that of the birds they catch in excessively large numbers. Should ‘nature’ – if you can call it that – be allowed to take its course or do humans have a moral duty to intervene? And who decides, on what basis, whose agency takes priority? ‘You see the same dilemma in the polarization around the wolf. Not everyone is willing to accept wolves killing sheep and other farm animals – over 2400 in the Netherlands in 2024. Some people would rather the wolf’s agency was restricted, for example by giving them a limited area in which to roam. But these same people don’t see a problem in the fact that humans kill sheep, tens of thousands of them a month. Modern livestock farming is quite problematic anyway from an agency point of view. It’s always the animals who come off worse. That shouldn’t be the case. When animals live alongside humans, that should not be disproportionately at the animals’ expense.’

WEIGHING UP INTERESTS

‘The ideal might be to aim at all times for what is best for the animal,’ says De Greef, a researcher in animal husbandry &

KAREL DE GREEF

Researcher in animal husbandry & society, Wageningen Livestock Research

Associate professor, Philosophy chair group

BERNICE BOVENKERK

society at Wageningen Livestock Research, in response. ‘But when keeping animals, you always have to weigh up the interests of the animals against other interests. That applies to the family dog that has to be kept on a leash, the rat or mouse you don’t want in your cellar or the sow on a pig farm who usually doesn’t have the option of taking a mud bath. They all face big constraints on their agency. But the animal’s interests aren’t the only ones at stake.’

And you will always be weighing up interests, he stresses, whatever the category –pets, farm animals, hobby animals, circus animals, lab animals or even wild animals.

‘In natural or semi-natural environments, humans intervene to control the number of animals or restrict them to a certain area because we don’t want them being run over.’ He therefore doesn’t think you should consider animal welfare purely from the perspective of the animals. ‘That turns you into a kind of advocate on behalf of the animal and you lose sight of the why society weighs up interests as it does – including economic aspects.’

An important question when weighing up those interests is what society understands by animal welfare. ‘In the past, it was

mainly about preventing adverse effects: no suffering, pain, stress, wounds and other negative things,’ explains Fleur Hoorweg, an animal health and welfare researcher at Wageningen Livestock Research. ‘Now the bar is set higher, both in politics and in society at large. We want to be sure animals can have positive experiences. But what does that mean? That raises quite a few scientific questions.’

ANIMALS ACT

Those questions are particularly pressing in Dutch livestock farming after the Netherlands stipulated last year via the Animals Act that the sector must become ‘more humane to animals’ by 2040. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Nature is working on specifying what ‘animal-friendly livestock farming’ entails. The ministry will do that in the form of sector plans for the four biggest groups of farm animals, namely pigs, poultry, cows and calves. The plans will be set out in an implementation decree.

Wageningen University & Research is one of the organizations being consulted on the issues that the plans will cover. One example is air quality, an important factor for animal

welfare and mainly an issue in barns because of the ammonia levels. ‘That is quite a precarious role for WUR,’ says De Greef. ‘Personally, I don’t think we researchers should be setting the norms. Our task is to do research and then, based on that, explain the situation for the animals, how they perceive things, how the farms can deal with that and how to compensate for any deficiencies. We can indicate bandwidths: when do we see signs of positive welfare, what values do we find associated with discomfort and at what point could there be damage to welfare or health? But ultimately it is up to politicians to set the norms.’

KNOWLEDGE AGENDA

Of course, it is better if such norms are based on sound scientific research. Wageningen has a long tradition in this area. Decades ago, investigations at Wageningen revealed the associations between farm conditions and stereotypical behaviour such as feather picking in chickens, tongue rolling in pigs and pacing endlessly back and forth in calves, all signs of frustration and discomfort. Such insights from Wageningen have been used to develop better farm systems over time for various species.

But although the research output of Wageningen’s animal scientists has increased substantially – De Greef estimates that it has doubled over the past ten years – there are still gaps in the knowledge or unanswered questions regarding some aspects. Hoorweg heads a project commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture to assess those knowledge gaps. De Greef is also working on this project. He conducted dozens of interviews with stakeholders including livestock farmers, animal welfare organizations, retailers, supply chain players and government officials. ‘A large

and complex task,’ he says. ‘Not just the broad assessment; ordering and classifying the knowledge gaps is also tricky and labour-intensive.’

The final result is a knowledge agenda that will be sent to the Dutch parliament along with the ‘Covenant on a Livestock Industry that is More Humane to Animals’. There are plenty of questions still, in both applied science and more fundamental science. One area is positive animal welfare, Hoorweg’s research field. ‘Until recently, a lot of animal research focused on gauging negative animal welfare: how can we measure stress or pain, or rate discomfort?’ she says. ‘But animal welfare is much more than merely the absence of pain and stress. Is an animal’s happiness quantifiable, and if so how? What measures can we use to determine whether animals get the optimum degree of mental challenge in their environment?’ Research on this is starting to take off now (see inset).

TECHNOLOGY

The hope is that new technology can play a key role in investigations into positive animal welfare. Sensors, movement detectors and machine learning have been used for some time to identify welfare problems. Now artificial intelligence (AI) is being added to that list. Bovenkerk was awarded a Vici grant this spring, worth 1.5 million euros, for a research project on modern technology in the context of human-animal relationships. Among other things, she wants to draw up guidelines for the ethical deployment of technology. She cites an example where that is in doubt: Norwegian and Chinese plans for very large-scale aquaculture facilities with over a million fish per pool, controlled entirely by artificial intelligence, from the supply of food and regulation of the water quality to the slaughter

‘Animal welfare is more than the absence of pain and stress’

process. Bovenkerk: ‘That is not necessarily a bad thing for the fish; they might even be better off than with a particularly heartless human fish farmer. But if the AI makes a mistake or uses parameters that are based on an excessively narrow definition of welfare, then a million fish pay the penalty.’

In her new research project, the animal ethicist is also looking at examples of how technology can make a positive contribution to human-animal relations, and under what conditions. ‘For instance, AI could help us understand the communication or language of animals such as whales, or recognize individual animals’ preferences. I am convinced modern technology can show people that there is much more to animals than they always thought’. W

www.wur.eu/animal-welfare

FLEUR HOORWEG

Researcher in animal health and welfare, Wageningen Livestock Research

DETERMINING WELFARE

Traditionally, animal welfare was understood as minimizing negative experiences. But modern scientific insights show that this view is too narrow, argue researchers in a recent vision paper in the scientific journal Biology Letters, co-authored by Wageningen animal scientist Laura Webb. The authors, a mix of ethologists, evolutionary biologists, social scientists and philosophers, define ‘positive animal welfare’ as ‘a state of flourishing resulting from predominantly positive emotions, the development of competences and resilience’. This new definition is inspiring further research into methods and indicators to assess both short-term positive emotions and long-term positive welfare in animals. WUR already does a lot of research into physiological, behavioural and cognitive indicators of positive emotion and welfare. Besides well-known indicators such as heart-rate variability or ‘happiness hormone’ levels (oxytocin) in the blood, this includes vocalizations (calls), body posture, facial expression and cognitive tests such as the judgement bias test. Expertise in this field is pooled in the Positive Animal Welfare (PAW) team, headed by Webb. The researchers look at a broad range of species, mostly mammals, but also birds and insects.

Tomatoes without

It sounds a bit weird: growing tomatoes without plants being involved. But PhD candidate Lucas van der Zee shows it is possible.

TEXT ROELOF KLEIS PHOTOS FRANCESCO RUCCI

‘They tasted like tomatoes, only they were rather dry and small’

the plant

In a climate-controlled chamber in the catacombs of the Radix building on campus, Lucas van der Zee is growing tomato plants. Dozens of small plants can be seen in various stages of development in the artificial light. Which is not so unusual. The surprising aspect is what happens next. Van der Zee is using the individual flowers to grow tomatoes – without the plant being involved. He just puts them in sugared water. But what is even more amazing is that you don’t even need to start off with a plant for the flowers to grow from, as research by Utrecht PhD candidate Niels Peeters shows. He is growing tomato flowers directly from plant cells taken from the stalks.

Van der Zee and Peeters are working jointly on the Fruit of Knowledge project, which aims to grow fruit from parts of the plant.

Van der Zee is now trying to grow tomatoes from the flowers produced by his fellow researcher Peeters. If he is successful, that will give a proof of principle: that it is possible to grow tomatoes without a tomato plant being required.

SUGAR FOR GROWTH

As part of his Master’s degree in Biosystems Engineering, on the use of technology in agricultural production, Van der Zee took a course given by the professor of Horticulture and Product Physiology Leo Marcelis, who is now his PhD supervisor. ‘I didn’t know so much about plants back then,’ he says. ‘I learned that you can control each individual

cultivation process separately, for example. The trend today is that we want to produce food that is better and healthier while using fewer raw materials. I wondered whether it would be possible to grow a fruit based purely on the genetic information.’

That sent him on a path towards plantless production. Van der Zee: ‘Can you grow a fruit fed directly with sugar rather than using photosynthesis?’

In the 1980s, Wageningen plant physiologist Antal Varga did similar experiments. His conclusion was that the tomatoes could grow and ripen without the plant as long as they absorbed sufficient nutrients in the form of sugars.

Van der Zee approached Marcelis about investigating this idea further when doing his Master’s. That led to the first tentative experiments and eventually to a PhD project.

Van der Zee’s aim in that project is to turn the principle of fruits without the plant into a new, sustainable production system.

‘I envisaged all kinds of problems,’ says Professor Marcelis, looking back. ‘But Lucas was enthusiastic, he had thought hard about it and he made a good case. I felt the idea had potential. It would be great if we could take a step to set this development in motion.’

LESS WATER

The advantages of plantless tomato cultivation are obvious. The system uses less space, the cultivation does not need much energy, fertilizer or pesticides and only

consumes a fraction of the water that plants require. Rather than light, the tomatoes use sugared water to grow. However, that sugar does come from raw materials. The overall sustainability of the system still needs to be determined, stresses Van der Zee. ‘Growing tomatoes without the plant probably won’t be better in all situations. But it could be the best solution in areas that are too dry, cold or dark.’

At least they now know it’s possible. Van der Zee has already harvested and tasted his first tomatoes from the flowers he grew himself. ‘They taste like tomatoes,’ he concludes, ‘only they were rather dry and small. I don’t yet know why that is. The result depends for example on whether there was a bit of stalk attached to the flower or not. The tomatoes are bigger with the stalk. I want to figure out what factors drive in vitro growth of the fruits.’

His Utrecht colleague Peeters also has as yet unanswered questions. For instance, he wants to know what can trigger a random plant cell to become a flower. ‘We know from the literature that cells you put in a culture medium reset themselves and become a kind of stem cell that can potentially grow into anything. But if I use a piece of flower stalk, it turns into a flower, as if it recalls that was what it was doing. How it remembers is still a mystery.’ W

www.wur.eu/hpp

Can we feed ourselves?

