Inspirational idea: increasing farm resilience through crop associations

Ekoto is an organic farm in the south of the Netherlands. On seven hectares of land, they grow arable crops including over 30 different types of vegetables and herbs in strip cropping. Their ‘mission’ is to ‘accelerate the transition to a sustainable and transparent supply chain’.

The farm was set up by young farmer Ivar van Dorst in 2020. His motivation was to provide local, organic alternatives to the products we buy in everyday life, such as tea and beans. Ivar grew up on the family farm and as his parents already had left farming, he was well aware of the challenges linked to the profession. “I also had in mind from the start that I needed to make a living out of the farm, otherwise it would not be sustainable," Ivar said. "I also needed to find ways to ensure the farm could cope with external variables such as the changing climate.”

In his first year of 2020, Ivar decided to start with a technical approach, focusing on which crops grow best next to each other. Each year since, he has added other elements. For example, exploring what works from a financial perspective and how to maintain employment on the farm. As part of his business model, Ivar innovates with sales based on customer demand. He supplies local businesses with products such as vegetable box schemes, zero-waste shops, cafés and bakeries with a variety of produce, he also has a shop and offers a ‘pick-your-own’ service. 

The strip cropping makes up a rotation of five crops: a cereal crop (mainly oats), a fruit crop (pumpkin), a legume crop to fix nitrogen, several vegetables and an ‘experimental crop’ as the fifth. Ivar and his team apply strip cropping on most of the fields. They test combinations of crops, which can be most effective. For the strips which are six metres wide, and to accommodate the three metre wide machinery, GPS is used to ensure they are in the same place every year. The strip crop method increases biodiversity and makes it more difficult for pests and diseases to spread. This means lower inputs are needed and creates a healthier environment for the people working on the farm and better products for the consumer. The fields also have flowering borders, which attract beneficial insects and serve as a buffer against invading snails and slugs. 

Ivar has been experimenting with different varieties of beans and the combination of the bean crop with yarrow and camomile for tea has proven very successful. Even though broad beans suffer greatly from aphids, the nearby herbs and flowers attract ladybirds that feast on the aphids and naturally limit the damage to the bean crop. He says: “Since we moved the herbal strips close to the beans, we have certainly seen an increase in natural enemies and a reduction in crop damage to the beans due to pests.” 

As some companies have shown a particular interest in certain ancient bean varieties, the farm is now running a research project with local funding to experiment further with beans as an effective crop for strip cropping. They obtained 50 ancient bean varieties from the seed bank and are conducting field trials. 

Ivar and his team would now like to take this innovative business model based on strip cropping further. “I would really love to continue scaling up the cultivation of beans in Europe, tackling the distribution and business-model side and promoting beans as a viable crop for European farmers,” he said.

Contact: Ivar van Dorst: ivar@ekoto.nl

Ivar is a member of the EU CAP Network Focus Group 'Crop associations including Milpa and protein crops'. He has also won several awards for his entrepreneurship including the Food100 award – in 2023 he was in the top three of the one hundred game-changers in the agri-food industry selected.