This happened with part of the farmland

In 20 years, a lot of land has been added in the Netherlands for living, working and infrastructure. This land mainly comes from the agricultural sector. That is what the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) writes on the basis of an analysis of land use in the Netherlands.

In 2019, more than 492.000 hectares were used for living, working and infrastructure. That is 14,6% of the total acreage in the Netherlands. About 20 years ago this was 13% (433.000 hectares). The built-up area consists of 47% residential area, 43% work area and 10% infrastructure.

In particular, the area of ​​activity grew rapidly (+22%). This mainly concerns the industrial sites, of which more than 25.000 hectares were added. The map below from Statistics Netherlands shows that most expansion took place in the west of the Netherlands.

Not just buildings
If we go further back in time, we see that agricultural land shrank by 1980 hectares in the period from 2018 to 251.947. That land has not only been used for buildings, by the way. In the period from 2012 to 2015, 9.000 hectares of agricultural land went to nature and 9.000 to buildings. It is not for nothing that voices are raised for agricultural acreage to protect.

Anne-Jan Doorn

Anne Jan Doorn is an arable expert at Boerenbusiness. He writes about the various arable farming markets and also focuses on the land and energy market.

aj.doorn@boerenbusiness. Nl

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