As long as world trade flows smoothly, food supplies in the Netherlands and Europe seem guaranteed. But our daily diet relies on imports –including soya, energy, phosphate and potassium.

TEXT KOEN JANSSEN ILLUSTRATION PETRA SIEBELINK

Failed harvests due to climate change and restrictions on international trade are increasingly raising questions about the availability of raw materials and energy in the Netherlands and Europe. How capable are we of producing enough food independently and providing the entire population with a healthy diet?

‘This topic was much less of an issue 10 to 20 years ago,’ says Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters, who studies the transformation of food systems at Wageningen Social & Economic Research. ‘Back then, it was generally believed that deregulation of world trade would resolve all food problems. But the priorities of scientists and policymakers have changed a lot, and much faster than you might expect. The resilience of the food system has now become an objective in its own right.’

There are various reasons for this shift, including the Covid pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the current trade war with the United States.

De Steenhuijsen Piters: ‘Policymakers now see food being used as a strategic measure and it is even being weaponized in conflicts.’ There is talk again of building up food reserves, after a long period in which such

reserves had been scaled down. ‘India is one of the last countries where the government has large stores of grain and rice. Western economists and policymakers used to be somewhat disparaging about that, but nowadays they show more appreciation.’

A DIFFERENT MENU

In a study conducted in 2013, Wageningen researchers concluded that Dutch agriculture could be capable of feeding the population of (at that time) 17 million. They would be able to eat 2000 kilocalories a day, delivered by a variety of plant-based and animal-based products. That would, however, require radical changes in Dutch food production and in Dutch diets. Tropical products such as coffee, bananas and avocados would obviously no longer be on the menu. The Netherlands produces relatively little grain and a lot of potatoes so the Dutch would have to eat less bread and more potatoes. Pork would have to be partly replaced by eggs and chicken because producing chicken meat uses less land than producing pork with the same nutritional value.

The Netherlands’ self-sufficiency ratio for the main agricultural products is calculated and published in

‘If Europe wants to become autonomous, it will need to reduce its dependency on energy imports’

Self-sufficiency

68 per cent of the phosphate used in the EU comes from outside the Union

Staat van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedsel (State of Agriculture, Nature and Food) – an annual report based on Wageningen research and published by the Ministry of Agriculture with key figures on Dutch agriculture and food production. The self-sufficiency ratio is expressed as the percentage of domestic consumption that is produced in the same country. The self-sufficiency ratio for potatoes, for instance, is 223 per cent; this means that the Netherlands produces over twice as many potatoes as are needed for domestic consumption. Most of the harvest is exported abroad. The percentage for sugar is even higher: 303 per cent, three times as much as is needed.

The Netherlands is also more than self-sufficient in dairy produce, pork, poultry meat and lamb. There are other agricultural products where the Netherlands does not produce enough to satisfy domestic demand. The self-sufficiency ratio is low for wheat (23 per cent) and barley (11 per cent). These grains are largely imported from other European countries, mainly France and Germany. The Netherlands is also not self-sufficient in beef (63 per cent).

But that is not the full story. That is because part of the food production in the Netherlands depends on imports of raw materials. ‘There are various kinds of dependencies,’ explains Petra Berkhout, an agricultural economist at Wageningen Social & Economic Research. For example, the Netherlands imports more than four million tons of soya per annum from countries including Brazil and the United States. Soya is an essential component of the diet for young farm animals in particular because it has a high protein content and the optimum mix of amino acids. Replacing soya by other crops would make Dutch agriculture less efficient.

FOOD AUTONOMY IN EUROPE

In the context of failed harvests due to climate change, temporary shortages of products caused by trade blockages and concerns about the sufficient availability of energy, Berkhout and her Wageningen colleagues published a report in 2024 on the factors that affect food autonomy in Europe – ‘the EU’s ability to produce

sufficient food or obtain it through trade.’

In the current situation, European meat production depends in part on imports of soya and other highprotein crops, and oilseeds such as rapeseed and sunflower seeds. Europe’s self-sufficiency ratio for highprotein crops is 82 per cent, and the ratio for oilseeds is 64 per cent. Europe would need to grow more of these crops to be able to independently feed all its farm animals. Berkhout: ‘Oilseeds such as linseed can easily be grown in the EU but they have always lost out so far to soya, which is rich in proteins and cheaper. You would need to transform the entire supply chain.’

In addition, nearly two-thirds of the energy consumed in the European Union is imported. That percentage was as high as 80 per cent in the Netherlands in 2022. The agricultural sector also depends on imports of fossil fuels, for both direct consumption such as the diesel used in agricultural vehicles and indirect applications such as producing fertilizer.

That also applies to the rest of the food supply chain, right down to supermarkets. It makes the sector vulnerable to price fluctuations and geopolitical developments. Berkhout: ‘If Europe wants to become autonomous, it will need to reduce this dependency. Then you get into a discussion about the mix of solar power, wind power and nuclear power.’ The EU is also focusing on energy storage, for example using batteries or hydrogen, and on electrification, where vehicles and systems run on electricity rather than fossil fuels.

PHOSPHATE

European farmers are largely dependent on the import of raw materials for the production of fertilizer, in particular potassium and phosphate. In 2022, 68 per cent of the phosphate used in the EU came from abroad, mainly Morocco and Russia. The figure for potassium, which is mainly imported from Russia and Belarus, was 32 per cent. There are options for recycling those raw materials, says Berkhout. ‘At present, we wash a lot of nutrients away through the sewer system. There are still huge gains to be made in that regard.’

Policy changes are also needed if Europe is to

become more self-sufficient in its food provision, thinks De Steenhuijsen Piters. ‘The EU’s agricultural policy is too uniform; most grants are still geared to a large scale and big volumes. I think a more targeted approach is needed that takes regional differences into account. You can’t have the same policy for farmers in the French mountains that you do for Dutch farmers in the Achterhoek region. That will also let us think harder about what we want to produce where. For example, you might be able to keep intensive agriculture in the Westland region but opt for more nature-inclusive forms of agriculture in other areas. Ultimately, you make the food system more resilient by encouraging regional differences and diversity because you are spreading the risk. The system is then better able to absorb the effect of a shock.’

ANIMAL PROTEINS

‘If you’re aiming for food autonomy, you need to at least make sure you don’t become more dependent on international trade,’ says Berkhout. ‘Governments can do various things to make the European food system more resilient. You could tax animal protein, but that is politically highly contentious. I think the market is more likely to respond to changes than governments. Companies throughout the supply chain, from animal feed producers to potato processing businesses and supermarkets, are also aware of what is going on in the world, of course. They want to safeguard the supplies of their raw materials over the coming years, for example through plant breeding or by shifting production to different locations – steps like that.’

There is another, broader strategy for increasing food autonomy in Europe: change consumption patterns. You could consume less, rather than produce more in Europe. Petra Berkhout likes that idea: ‘Use less energy, buy fewer clothes, reduce food waste, eat more plantbased protein rather than animal protein. Then we wouldn’t have to import so much animal feed.’ W

www.wur.eu/wser

Self-sufficiency rate in the EU, in percentages.

RESTORATION OF EUROPE’S WOODS

‘We need to act now ’

In amongst the dark pines of the Kronenberg woods near Venlo, you will come across clearings with clusters of young deciduous trees. This is where foresters and scientists are working on the ‘prestoration’ of the wood: preparing it for the future.

TEXT PAULINE VAN SCHAYCK PHOTGRAPHY ARJAN BROEKMANS

‘This is a chestnut, which can cope with dry conditions,’ says Maaike de Graaf, an ecologist with the South Netherlands Forestry Group, as we wander through the Kronenberg woods near Venlo. The chestnut was planted last year among a group of young trees in a clearing surrounded by tall pines, letting them catch the early spring sunlight. Together with forestry scientist Sara Filipek of Wageningen Environmental Research, De Graaf explains how they hope this will help make the 400-hectare wood future-proof. Diversity will make the woodland less vulnerable and therefore better able to withstand climate change and natural dangers such as storms, diseases and pests. Ten metres away is another group of decidu-

ous trees. A little later, we step into a larger clearing full of these clusters of small trees. ‘This spot doesn’t stay so open and unobstructed automatically. Sometimes we need to remove young firs that appear amongst the trees, otherwise the clearing will be full of conifers again in no time,’ says De Graaf. Planting the trees in groups of five seems to work well, as the competition for light encourages them to shoot up. De Graaf: ‘Most of the trees will be felled in the end because we need the timber. But not all at once: some of the trees may still be standing 100 years from now.’ However, that depends on the trees surviving their youth. She points to a bud that has been chewed off. ‘A roe deer has been at it. That’s a risk, but we

don’t want to wrap them in plastic tubes to protect them either.’ The bamboo poles currently standing next to the 1.5-metre trees will degrade naturally. The figures for the first year are promising: 83 per cent of the trees are still alive.

SOIL ACIDIFICATION

The woods in this part of Limburg have long been monocultures of fir trees intended for timber production. You can still see in some places that the trees were planted in rows. The substrate is acidic and poor in nutrients. ‘That makes the woods vulnerable to climate change,’ explains Filipek as she walks through the loose sand. ‘Nitrogen deposition is making the soil even more acidic. And

minerals are leaching out as a result, which is having a dramatic impact on soil life. The soil is the cornerstone of the ecosystem.’ Planting deciduous trees enriches the soil because the leaves that are shed produce enriched plant litter and humus. Filipek: ‘That is good for the biodiversity and for the wood’s resilience.’ Healthy woodlands also increase the sequestration of CO2 According to Filipek, the measures they are taking here go further than merely restoring the woodland to its former state. ‘We call our approach “prestoration”: preparing the wood for the future. The firs are suffering from the acidification and impoverishment of the soil, and they are also susceptible to pests and extreme weather events such as

‘Every wood is different and yet they all face the same challenges’

drought, wildfires and storms. That’s becoming more and more of a problem.’

The wood near Venlo is one of the demonstration sites of SUPERB, an international research project for which Wageningen is one of the coordinators. The aim is to restore thousands of hectares of forest across Europe by linking science and practice. The project received funding of 20 million euros from the Horizon 2020 programme plus contributions from dozens of partner organizations.

DOWNY OAK

De Graaf spreads out a map of the demonstration site in Limburg on which 31 tree species are drawn in. They were carefully selected by the South Netherlands Forest Group to form a mix of trees with varying properties. The selection includes unfamiliar names like the Turkish hazel and downy oak, which are not indigenous species. ‘Some species come from central or southern Europe,’ explains De Graaf. ‘We expect them to do well here as temperatures in-

crease. Other trees have different advantages. For example, lime trees bring minerals up from deeper layers of soil. We’re planting lots of different species to make sure the wood is well prepared for the future.’

‘We also talked to each of the wood’s owners,’ says De Graaf. The Kronenberg woods are partly owned by the municipality. The rest is in the hands of more than 100 private owners. Many plots seem no bigger than postage stamps on the map because they have been handed down through the generations, getting divided up between more heirs each time. ‘Fortunately, many of the owners responded positively to the changes.’

