On Wednesday 3 January, the Netherlands had to deal with the first storm of 2018. This one has since gone back down. What is the damage? Boerenbusiness made a call.
Looking at the general picture, the damage was not too bad. However, there are always exceptions. It turned out that the damage is very different per region.
Damage amounts to €10 million
180 claims were received at insurer Interpolis. About 50% of those reports came from the greenhouse horticulture sector, the other 50% related to stables and sheds. The damage is provisionally estimated at €7 to €10 million.
Most damage reports came from Bleiswijk (South Holland). This can be explained because there are many greenhouses here. Other damage reports came from Utrecht, Brabant, Limburg and Friesland, reports Adri Witlox, head of agricultural insurance at Interpolis.
Local damage
Jaap Roskam of Topteam reports that 2 serious damage reports have been made to them. For example, one of his customers had the rear facade knocked out of the farm and another the glass was knocked out of the side facade. In his working area (south-western Netherlands), however, the damage was generally not too bad. He reports that the damage was very localized and that the storm was more severe in other areas.
Mainly broken window
Marien Boersma, director of AgriVer, also reports that the differences per region are quite large. He has received damage reports from Zeeland, Utrecht, North Holland and Brabant. This mainly concerns broken windows in greenhouses.
As far as the crops are concerned, they are mainly damaged by the broken windows (as a result the temperature and humidity in the greenhouses change). Today, Thursday 4 January an inventory will be made of the exact damage.
AgriVer's office building also suffered from the storm. A number of tiles have been blown off the roof. Boersma: "It is still early in the year. Let's hope it stays that way and that it is not a harbinger for 2018."
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