Dutch greenhouses have cut their gas consumption by almost a quarter, while 40 percent of the sector, especially flower growers, are in trouble. Some greenhouse crops could move to Spain, Morocco, Kenya or even Hungary.
Thanks to greenhouses, the Netherlands is the world’s second largest agricultural exporter after the United States. The €8 billion industry has been based on cheap gas, but now the country is facing a crisis that is accelerating the switch to other energy sources, while many businesses could go bankrupt.
With Putin restricting gas supplies in response to Western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine, European prices have risen more than twenty-fivefold from a year ago.
According to the industry group Glastuinbouw Nederland, up to 40 percent of its 3,000 members are in financial difficulty. This could mean fewer off-season fruit, vegetables and flowers being sold in European supermarkets and production moving to warmer countries such as Spain, Morocco and Kenya.
The Dutch greenhouse crop boom is a legacy of the Groningen gas field, which was Europe’s largest gas field for decades until earthquakes in the 2010s caused it to shut down production.
The Dutch heat their glasshouses with gas, while Polish producers use coal, the price of which has also soared. This could put some Hungarian growers in a difficult situation: many horticultural producers of sprouted vegetables could even gain a significant competitive advantage on international markets, as in Hungary, a large part of the heating of sprouted vegetable greenhouses is done with geothermal energy, i.e. thermal coal.