In January 2024, 600 tons of finely ground stone known as rock dust was spread over the area. The powder, which is a residual product from the Norwegian mining industry, adds minerals to the soil that have leached out due to the acidification. The South Netherlands Forestry Group has acquired experience with rock dust in other woods in recent years. They found it does indeed enrich the soil, but studies in the

Netherlands also indicate rock dust can have a negative effect on some soil creatures. To investigate that further, the rock dust has only been applied in some areas.

De Graaf plays a video on her phone in which a helicopter sprays grey clouds of dust over the wood. ‘That drew a lot of attention. Even the Dutch news broadcaster NOS reported on the event,’ she says. ‘Fortunately, we could explain why we were doing this.’

DEVASTATING EFFECT

The 12 SUPERB demonstration sites are located in different European countries. Filipek: ‘Every wood is different and yet they all face the same challenges due to climate change. Bark beetles are having a devastating effect on spruces in a demonstration site in Germany and Czechia, while forest fires are increasingly common at a site in the south of France. Both woods used to be monocultures of conifers grown for timber. The lack of structure makes these woods particularly vulnerable when there is a storm. In addition, extreme conditions such as droughts and floods are becoming ever more frequent. The problems are accumulating, so we need to act now.’

To obtain a picture of the future for Europe’s forests, assuming various management strategies and climate scenarios, Filipek and her colleagues have been working for the

Restoration of the Kronenberg woods in Horst aan de Maas, near Venlo.

past 15 years on a model that shows the development of various European forests over time. This European Forest Information SCENario Model (EFISCEN-Space) mainly uses data from national forest surveys, such as the size of the trees, the rate of growth of each tree species, when trees are felled and how many trees are planted. The model predicts how woodlands will develop over the coming decades under different conditions. On the other side of the woodland path, Filipek and De Graaf show how the model is linked to actual practice. The deciduous trees in this clearing have been growing here somewhat longer. They include a serviceberry, oak and birch, all about five metres tall. Restoration of the woodland started earlier here, after a group of firs were felled, and further intervention is not necessary. De Graaf: ‘But if yet more firs go, for example because they die off due to drought, that will mean an end to the microclimate that is maintained by the larger trees. The principle is known, but what does that imply for the future of a wood like this?’ Filipek: ‘Woods can certainly recover but you have to wait a long time before very young trees can take over those roles. The young trees here are already somewhat bigger and it won’t be so long before they are fully grown. We use our model to assess scenarios with a big chance of success and doom scenarios, for example

where all the fir trees die off within a year due to extreme drought. That helps us figure out which measures we should opt for.’

EUROPEAN COOPERATION

For the model to work well, it is important to have data on a variety of European forests. That is easier said than done, admits Filipek. ‘Some countries treat their datasets as confidential information and are afraid of external interference. But that is precisely why closer cooperation is needed between the countries. A joint research project like this helps achieve that.’

The collaboration in Europe has another advantage, adds Filipek. ‘Other countries facing the same challenges can see how the Netherlands uses stakeholder processes. The trick is to get backing from everyone for the plans for forest restoration.’ In that respect, she sees the Kronenberg woods as a successful example. New tree species have been planted on the plots owned by private individuals too.

‘There is often resistance to the idea of felling the existing trees. It helped to talk in person with the individual owners of the plots. In addition, local residents could read an explanation in the newspaper of what was going on and they were invited to meetings. In the end, most of them acknowledged the benefits of the restoration measures.’ Filipek

will be sharing the lesson learned from this with the European partners.

Long-term monitoring is required for the restoration of woods like the one near Venlo, say Filipek and De Graaf. ‘You should really monitor this wood for decades to see how the newly planted trees grow to maturity and how that changes the woodland,’ says Filipek. ‘That isn’t possible within SUPERB, which is a four-year project, but we also have data on similar woods where deciduous trees were planted previously. That data covers not only the trees but also other aspects such as the minerals, soil life, microbes and the fauna above ground. That gives us an idea of what will happen to this wood.’

Anyone going on a walk here in 2075 will probably see a wood with a mix of species, mainly oak and birch, with tall lime trees and maples with their deep roots in places, and only the occasional fir. Under their cover will be smaller trees such as rowans – possibly full of black woodpeckers and nuthatches –while there will be far more woodlice, snails and ants in the litter on the forest floor. It will be a biodiverse wood with so many saplings that deer gnawing on them will no longer form a serious risk. W

https://forest-restoration.eu

A mix of deciduous trees has been planted to make the woods future-proof.

CRISPR-CAS PIONEER JOHN VAN DER OOST:

‘Chance has been a determining factor in my scientific career’

When John van der Oost arrived in Wageningen all those years ago, no one had heard of CRISPR-Cas – not even him. His path to discovering this revolutionary technique was determined in part by random chance and in part by seizing the opportunities that arose. Van der Oost will be retiring this year.

TEXT ALBERT SIKKEMA PHOTOGRAPHY ERIC SCHOLTEN

The path that led microbiologist John van der Oost to the discovery of the genetic cut-and-paste technique of CRISPR-Cas was long and winding. ‘Chance has been a determining factor in my scientific career,’ he says. That started with his choice of degree subject. ‘Just before my final school exams, I read a chapter in our biology textbook that the teacher had skipped. It was about molecular biology and how organisms store information in their DNA and transcribe it into proteins via RNA. I found that so fascinating that I decided to do a degree in biology. At that time, I was a member of the PSP, the Pacifist Socialist Party, so the obvious choice was to go to the more progressive University of Amsterdam. Funnily enough, I thought that the VU, the Free University of Amsterdam, was the progressive one, so I enrolled there. I discovered that some of the lecturers started their lectures with passages from the Bible. Even so, it felt like a really good place, so I stayed.’

Unlike most of his friends, he chose not to specialize in research on animals. ‘I had become a vegetarian and I didn’t want to kill animals, not even for research. I wanted to do courses in plant physiology, but they were already full. I was told to try microbiology.’ Van

der Oost found it interesting and he started investigating energy production by bacteria. In 1984, he was taken on as a PhD candidate at VU University Amsterdam, studying how cyanobacteria convert sunlight into hydrogen. ‘That was pioneering work. It turned out that the lab in Amsterdam didn’t have the right cyanobacteria so I hitchhiked to Paris with my girlfriend Paulien. I got the cyanobacteria I needed from the Pasteur Institute’s collection of cultures, and carried them back to Amsterdam in test tubes I put in my rucksack.’

Van der Oost takes his PhD thesis from the shelf. In it, he not only describes the conditions under which the bacteria start making hydrogen but also identifies a key gene responsible for this. He opens the thesis at the relevant pages, full of DNA code – the letters G, A, T and C. ‘Look, this is the gene. Of 1500 base pairs, no less. Nowadays, you can analyse a gene in a couple of days, but back then it took me a year. When I started, my supervisors told me I’d never manage it.’

After his application for a grant to do follow-up research in Brighton was rejected, he ended up via a roundabout route – six months at the University of Helsinki, two and a half years at an institute in Heidelberg– back at the VU University in

Amsterdam. But not for long. The head of the Microbiology group, who was planning to get him a permanent contract, died suddenly from a heart attack in the lab. His successor had other plans, so that was the end of that job. ‘It was quite a blow because by then I was married to Paulien and we had three children.’ He applied for three microbiologist jobs at different places in the Netherlands, and was taken on by Professor Willem de Vos in Wageningen.

When Van de Oost arrived in Wageningen 30 years ago, aged 37, no one had heard of CRISPR-Cas, including him. He was appointed head of the Bacterial Genetics research group. ‘For the first ten years, we focused on how archaea and bacteria, relatively simple microorganisms without nuclei, evolved to become eukaryotes, the organisms ranging from fungi to humans that do have nuclei. In particular, we investigated which proteins in archaea ended up in eukaryotes too. That gave some nice research results and I got a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council in 2005. That let me expand this line of research.’ Shortly afterwards, he was promoted to a position as professor holding a personal chair. ‘Thijs Ettema was one of the students on my microbial evolution course. Thijs later started his

‘Technology and patents are not automatically bad’

own group in Sweden, where he found some important pieces of the puzzle of the evolution of the prokaryotic archaea into the more complex eukaryotic life. He recently returned to Wageningen and now he is officially my boss – isn’t that great?’

When did CRISPR-Cas come into the picture?

‘Thijs Ettema obtained his doctorate in September 2005. One of the members of the thesis committee was the bio-informatics specialist Eugene Koonin. He told us for the first time about Clusters of Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), repeated pieces of DNA in bacteria genomes. We’d found these CRISPR pieces in 2001 in a microbial genome sequence, but had no clue about their function. The answer was provided by the Spanish scientist Francisco Mojica, who discovered that the variable DNA pieces in CRISPR were often identical to pieces of DNA in bacteriophages, viruses that use bacteria as their hosts. He proposed that CRISPR could be part of a bacterial immune system to protect against bacteriophages. Koonin also said his group had discovered clusters of genes linked to these CRISPR sequences, that together were probably responsible for a novel immune system such as Cas proteins.

What was the result?

‘In 2008, we described the first mechanistic insights of CRISPR-Cas in an article in Science. That was a real breakthrough and certainly one of the most spectacular publications in my career. The article is considered a milestone in CRISPR research and has been cited over 3000 times.’

When did it change from fundamental research on bacteria into a tool for editing DNA?

‘Back then, the dairy company Danisco had a research team that was trying to understand how lactic acid bacteria protect themselves against bacteriophages. They did an experiment in which they added a bacteriophage to a reactor with lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture collapsed because the bacterial cells were killed by the viruses. But after one day the bacterial culture started to grow again. That was because a few bacteria had developed resistance to the bacteriophage. When the researchers analysed the CRISPR DNA of the surviving lactic acid bacteria, they found pieces of the viral DNA had been incorporated. That adaptation allowed the bacterium to survive in the presence of the virus. When the researchers removed that piece of viral DNA from the CRISPR, the bacterium became susceptible to the virus again. This was proof that the CRISPR system is an adaptive immune system that can recognize and neutralize viruses in a very targeted way. The big question was: how did it work?

‘Together with a postdoc in my group, Stan Brouns, who became a professor at Delft last year, I decided to try and figure out the mechanism of CRISPR-Cas. So I changed my Vici project completely to focus on CRISPR-Cas rather than archaea. Later, I sent the Dutch Research Council, which had funded the research, a letter admitting I had used most of the grant to study something completely different. I never got a reply, so I assume they agreed it was a good decision.’ >

‘After Koonin’s visit, we had decided to study the CRISPR-Cas system of the model bacterium E. coli. Unfortunately, we didn’t find a match with the DNA of known bacteriophages in the CRISPR DNA of the model bacterium. So we decided to insert pieces of a specific E. coli bacteriophage into the

Professor of Microbiology John van der Oost is seen as one of the founding fathers of the CRISPR-Cas technology. He has supervised more than 100 PhD candidates and postdocs, has authored over 350 scientific articles, has an h-index of 100 and has over 35 patents in his name. In addition to outreach activities, he is a scientific adviser to the companies NTrans Technologies, Scope Biosciences and Hudson River Biotechnology.

1984: MSc in Molecular Biology, VU University Amsterdam 1989: PhD at VU

1995: Laboratory of Microbiology, WUR

2005: Professor holding a personal chair in Bacterial Genetics, WUR

2008: First CRISPR-Cas publication in Science

2013: Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization

2017: Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

2018: Winner of the Spinoza Prize

2025: Winner of the M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize

JOHN VAN DER OOST (67)

CRISPR DNA ourselves. That meant we’d created the first designer CRISPR, which we went on to test.

‘When we added the bacteriophage to a culture medium of unmodified E. coli bacteria, the lawn of bacteria contained clear zones that corresponded to areas where bacteria did not survive the viral infection. When we added the bacteriophage to our modified designer E. coli, we didn’t see any holes. That was the eureka moment: we’d been able to give a bacterium highly specific protection against a bacteriophage. We called it a “flu shot for bacteria”. In the years that followed, various research groups worked out the complete mechanism behind the CRISPRCas system, step by step.’

When did it become a business?

‘Stan Brouns thought our CRISPR system could be used more broadly, as a new instrument for genome editing in which the DNA of plants and humans is edited deliberately and in a targeted way. Together, we explained the potential of CRISPR-Cas to WUR’s patent expert, Paul van Helvert. Then the three of us went to a patent bureau in London to discuss the options. In 2011, we submitted a patent application describing how we could make targeted changes in any DNA, including the DNA of plants or humans.’

You were involved from the start in research that was later rewarded with the Nobel Prize.

‘Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who got the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020 for the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 technique, described the same mechanism we did in 2012, one year after we had filed our patent. However, they used a different system, the Cas9 protein of

‘Nowadays, you can analyse a gene in a couple of days, but back then it took me a year’

months, we had our first results. It turned out Cas12 is quite different from Cas9. I decided to submit a project proposal so I could recruit more people to work on this. But to do that, I would have to write down our unpublished work and our plans. So the patent expert Van Helvert and I decided to submit a patent application, even though we still needed to figure out an awful lot of details about Cas12.

a lactic acid bacterium. That system is very compact and straightforward whereas our Cascade system consists of over a dozen of proteins, making it much more complex and harder to use as a general tool for genome editing.’

So why did you apply for patents?

‘Of course we didn’t know in 2011 that Cas9 would work so much better. The organization was also encouraging us to protect our findings and ideas. A patent application is always speculative; whether it will be a good investment is pretty unpredictable. But a patent is also regarded as a publication that is good for your CV and could strengthen research proposals. So it was a strategic decision to file patents to protect these exciting ideas. Over the past 15 years, I’ve submitted more than 30 patents.’

What have you made from them?

‘The revenue from most patents is less than the costs. Still, a few were successful, especially our patent on Cas12. How that came about is a nice story. At a conference in Paris, I spoke to one of the aforementioned Koonin’s employees. They said, “We’ve discovered a new CRISPR system, Cas12. You should do some work on it.” After a few

‘A few months later, I met Feng Zhang, a molecular biologist from the Broad Institute in Boston, at the annual CRISPR meeting. He turned out to have got the same tip from Koonin and was therefore also working on Cas12. We decided then to collaborate on this. Zhang’s team had already advanced a long way and the Broad Institute had applied for a patent too, only six weeks after us. We soon agreed to work together and manage our patents jointly.’

What is Cas12 used for?

‘Cas12 can be used to cure certain diseases in humans. A great example is curing one form of chronic anaemia, caused by a genetic mutation in the haemoglobin in the red blood cells. Cas12 can repair the blood cells by editing a piece of DNA. Furthermore, Cas12 is being used to make plants resistant to diseases.’

Who gets the patent revenue?

‘Some of the money goes to the inventors, some to the Microbiology chair group and the rest to WUR’s Agrotechnology & Food Sciences group (AFSG). Willem de Vos and I agreed that the latter part would be put in a fund called the Innovation Platform for Microbiology. Every now and then, AFSGresearchers can apply for money from the fund to set up microbiology-related innovative research. It’s a revolving fund, which is wonderful.’

CRISPR-CAS IN A NUTSHELL

CRISPR-Cas is not a lab creation; it originated in nature. It is an immune system that protects bacteria from viruses.

The immune system has two important elements:

1

Guide RNA recognizes virus

Guide RNA is a small piece of genetic material that patrols the bacterial cell. It recognizes the DNA of an invading virus and attaches itself to that DNA.

protein

RNA

2

Cas protein makes a cut

The guide RNA works together with a Cas protein. The Cas protein cuts the viral DNA.

Do you have other patents that are now being used?

‘In 2015, we did research on bacteria that can break down the cellulose in plant waste, which would make the waste easier to recycle. We found two candidates in a compost heap not far from Wageningen. When we analysed the genomes of these bacteria, we found an alternative Cas9 system. We applied for a number of patents for this too.

‘A few months later, I saw Christa Testerink, the professor of Plant Physiology at Wageningen, on a TV science programme talking about her work at Wageningen and at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines on salt-tolerant rice crops. Then I thought: why don’t we make these patents available free of charge to non-profit projects like this so they can modify plants to cope with climate change?

That needed the consent of the university’s Executive Board as they are the official

patent holder. Fortunately the then Board President Louise Fresco was enthusiastic as well. We launched the plan at the start of the academic year in 2021.’

Do you already have results?

‘Christa and I have received money from donors through University Fund Wageningen to start a project with the IRRI. Christa’s group recently managed to use our optimized system to modify the DNA of rice plants for the first time. We have to edit several genes to increase the salt tolerance of rice plants. We’ll shortly be sharing this knowledge with the IRRI.’

When the patent was released in 2021, Extinction Rebellion (XR) organized protests in the Aula and Hotel De Wereld. You wanted to talk with them, but they wouldn’t say anything. You got very angry.

‘Yes. As researchers, we’re often accused of

Scientists can design guide RNA that can work with the Cas protein to attach itself and make cuts at whatever position is wanted in any DNA – whether bacterial, plant or even human.

Sometimes a single cut is all that is needed to deactivate a bad gene. Researchers can also deliver a repair kit to correct the original error or alter the DNA as desired at that specific point.

using our knowledge to help companies. Now we were giving our knowledge away for free to make the world a better place and they were still demonstrating. I found that so frustrating, especially since I often agree with XR, and I sometimes feel like glueing myself to the A12 motorway in aid of a better climate. So I genuinely wanted to talk to them about how our technology and our knowledge could improve the world. But I couldn’t. That was very disappointing.’

‘Technology and patents are not automatically bad; it all depends on what you do with them. You can use the technology to sustainably increase food production. I don’t think I’ve changed much in that respect since I went round Amsterdam sticking up PSP posters.’ W

www.wur.eu/cripr-cas

Guide

Cas

Circular field

The aerial view clearly shows the pattern of crops planted in rings. At ground level, what you notice most is the moving mechanical arm. The circular field is a new approach in arable farming that goes easy on the soil.

TEXT HARM TEN NAPEL PHOTO GUY ACKERMANS

In 2022, while farmers were driving their tractors along the Dutch motorways in protest, designer Floris Schoonderbeek was investigating farming solutions that could dispense with these heavy machines. ‘The weight of a tractor squeezes all the air out of the soil. I was looking for farming methods that enrich the soil and boost biodiversity,’ he explains. The result of that investigation is the circular field, on show for the past year near Wageningen campus. You can see straight away this is no conventional rectangular field. Various crops are grown in concentric rings in a circular version of strip cropping. A metal arm extends from the centre across the circular field, with tools and machines attached to it. ‘The machines don’t ride along the ground; they move above the field,’ says Schoonderbeek. Even the farmer can be suspended under the arm in a specially designed cradle. ‘That lets you remove weeds, for example, very precisely while right on top of the spot.’ The arm means you don’t need lanes for machinery, so the entire circle can be used for the crops. Schoonderbeek: ‘Even though you aren’t using the corners, you’re

effectively farming the same area as in a rectangular field while leaving the corners free for nature.’ Combined with the diversity of crops, this means that the circular field has much more room for insects, birds and wild plants.

space between his trial fields for a circular field with a diameter of 30 metres. ‘As inspiration. In my view, the circular field is first and foremost about feeding the imagination. It shows there are alternative approaches to farming.’

‘It shows there are alternative approaches to farming’

Schoonderbeek approached Dirk van Apeldoorn, an agronomist at the University’s Centre for Crop Systems Analysis, to help plant crops in the field. ‘The crops we are already growing in strips could easily be incorporated in the circle,’ says Van Apeldoorn. The researcher created

Van Apeldoorn sees the potential of circular farming residing in its interesting combination of people and technology. ‘Given its size, the circular field is best suited for small-scale farmers and nonfarmers who want to grow and harvest their own crops, not for large farms. At the same time, the arm offers possibilities for automation, for example in monitoring or even robotization.’ That might seem at odds with small-scale farming but according to Van Apeldoorn that is not necessarily so. ‘It frees up the farmer, letting them spend their time on the crops they know more and more about.’

Sensors could be used, with the arm collecting all kinds of data about the crops. Paul van Zoggel, an ecologist at Wageningen Plant Research, played with various options in the experimental field. ‘With just a camera, you can record the entire field

A prototype circular field was created in Wageningen in 2024. More will follow in 2025.

every day,’ he says. ‘You can then use image recognition algorithms to check for insects or even diseases.’ Lidar, a technology that is also used by self-driving cars to survey their surroundings, can be deployed to scan the circular field meticulously. Robots could then use that information to intervene automatically. ‘But it will take another ten years or so before we can automate things to that extent.’

Even without robots, a circular field could be an interesting option for small-scale agricultural initiatives, thinks Van Zoggel. ‘The arm alone offers plenty of advantages. Anyone can use the cradle to do two hours of weeding; that’s a lot less tiring than bending over the whole time.’ The arm can also help with irrigation. Even simple

tasks such as monitoring crop height are interesting options according to Van Zoggel. ‘In the Netherlands, those sensors are not at all expensive.’

CARE FARMS

Care farms have expressed an interest, says the designer Schoonderbeek. ‘The arm would be a good solution to let the care farm clients help tend the field.’ He hopes to have a package ready by the end of the year that interested farmers — whether in the Netherlands or abroad — could use to create their own circular fields.

Schoonderbeek, Van Apeldoorn and Van Zoggel also want to do further research.

Schoonderbeek: ‘Three more circular fields will be added in 2025. We will be using

drones and sensors to collect as much data as possible about the state of the fields. My first priority is to show that the circular approach saves work.’

In addition, Van Zoggel has submitted a proposal for further research on the options for monitoring with the aid of sensors.

‘’We basically treated this year as a kind of start-up together with Schoonderbeek by first trying out the circular field rather than doing loads of research from the beginning. With a bit of luck, we will be able to collect more and more data over the next few years to see whether the arm lives up to expectations.’ W

www.wur.eu/strip-cropping

Healthy choices start in the supermarket

We buy 80 per cent of our food in supermarkets, which offer a wide assortment of unhealthy products. ‘Supermarkets can give consumers a subtle nudge in the right direction.’

‘Labels mainly have an effect on producers’

We eat too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt and just plain too much. Indeed, consumers face temptation on all sides. Almost 80 per cent of the assortment in supermarkets is not in the Wheel of Five (the Dutch guide to healthy food) and nearly 83 per cent of the products on offer in folders –with ‘two-for-one’ discounts and so on – are unhealthy, according to The Healthy Generation. This multi-year programme was set up by around 20 health funds, including the Diabetes Fund, the Heart Foundation and the Kidney Foundation. The programme aims to make the environment children grow up in healthier. This spring, the alliance started a campaign to get supermarkets to make their assortments healthier.

But efforts to persuade consumers to make healthier choices when shopping have been going on for longer than that. For example, last year saw the introduction of the Nutri-Score, originally a French initiative, after three trial years in the Netherlands. It uses the letters A through to E and five colours – from green to red – to show at a glance which products in a particular category are healthiest.

EFFECTIVE INTERVENTIONS

The Wageningen researcher Ellen van Kleef has been studying the temptations in the food environment, such as supermarkets and cafeterias, for years. The associate professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour looks for effective interventions that foster healthier behaviour. ‘There are high expectations of what labels such as the Nutri-Score can achieve, but our field studies, experiments and analyses of till receipts show that labels only have a small effect on what products are actually purchased,’ she says. People in the ‘health-conscious bubble’ pay attention to the labels but this approach doesn’t work for consumers in disadvantaged socioeconomic groups, for instance, notes Van Kleef. ‘We even see the reverse effect among some young people, who choose the red one deliberately because they assume it’s deliciously unhealthy.’

Van Kleef mainly feels labelling is too easy a solution. ‘Add a colour on the front and some text on the back, and you’re done.’

Perhaps we need a radical change in what is acceptable, as happened with smoking. Nowadays, cars don’t even have built-in ashtrays anymore. ‘That comparison doesn’t really work,’ says Van Kleef. ‘We want to discourage smoking altogether. You can do that by banning smoking in public spaces and by charging extremely high prices for a packet of cigarettes. But to persuade people to make healthy, sustainable food choices, you need to take a gradual approach.’

That is demonstrated by an experiment Van Kleef did a few years ago in the cafeteria of a vocational college in Ede. ‘Every couple of months, we made the assortment that little bit more healthy,’ says Van Kleef. ‘We started at 60 per cent healthy and increased it to 70 per cent and then 80 per cent. We monitored sales for a year. We also made the cafeteria more appealing with a greater choice of rolls and a more pleasing interior design.’ This gradual approach led to the students making healthier choices, although the effects were modest.

Van Kleef thinks it is a big problem that there are still fast-food outlets located close to schools. She says there is huge potential for improvements among young people. Schools already teach children about the importance of a healthy diet, and parents do their best too. ‘But this isn’t having enough of an effect,’ says Van Kleef. ‘Parents don’t have so much say once their children get to secondary school, with more freedom and their own money. There is huge social pressure on young people to consume snacks and sugary drinks.’

That’s before we get onto the influence of YouTube, TikTok, films and events. ‘Take the tube of Pringles on the table that is incorporated into YouTuber Dylan Hagens’ storylines, or the prominent Red Bull logo in the coverage of Formula 1 racing.’

FOODFLUENCERS

In Wageningen’s Strategic Communications chair group, associate professor Sophie Boerman studies the effect of social media influencers – the greenfluencers and foodfluencers, as they are known – on the sustainability and healthiness of young people’s habits. Young people spend hours every day on social media like TikTok and

Instagram. ‘Elize Been, the Netherlands’ first greenfluencer, hasn’t yet got followers in the millions, but her reach is growing,’ says Boerman. ‘She shows her followers how to make more environmentally aware choices, for example by buying second-hand clothing or promoting sustainable brands. We ran various experiments that showed these influencers can indeed persuade young people to be more sustainable.’ Surprisingly, and contrary to the researchers’ expectations, young people were more susceptible to messages that emphasized loss than positive messages. ‘A message such as “The planet will be destroyed if you don’t make sustainable choices” has more effect than a message framed as “Your choices help make the world a better place”,’ explains Boerman. ‘Negative messages make you ashamed of your non-sustainable habits and therefore people are more likely to choose the sustainable option.’ But how reliable are green influencers and food influencers in a world with so many false claims and misleading ‘information’? After all, influencers are paid a lot to recommend products. ‘That is why more and more influencers are getting certification – a Dutch initiative. The certificate shows they are aware of the latest rules

on influencer marketing, such as transparency and avoiding greenwashing, and that they take a responsible approach to it,’ says Boerman. She thinks NGOs and supermarket chains could use the certified influencers. ‘The Netherlands Nutrition Centre already does this in an effort to reduce meat consumption. Influencers post videos showing you how to cook tasty vegetarian food.’

Supermarkets themselves are also important in getting people to switch to a healthier or more sustainable diet. We buy as much as 80 per cent of our food there, including fruit and vegetables. Supermarkets have a lot of influence on what we buy through the way they present the food. Products at eye level sell better than the ones on the bottom shelf. When tempting chocolate is placed next to the cash till, lots of people will grab a bar at the last moment. Supermarket designers, marketing experts and last but not least the branch managers could use these tactics to promote healthy and sustainable products instead, say the Wageningen researchers.

MEAT SUBSTITUTES

That was shown by a six-month study in 2023 at 70 branches of the Lidl supermarket chain. In the

The Nutri-Score was introduced in 2024 as a tool to help consumers in shops make healthier choices.

experiment, meat substitutes such as veggie burgers were placed right next to the familiar meat products in the meat section. The meat substitutes were also available at their usual place in the supermarket. ‘We initially got a lot of negative comments, especially on social media,’ says Monique van der Meer, who carried out the experiment as a PhD researcher in the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour chair group. Some people thought it was misleading and they didn’t appreciate what they saw as officious meddling, she recalls. ‘That was mainly at the start of the trial. After a while, the highly polarizing comments on social media – “That’ll just make me eat a load of hamburgers” – died down.’

The experiment had an effect. Consumption of meat substitutes increased slightly, even though sales of meat only fell a little. ‘It seems a lot of people liked the idea of trying a soya burger or beetroot burger for once.’

A similar trial was conducted in seven branches of another large supermarket chain for three months. This time, the meat substitutes weren’t still available in their usual place. In this experiment, sales of meat substitutes dropped significantly. ‘Certainly to start with, the regular group of vegetarians and flexitarians were unable to find their products.’

This experiment with two variants in two different supermarket chains is an example of ‘nudging’, the concept of giving people a little push in the right direction. ‘Supermarkets could work on this far more,’ thinks Monique van der Meer. ‘For example, they could

offer more vegetarian options in the fresh-ingredient meal kits, including ones with attractive recipes. Supermarkets that sell ready meals for cooking in the oven or microwave could offer more options based on vegetables alongside the fish and meat options.’

SHOPPING ONLINE

More and more people are doing a weekly shop online that is then delivered to their home rather than rushing off to the shops after work. ‘Here too, there are big opportunities for persuading consumers to make healthy food choices,’ says Laura Jansen. In June, she obtained her doctorate in the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour chair group for ‘personalized recommendations’ for healthy food choices when shopping online.

Her research, in which 1200 people did their supermarket shopping in an experimental online site, showed that it is important for the recommendations to be a subtle presence on the screen. ‘It turned out that presenting information on the landing page, the first page when visiting the online supermarket, can lead to healthier purchases. As can information in the form of a shopping basket full of healthy alternatives to previous purchases,’ says Jansen. ‘That was despite the fact that the pre-filled shopping basket concept was not judged positively.’

Product recommendations that tie in with personal preferences specified by the user in advance have more

There are also opportunities for nudging online shoppers towards healthy food.

‘There is huge social pressure on young people to choose sugary drinks’

of an impact, shows another study by Jansen, this time among 900 people. ‘Users first have to go to a special page to indicate their preferences, such as “I’d like to eat fewer sweet things” or “I want help finding products with less salt and fat”, explains Jansen. ‘The participants really appreciated it if a text bubble then appeared while they were shopping saying “this is an option in this product category with less sugar” for instance and we added a short explanation. A personal recommendation increased the participants’ acceptance of the recommendation and they were less likely to find it too pushy. Of course, this experiment needs to be followed up with a trial in a real, existing online supermarket.’

EFFECT ON PRODUCERS

In The Hague, researcher Koen Boone of Wageningen Social & Economic Research puts the limited effect of labels such as the Nutri-Score into perspective. ‘Labels help consumers but above all they have an effect on producers. If all products have certification, 100 per cent of consumption will have become more sustainable,’ says Boone. ‘A label with good supporting evidence helps bring about improvements in the whole supply chain. It also helps other organizations, such as financial institutions, factor in sustainability in their decisions. A company with a better sustainability profile has lower financial risks and so banks can offer it lower interest rates. In the end, this will give producers clarity.’ Boone, who is the Sustainable Value Chains coordinator, has been working on a uniform European sustainability label for food since 2023 (see inset). The researcher believes in the power of labels, ‘not least because they can help companies genuinely demonstrate the validity of their brand’s reputation, and therefore the financial and economic value.’

HEALTHY IS MORE EXPENSIVE

Back to Wageningen, where researcher Van Kleef points to the importance of the price. ‘On average, healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food,’ she says. ‘The government could even that out by introducing different

VAT rates. But the problem is that the government has done very little in terms of setting and enforcing standards in recent years. They very much take the attitude that choosing healthy food is “the consumer’s own responsibility”.’

Nevertheless, she thinks new trends in research, such as Jansen’s study on algorithms that promote healthier alternatives in online shopping baskets, are promising for practical applications. ‘But of course the quickest route is to make the entire supermarket assortment healthier and stop offering discounts or freebies mainly for the unhealthy products.’ W

www.wur.eu/consumer-behaviour

EUROPEAN SUSTAINABILITY LABEL

The Wageningen Sustainable Value Chains researcher Koen Boone is working with seven organizations from France, Spain and Germany in the Eco Food Choice project on a uniform European sustainability label for food products. The sustainability score is based on the well-known lifecycle analysis (LCA) method, which looks at everything from the extraction of raw materials to waste management. The system will be tested in physical and online supermarkets and cafeterias in the participating countries. At present, companies still use various different measurement systems and emissions data. If you have a single European system, international supermarket chains such as Delhaize and Colruyt in Belgium and Carrefour in France would have more of an incentive to encourage sustainable choices by consumers, says Koen Boone. ‘In addition, multinationals such as Unilever – which delivers products to over 200 food retail companies all over Europe – would only have to supply the input for the LCA calculation once for each product. That is cheaper and will make multinationals more likely to introduce improvements in their products.’

RIVER MAAS HEDGE RESTORER LARS VAN PEIJ:

‘I wanted to work more on the hedges, not less’

Lars van Peij fell in love with the countryside around the River Maas with its many hedgerows full of wildlife. He has already managed to restore 150 kilometres of hedges to their former glory, despite being terminally ill.

TEXT PAULINE VAN SCHAYCK PHOTO ARJAN BROEKMANS

‘Woven hedges have been used for at least 4500 years to keep livestock from escaping the field and protect them from predators. The hedgerows used to line all the big rivers, all the roads and all the fields,’ says Lars van Peij as we walk through the hedgerow-rich countryside along the River Maas, south of Cuijk. Along the roadside, we see rows of hawthorn, with the occasional blackthorn, buckthorn and dogwood. ‘This type of landscape once extended for hundreds of kilometres across the Netherlands and other European countries. The hedgerows are a kind of ageold, nature-based barbed wire. Historical sources tell us even the Roman army couldn’t get through them 2000 years ago.’ After the Second World War, governments

forced farmers to exchange plots in order to create larger areas of adjacent plots of land. ‘A total of 200,000 kilometres of hedgerows and hedge banks have disappeared in Europe since this land consolidation process started,’ says Van Peij. ‘The Netherlands was particularly fanatical. The loss of the hedgerows also meant many insects disappeared, while birds such as the skylark, partridge, tree sparrow and turtle dove have become rare. It’s such a pity. Fortunately, the hedgerows along the Maas on the Brabant side have largely survived.’

UNESCO

In 2018, the area was granted the UNESCO Man & Biosphere status, aiming to encourage cooperation between science, policy,

education, the private sector and the local community, geared to sustainable development of this area.

Van Peij started restoring the hedges of the Maas area ten years ago for the Dutch Cultural Landscape Organization (VNC), in an endeavour motivated by both the cultural value of the characteristic landscape and the benefits to biodiversity. It became his life’s work. Van Peij has a genetic predisposition to Huntington's disease, a condition in which nerve cells in the brain are affected and waste away, particularly in the parts of the brain for motor control and cognitive capabilities. The disease gradually became manifest and was diagnosed several years ago. He had to give up his paid work a few months ago, but was able to keep on

‘The biodiversity in these hedgerows is much greater than in woodland’

LARS VAN PEIJ (38)

2023 to date: initiator, fundraiser, organizer and planter for Maasheggen Mooi

2017 – 2025: Maas Hedges project manager, VNC

2013 – 2016: area consultant, Areal

2010 – 2012: MSc in Spatial Planning

2004 – 2009: BSc in Forest and Nature Conservation

restoring the Maas hedges through his own sponsoring action: Maasheggen Mooi. ‘This used to be a maize field covering 12 hectares,’ he says, pointing at grassland with herbaceous plants, and hedges of young, low hawthorn bushes cutting across. ‘The hedges are in exactly the same places they were in 1950.’ Back then, each farmer had his own small field for his cows, often at some distance from the farm, explains Van Peij. To protect the cows, woven hedges were created around the plot. ‘The hedges further along are already a bit bigger,’ shows Van Peij. ‘We’ve interwoven some of the branches there now.’

CREATING NATURE

Van Peij started on the Forest and Nature Conservation Bachelor’s in 2004 and chose to follow this with the Master’s in Spatial Planning. ‘The switch was easy as I already knew a bit about ecology, soil and the climate. My degree was an ideal combination of this theory and the practice of designing a landscape.’ He met Edith, who would later become his wife, in the corridor of his student flat in Asserpark. She was studying Nutrition and Health.

After graduating, Van Peij first worked for the agricultural and ecological consultancy Areal. ‘I used to go round the Land van Cuijk area with my boss, working with the farmers to create new nature.’ In 2017, he moved to the Dutch Cultural Landscape Organization to focus entirely on restoring the hedgerows. ‘I was able to do more for nature and the landscape there. The biodiversity in hedges like these is much greater than in woodland.’ However, many farmers were not keen at first on reinstating the hedges on their land, says Van Peij. Some farmers think the hedges simply take up space. ‘I’ve drunk endless cups of coffee with them. Restoring hedges mainly

requires you to do a lot of talking before you can even get started in the field. People have all kinds of objections, but when you engage them in a conversation there turn out to be plenty of options.’ Van Peij was gradually able to persuade more and more farmers in the area. The counter currently stands at 40 farmers and 150 kilometres of hedgerow. It also helped that he was able to arrange grants for laying and maintaining the hedges.

ORGANIC SHAPES

In the ten years that Van Peij has been at VNC working on the hedges, the landscape has changed dramatically. Van Peij has planted kilometres of new hedges and has also helped farmers to improve the existing hedges. He walks over to a somewhat taller hedge. ‘Look, this blackthorn is growing everywhere. It is crowding out the other bushes, but a mixed hedgerow is better for biodiversity.’ VNC is taking charge of the maintenance of the hedges for the farmers and other landowners. Most of the hedges are pruned occasionally and are nicely rounded at the top. ‘Organic shapes. It means the pruning takes longer but you end up with better hedgerows for the birds, insects and small mammals.’

We also see oak, ash and willow trees in amongst the young bushes, that have withstood the test of time. ‘That tree is at least 300 years old,’ says Van Peij, pointing at a tree in the distance. Hedgerows traditionally included pollarded willows, oaks and ash trees. ‘In the past, ash branches were used to make spade handles, oak was used in construction and you could weave anything with willow.’

The hedges where the purpose – as in the past – is to stop cattle from escaping from the field are woven. ‘Hedgelaying is a centuries-old method for getting a hedge that has become overgrown back into shape without having to do too much pruning. You

split a tree trunk to just above the ground. Then you bend the two halves sideways and push the ends of the branches back into the bushes. That is always more work than people think, but it is fun to do. I once did it with students on the Forest and Nature Conservation degree programme. It’s a real group activity, as you have to decide together how to weave the branches.’

The Maas area with its distinctive hedges is like a museum, with Van Peij walking round as the curator. On one road, we see examples of English, French, Irish, German and Belgian hedge weaving. The Belgian method with the perfectly crisscrossing branches stands out, but in fact it is the English who are known for the many regional variations in their hedgelaying, says Van Peij. He goes on trips to get inspiration. ‘I’ve been to Britain and France to learn more about the craft of hedgelaying. I know the local experts.’

FIELDFARES AND REDWINGS

According to Van Peij, biodiversity has shot up in the vicinity of the newly planted and restored hedges. ‘You hear dunnocks, greater and lesser whitethroats, icterine warblers and many other bird species all year round. Birds of prey and water birds also feel at

home here.’ There is barely a moment’s pause in the birdsong during our walk. Van Peij: ‘In the migratory season, you see tens of thousands of fieldfares and redwings in the hawthorn. They have come from Scandinavia, where they breed. The hedges provide shelter and berries that let them get through the winter. There are also loads of insects and small mammals.’

The hedgerows are not the only change in the area: dotted around the landscape are newly created ponds. ‘They offer a home for great crested newts and also attract tree frogs.’ We also come across what is termed a ‘bird field’, one where grains, herbs and protein-rich plants such as clover and alfalfa grow rather than crops for human consumption or grass. The field was created on the initiative of Van Peij, and is designed to attract insects, farmland birds and birds of prey. ‘These bird fields boost the biodiversity in the whole area. This one was soon full of partridges, tree sparrows and many other species that are struggling.’

Van Peij could happily have continued for years restoring hedges along the Maas, but his life took a different course. Once he saw signs of Huntington's disease and got the diagnosis, he realized that everything in his life would

become more difficult and there would come a time when he would have to give up his job. Van Peij saw that as a reason to speed up his life’s work. ‘I didn’t want to do less work on the Maas hedges; I wanted to do more.’

MAASHEGGEN MOOI

Van Peij came up with the idea of the Maasheggen Mooi (‘Beautiful Maas Hedges’) action and started collecting donations for laying more new hedgerows. He turned it into a personal challenge by taking part in the 80-kilometre Sittard Kennedy March. ‘I decided to share the news on social media that I was incurably ill.’ He was inundated with heart-warming responses – and with donations. ‘The donations continued to come in after the march. I’ve received over 18,000 euros so far.’ Last winter, Van Peij organized 12 planting days, on which 295 volunteers turned up to help him plant 2.7 kilometres of new hedges. ‘I’ve still got a long waiting list of people who want to help.’ He will carry on further this coming winter. ‘I’ll keep going as long as I can.’ W

www.maasheggenmooi.nl

In winter 2024, Lars van Peij planted 2.7 kilometres of new hedgerows with the help of 295 volunteers.

GENE BANK GETS NEW HOME

Genetic treasures housed in one place

In locations spread across Wageningen campus, geneticists store the genetic material of plants and animals, which researchers and plant and animal breeders can then use. Now the collection is set to include more species and double in size. That means it is time for a new, dedicated building on campus.

TEXT HARM TEN NAPEL

For the past 40 years, the Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands (CGN) has been tasked by the Dutch government with managing the genetic diversity of selected plants, trees, farm animals and aquatic species from the Netherlands and the rest of the world.

Geneticists keep seeds, shoots, sperm and other genetic material in a mix of facilities –a freezer here, a lab there. The collection is not a museum. The gene bank shares the genetic material with plant and animal breeders so that they can develop better varieties or breeds, such as grains that withstand drought, vegetables that are resistant to mould, strong trees that produce a lot of wood, or resilient cattle.

WILD FOREBEARS

‘In the 1970s, developing countries followed Western countries in replacing their diverse mix of local varieties with new, popular plant varieties and animal breeds, often because the yields were higher,’ says Theo van Hintum, head of the crops department

at CGN. ‘As a result, the world was in danger of losing a lot of the genetic diversity that had in fact been used for developing these new varieties and breeds. That realization led to the first gene banks, aimed at preserving the genetic material of the local breeds and varieties and their wild forebears.’

Climate change, diseases, pests and declining biodiversity are still threats to the

‘We have the best lettuce collection in the world’

planet’s genetic diversity. Biologist Seppe de Mits of the CGN trees and shrubs department cites the example of ash dieback. ‘It has severely affected the ash tree population

in the Netherlands. That may have led to the loss of species variants with genes that make the tree more resilient to drought for instance.’ That is why De Mits and his colleagues are now collecting ash seeds and freezing them.

DIRECTLY AVAILABLE

CGN’s crop collection is ranked 15th in size in Europe, but Van Hintum says its impact is far greater than this modest ranking suggests. ‘That is because nearly all the seeds in the gene bank are directly available to plant breeders,’ he says. Not all gene banks are so accessible. ‘We have more than 23,000 varieties of farm crops in our collection, including 269 wild species, and the best lettuce collection in the world with some 2500 varieties,’ explains Van Hintum. ‘The spinach in the supermarket contains genetic material that CGN collected in Central Asia.’ Further growth is needed, though, to expand the available genetic diversity and bring the size of the collection more in line with the scale of Dutch plant breeding companies.

That is why CGN and the Dutch government have decided to double the size of the collection. In addition, the collection, currently dispersed across multiple locations, will be stored in a new building on campus. A central location will make it easier for the geneticists to collaborate. CGN will also offer more space for copies of other gene banks. These back-ups prevent the loss of the collected material in the event of a fire, natural disaster or war.

OYSTERS AND SEAWEEDS

It is not only the crop department that will be expanding. Two years ago, the farm animal department started conserving aquatic species in addition to the genetic material for animals such as cattle, pigs, horses and chickens. ‘We decided to do this for species that are found naturally in the Netherlands and are grown commercially in aquaculture,’ says Annemieke Rattink, head of the animal collections. ‘So we ended up with mussels, oysters, seaweeds and various fish species, including the

eel.’ The geneticists are monitoring the genetic diversity of eel, oyster and mussel populations in the wild. ‘To safeguard that diversity, we collect sperm samples that we conserve in the gene bank.’

The trees and shrubs department is expanding its collection with a stock of frozen seeds. Previously, it only had a living gene bank – plots where specimens of rare and endangered species grow, such as the European white elm or the wild apple. That is risky, especially in view of diseases such as ash dieback. ‘But not all the seeds that we want to preserve can easily be frozen in this way,’ explains the biologist De Mits. ‘That is why we are experimenting with liquid nitrogen. We are getting help from our animal colleagues, who have more experience with this method. Such collaboration will be even easier once we are all working in the same location.’ W

www.wur.eu/cgn

SEARCH FOR FUNDS

The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture is CGN’s main client and most important source of funding. Plant and animal breeding companies also help finance the national gene bank. To enable the gene bank to achieve its goals, University Fund Wageningen and CGN are looking for additional philanthropic gifts, says fund director Lies Boelrijk. ‘A new, larger gene bank will let us make more of an impact in terms of food security and the preservation of biodiversity and our biocultural heritage,’ emphasizes Sipke Joost Hiemstra, the head of CGN. The aim is for the new gene bank to open in 2027.

For queries about donations: lies.boelrijk@wur.nl

For questions about the gene bank: sipkejoost.hiemstra@wur.nl

The Centre for Genetic Resources in the Netherlands (CGN) preserves seeds, shoots, sperm and other genetic material.

Reunions for the 1975 and 2000 cohorts

Alumni who started their degree in Wageningen in 1975 will have the opportunity to catch up with old classmates and share memories during the 50-year reunion on Saturday 1 November. Alumni who came to Wageningen in the millennium year will have their own 25-year reunion on the same day. The two groups are invited to the campus, where they will each have their own programme. Alumni whose contact details we have will receive more information in June. Info: www.wur.eu/reunion1975, www.wur.eu/reunion2000

Making music and learning about fermentation

An unusual event was held on 28 November on Wageningen campus that combined classical music with talks by leading Wageningen scientists. The event, an initiative of the Sonante symphony orchestra and the Wageningen Global Sustainability Programme (formerly INREF), added a symbolic 18th sustainable development goal (SDG): make music! The KLV Fund made a financial contribution to the event. The Rooting Deeper Festival, held in Ede on 30 and 31 May, also received money from the fund. This initiative of the Agroecology Network of farmers, scientists and civil society organizations was arranged in part by and for alumni. Focusing on the theme of ‘good, fair food’, the day included excursions to ecological farms and workshops on fermentation. Info: www.universityfundwageningen.eu/klvfund

Graduates help students with career tips

Alumni can help students by answering questions and giving tips, for example on how to find a job. To facilitate this, an initiative called JobTalks started at the end of 2024. It has already linked dozens of alumni to students.

JobTalks uses the online Unibuddy tool. This tool lets students contact any of the recently graduated alumni who are available – some 20 at present. There have already been more than 75 chats in the past few months. ‘Recent graduates can be a source of inspiration for the current cohort of students,’ says Student Career Services manager Astrid van Noordenburg. ‘Students may have questions about the choices alumni made or what they like about their work, or about how to find a job. It’s an easy way to network as well. Our international students also like being able to contact international alumni who work in the Netherlands. It can be harder for them to find a job, so they are pleased to get tips.’ Aarzoo Kohra, from India, graduated in 2021 in plant sciences and now works for Bejo Zaden. She mostly answers questions via

the Unibuddy chat tool and via social media. ‘The questions may be about my Master’s programme, for example, or about the options for applying for jobs in agriculture. I often explain that it’s worth sending open job applications in the Netherlands. Moving house, salaries, the work-life balance – we discuss all these issues.’

JobTalks is one of the projects for the alumni platform that was launched in November 2024 by the Alumni Relations department. The various projects on the platform are designed to let alumni share their knowledge and experience to the benefit of the university. For example, alumni are helping develop courses for Wageningen Academy and they give feedback on grant applications by students starting their own company.

Info: www.wur.eu/alu-engagement

Alumni recount their stories

The CEO of an international maritime company, a project manager working for a feminist NGO in Georgia, a Wageningen couple with a market garden in Limburg – alumni end up in the most interesting positions and locations. The online series ‘Alumni Stories’ gives them a platform for sharing their experiences.

The stories are collated by Janna van Hoek, who works in the Alumni Relations department. ‘Alumni talk very enthusiastically about their time at university and the friends they made there. It’s fascinating to see what path their careers took after graduating.’ Readers can often relate to these stories and find them inspiring, finds Van Hoek. ‘For example, the story of Anna Samwel, who defends women’s rights in the Eastern

European country of Georgia, got a lot of comments on LinkedIn. I’m pleased we can offer alumni this platform to highlight their goals, their work or their company.’

Info: www.wur.eu/alumnistories

Together in Suriname

Thirty Wageningen alumni attended an alumni meeting in Paramaribo on 2 May. They listened to a presentation by Lisa Best, who is doing her PhD research on forest-water ecosystems in Suriname. The group of alumni spanned several generations, including John Hendrison who began his Tropical Forestry studies in 1961 and Crystal Lieuw A Joe who graduated as a food technologist a few months ago. ‘In 2018, a group of active alumni decided to set up a Surinamese community. They always enjoy being informed and reliving that Wageningen feeling with each other’, says coordinator Denise Spiekerman of the Alumni Relations department. The event was organized to tie in with a visit to the Anton de Kom University in Paramaribo by a delegation from Wageningen University & Research. There are plans for closer collaboration with this university, where several Wageningen alumni work. For example in the field of research, student exchanges and internships. Info: www.wur.eu/alumnievents

CONNECT!

Wageningen alumni form a worldwide network of more than 68,000 Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD graduates. There are various ways to keep in touch with WUR and one another.

LinkedIn

The LinkedIn group Alumni @Wageningen University & Research (with over 16,000 members) shares interviews with former students, job vacancies, news reports and stories. An example is the story in the #WURwoningen series about Villa Arion, a building with a rich history that is now home to two alumni.

Website

The WUR website lists a wide range of activities for alumni in the Netherlands and abroad, from Suriname to Wassenaar and from London to Wageningen. www.wur.eu/alumni

Networks

The alumni community has 14 independent study circles and networks. They include the Study Circle for Development Issues (SKOV), which organized a seminar on 15 May on the ideals of Tropical Plant Breeding students 50 years ago. Thirty-eight former students presented a reunion book at the seminar. www.wur.eu/studycircles

Newsletter

The alumni newsletter keeps you informed about developments at Wageningen, activities and stories. www.wur.eu/alumninewsletter

Moved or new job?

You can notify us of your new address or career changes via www.wur.eu/changecontactinfo

Tadele Alemu MSc, Food Technology 2023, has won the 2024 UAF Award. UAF, a foundation for refugee students and scientists, awards this annual prize to refugees who excel in their degree studies or work and their social engagement. Alemu fled Ethiopia in 2017 and now works in Wageningen as a PhD candidate in the Laboratory of Food Process Engineering.

18 December 2024

Prof. Tiny van Boekel, Food Technology 1977, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST) for his research on biochemical transformations in food. 21 November 2024

Prof. Edith Feskens, Human Nutrition 1987, professor of Global Nutrition, has been appointed Dean of Research at WUR for a term of four years. 1 April 2025

Edson Gandiwa PhD, WUR PhD 2013, has been appointed director of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks). Gandiwa obtained his doctorate in Wageningen for research on the protection of wild animals in Zimbabwe.

15 January 2025

Pol Grootswagers PhD, Nutrition and Health 2016, assistant professor of Nutrition and Ageing, has won the NAV Impact Prize for his Alpha Tool, which enables a precise calculation of the protein quality of meals. 5 November 2024

Amito Haarhuis MSc, Biology 1991, has been appointed director of the Netherlands Open Air Museum in Arnhem. 1 March 2025

Prof. Richard Immink, Plant Breeding and Crop Protection 1997, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in Plant Reproduction in a Changing Climate. 1 February 2025

Prof. Adriaan Mels, Environmental Protection (Water Purification) 1995, has been appointed professor of Water Technology and Metropolitan Solutions in the Environmental Technology chair group. He succeeds Prof. Huub Rijnaarts, who retired in 2024. 1 April 2025

Gesine Harms MSc, Food Safety 2024, received the 2024 Marina van Damme Grant from the fund founder Marina van Damme. This grant worth 9000 euros supports talented female WUR alumni in their careers. Harms, a food scientist, studies spray drying as a means of retaining flavour.

11 December 2024

‘Practical activities feel almost like a party’

Prof. Arthur Mol, Environmental Protection 1985, professor of Environmental Policy and former rector magnificus of WUR, has been appointed a member of the Delft University of Technology supervisory board with effect from 1 May. He also received an honorary doctorate from Warsaw University of Life Sciences.

28 November 2024

Elke Scholten PhD, WUR PhD 2006, has been appointed professor holding a personal chair in the Physics and Physical Chemistry of Foods chair group.

8 January 2025

Prof. Marcel Zwietering, Biotechnology 1987, professor of Food Microbiology, has won the European Food Safety Award, granted by the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP). The prize is awarded to professionals who have made an exceptional contribution to food safety in Europe.

6 May 2025

Teacher of the Year

Hannie van der Honing PhD, Biology 2005, has been chosen as Teacher of the Year for 2024. Van der Honing, who teaches Cell & Development Biology, was nominated for this title twice previously. The jury praised her dedication, passion for teaching and personal approach. Students paid tribute to her ‘exceptional social skills.’

Van der Honing became interested in teaching while studying in Wageningen. That was also when her fascination for plants started, thanks to her enthusiastic lecturers. Now she enthuses others with the same fascination: ‘If I’m doing a practical activity with my colleagues, it feels almost like a party. Students tell us our enthusiasm is infectious and that they never knew plants were so much fun.’

PHOTO DUNCAN DE FEY

PHOTO ART VAN GRONDELLE

Biology student wins two golds

Master’s student Steffie van der Peet BSc, Biology 2023, won two gold medals in track cycling in the 2025 European Championships, held in Heusden-Zolder (Belgium) in February. She came first in the team sprint and the individual keirin event. She put all she had into the final sprint, she told the Dutch broadcaster NOS afterwards. ‘I felt myself slowing in the final half. That’s such an awful feeling, to see victory slipping away. But fortunately my spurt at the end was enough.’

Combining elite sport and degree studies is not always easy, said the 24-year-old athlete in an interview with Resource: ‘Especially with compulsory practicals. But the teachers know me a bit now and are happy to help me find solutions.’ Van der Peet did her Bachelor’s at half speed; her Master’s is going a little more slowly. ‘I don’t mind as long as there is progress. Anyway, I love biology and find it really interesting.’

Alumni and current and former employees of Wageningen University & Research who have recently passed away.

Mr G.L. Ajtay MSc, Agricultural Plant Breeding 1976. 16 July 2024.

Mr S. Aliniaeifard PhD, WUR PhD 2014. 21 March 2025.

Mr P.L.T. Beuk MSc, Biology 1990. 2 March 2025.

Mr I.H. Blankers MSc, Food Technology 1988. 16 December 2024.

Mr G.F. Bom MSc, Food Technology 1974. 28 January 2025.

Mr M.A. Brinkhorst MSc, Environmental Protection (Water Purification) 1981. 16 November 2024.

Mr A. de Bruin MSc, Zootechnics 1973. 18 September 2024.

Mr G.W.W. Elbersen PhD, Soil and Fertilization Sciences 1964. 14 November 2024.

Mr J.J.L. den Engelse MSc, Rural Economics 1974. 30 October 2024.

Mr W.J.B. Faber MSc, Tropical Forestry 1967. 25 February 2025.

Prof. R.A. Feddes, Tropical Land Development 1966. 13 January 2025.

Mr J.P. Gouverneur MSc, Horticulture 1974. 10 March 2025.

Mr B.G. Grijpstra PhD, Rural Sociology of the Non-Western Regions 1970. 4 March 2025.

Ms E. Groenendijk MSc, Tropical Plant Breeding 1970. 21 January 2025.

Mr A.J.C. Groot MSc, Zootechnics 1984. 3 August 2024.

Mr A.M. van Harten PhD, Tropical Plant Breeding 1966. 12 April 2025.

Mr J.J. Helder MSc, Zootechnics 1975. 7 March 2025.

Mr A.B.A.M. van Hellemond MSc, Food Technology 1974. 28 March 2025.

Ms J. Heyting MSc, Horticulture 1959. 20 December 2024.

Mr M.A. Hoogerwerf MSc, Forestry 1966. 13 November 2024.

Mr P. ten Hove MSc, Forestry 1962. 9 November 2024.

Mr W. Huisman PhD, Farming Technology 1969. 14 January 2025.

Mr W.G. Keltjens PhD, Soil & Fertilization Sciences 1971. 7 November 2024.

Ms H.M. van der Kooij PhD, Molecular Life Sciences 2013. 1 April 2025.

Mr H.A. Kuiper MSc, Food Technology 1971. 6 October 2024.

Mr M. Leenstra MSc, Rural Development Studies 2003. 8 January 2025.

Mr R.A. Leijder MSc, Tropical Plant Breeding 1961. 9 November 2024.

Ms A. van Loon-Vredenduin MSc, Landscape Architecture 1972. 29 December 2024.

Mr J.M. Louwen MSc, Phytopathology 1986. 5 May 2025.

Ms S. Muslimatun PhD, WUR PhD 2001. 21 April 2025.

Mr J. van Netten MSc, Plant Breeding 1977. 25 August 2024.

Prof. J.E. Parlevliet, Tropical Plant Breeding 1960. 2 December 2024.

Mr A. Parzer MSc, Farming Technology 1966. 6 April 2025.

Prof. R.L.M. Pierik, Horticulture 1963. 6 March 2025.

Mr G.G. Potman MSc, Forestry 1990. 9 November 2024.

Mr L.B. Rijtema MSc, Forestry 1970. 7 April 2025.

Mr K. Schonewille MSc, Dairy Production 1969. 30 December 2024.

Ms M. Seifi Kalhor PhD, WUR PhD 2016. 21 March 2025.

Mr L.A.J. Slootmaker MSc, Plant Breeding 1967. 8 September 2024.

Mr R.M.J. de Vis PhD, WUR PhD 2001. 11 December 2024.

Mr K. Vuursteen MSc, Tropical Rural Economics 1968. 30 December 2024.

Mr P. Walstra PhD, Zootechnics 1967. 19 September 2024.

Mr A.J.J. van Welderen MSc, Baron Rengers, Rural Economics 1970. 2 October 2024.

Mr P.J.M. van Wesemael MSc, Rural Economics 1975. 29 June 2024.

Mr G.J. Zondervan MSc, Tropical Forestry 1974. 18 December 2024.

Mr F.C. Zuidema MSc, Forestry 1962. 22 October 2024.

Mr J.J. Zuiderveen Borgesius MSc, Forestry 1974. 7 February 2025.

If you would like to inform us of the death of a fellow former student or relative, you can email alumni@wur.nl or send a death announcement to the Alumni Department, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB Wageningen,The Netherlands.

New Arboretum director

Dennis Gudden MSc, Land Use Planning Sciences 2003, has been appointed the new director of Belmonte Arboretum in Wageningen as of 1 July. He succeeds Dedde Smid. Gudden wants to expand the cultural and educational activities and focus on research and education in the areas of climate change and biodiversity. Gudden: ‘The place is particularly special for me personally as I got married here last year.’

Olympic champion opens museum

On 14 March 2025, Annemiek van Vleuten MSc, Animal Sciences 2007, opened her own cycling museum. The museum is in a location that has a special meaning for her: Mastbergen Fietsen in Renkum, the shop where she bought her first racing bike in 2006. Visitors can admire nearly all the prizes she won in the course of her cycling career. Admission to the museum is free during the bike shop opening hours.

Van Vleuten is considered to be one of the most successful Dutch cyclists ever. She won a gold and a silver at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Zafira

Jan Siemonsma PhD, Tropical Plant Breeding 1974, has explored all of the Netherlands in the course of his 536 trips by bike and on foot. His latest collection of stories criss-crosses the country again, as he visits Muiden, Makkum and Lytje Pole and cycles around the Scheldt and IJsselmeer. In 68 vignettes, he describes the unusual people and objects he encountered in his travels. Bookmundo, 18.95 euros

‘We did our best’

Our time in space

IJan-Paul Rosenberg MSc, Rural Sociology 1992, is Zeist’s city poet. In 2018, he won the Turing National Poetry Competition. In his latest collection of poems, he takes readers through landscapes and dimensions up to the edge of the Milky Way. ‘These epic-lyrical poems invite a cosmic view as well as reflection on humanity and its place in the universe.’

De Arbeiderspers, 19.99 euros

Amulets and earthenware

The Tropical Plant Breeding degree programme was for people who wanted to make the world a better place. What motivated them? And what has remained of that idealism? Thirty-eight alumni who started their degrees between 1965 and 1978 recount their experiences in a book about 50 years of development work. Order via www.florae.nu, 32.50 euros. Students pay 15.00 euros; email info@florae.nu

Connection with South Limburg

Herman van Steenwijk MSc, Land Use Planning Sciences 1995, took photographs of the brightest stars and looked for links with topics such as nature, the Romans and the history of mining. He hopes his book of photos of the South Limburg countryside will inspire readers to ‘maintain and improve the most beautiful night skies of the Netherlands’. The book is available in Dutch and English, with an introduction by the author Anya Niewierra. Self-published, 39.90 euros

Pieter Stoer MSc, Tropical Land Development 1989, takes children aged nine and over on an exciting exploration of Friesland’s past. The adventure begins when two schoolboys come across a golden amulet with mysterious runes. The secrets of the amulet lead them to Frisian museums, the legendary figure Great Pier and the mummies of Wiuwert. Elikser, 22.50 euros

The Oosterwierum secret

The father of Catharinus van der Werf MSc, Agricultural Plant Breeding 1990, was in the Resistance in Friesland during the Second World War. This book is not just about him but also about the De Boer family, who helped hide Jewish children, about the arrest and escape of Jackie de Wilde, a half-Jewish butcher from Sneek, and about Oosterwierum’s sense of community, which was so important to the village during the war. Elikser, 28.50 euros

BOOKS BY ALUMNI

‘A rainforest is one huge world of art’

Toon Rijkers, sculptor

Biology 1986

‘As a child, I was always outdoors, exploring the place with the boy from next door. I was incredibly interested in plants and beasties, so I decided to do a degree in biology. I chose Wageningen because the degrees there often had a link with nature management. While at university, I did courses in carving stone and modelling clay and gypsum.

I’ve always liked working with my hands.

‘For my PhD research in the Forest Ecology and Management chair group, I spent 14 months in virgin rainforest in French Guyana. I investigated how trees in varying stages, from seedlings to mature trees, have adapted to differing light conditions. I learned to look closely and I got a lot of inspiration: the rainforest is one huge world of art. It’s fascinating to see how many

different shapes you can detect in fruits, tree trunks and insects.

‘After I got my doctorate, I applied for a big grant but the project didn’t get accepted. That was a blow at first, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It prompted me to investigate the possibility of switching from science to art.

I decided to become a sculptor and did a part-time programme in Sculpting in Stone at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

‘Now I sculpt portraits of people and animals in stone and bronze. I also make modern plaques for private clients and project developers. The plaque tells the story of the occupants, the building or the location and gives the built environment extra cachet.’

Migratory birds take a break at water purification plants in Egypt

Migratory birds use lakes and ponds on their routes as places to rest and regain strength, but these wetlands have shrunk to only about half the area they covered 100 years ago.

Marc Naguib, professor of Behavioural Ecology at Wageningen, and Khaled Noby, a PhD candidate and director of an Egyptian nature conservation organization, investigated whether water purification plants could serve as an alternative. Noby counted the number of birds in summer and winter at 25 such facilities along the Nile, a key migration route for

birds. Dozens of species, such as the northern shoveller and the barn swallow, used the treatment plants in large numbers. Older installations in particular were popular. Naguib: ‘They often have flood basins or ponds into which the untreated water flows. Algae grow there, as well as various small creatures that are an important food source for many bird species.’

Modern treatment plants are often enclosed and therefore less appealing to migratory birds. ‘Water is scarce in Egypt,’ says Noby. ‘Modern purification techniques in enclosed

installations help maximize the amount of water recycled as drinking water and for use in agriculture. That creates a dilemma, as it is at the expense of habitats for birds.’ The two researchers believe water purification and nature conservation can go together, however. They recommend keeping the open water basins when upgrading purification plants in areas where there are no naturally occurring wetlands. There should also preferably be vegetation along the edges for shelter, to allow the birds to forage and rest. Info: marc.naguib@wur.nl