In September, Lorna (Parker, Great Fen Restoration Manager) and I, joined colleagues from Natural England and the Broads Authority on a four-day study visit to the Netherlands. We went to meet individuals and organisations that are working to promote paludiculture (wet farming) and particularly typha (bullrush, also known as reedmace and cattail) growing. This is both as a response to climate change and to create new opportunities for farmers and land managers in wetlands. A mirror to our own efforts in the Great Fen.

Our guide, inspiration and general “fixer” was the wonderful Aldert Van Weeren. Aldert is a typha grower near Amsterdam, as well as being an entrepreneur, businessman, champion of wet farming, and policy lobbyist working to create institutional support for farmers, growers and paludiculture. Lorna and I knew Aldert from several UK and international wetland conferences and symposia and through his visit to the Great Fen last year.

Following an early start and rendezvous at Harwich, we travelled to the Hook of Holland. Our colleague Catherine Weightman from Natural England skilfully navigated the motorways and byroads to take us to Eilanden, south of Amsterdam, our centre for the study visit.

Another early start next morning, with the thermometer steadily rising, saw us travelling to the province of North Holland, and to a trial project created by the Amstel, Gooi and Vecht Water Board at De Korremof Farm. Here they are testing how wet farming crops (bulrush, reed and peat moss) can prevent soil subsidence and loss of soils. In a country which is predominantly below sea level, any rise in sea levels due to global warming cannot afford loss through soil subsidence, yet land levels in the Netherlands are still declining due to dry farming systems. The polders are largely used to support the dairy industry, being used to produce hay and silage to feed cattle. Regional authorities and water boards in North Holland are therefore exploring wet farming systems as a remedy to soil subsidence and assessing  the income potential to begin to wean farmers away from dairy production and dry farming systems. A huge challenge! 

At De Korremof, we met Aldert, conservationists and academics involved in the trial. Our discussions, with the heat steadily rising, ranged over many subjects of interest to us in the Fens. We covered water management and water management technology, pumps and water flow; paludiculture site preparation; typha growing, harvesting and machinery; crop development; end-use applications of paludicultural crops; farm incomes and subsidy frameworks; and – of course – biodiversity in wetlands.

Lorna and I could only wonder at the abundance of water, even at the driest time of year, in the vast system of drains and canals, and the amazing micro-management of water levels – it’s not unusual in a polder to be able to control water levels in adjacent drains to differentials of a few centimetres. Just add water and it's easy (well, easier than in the Fens).

Admittedly wilting a little from the heat, we moved on to the beautiful Ilperveld visitor centre and nature reserve in the North Holland province, managed by the Landscap Noord-Holland (regional nature conservation body).

This nature reserve had been created on meadow peatlands, used historically as a vast rubbish dump for Amsterdam (not dissimilar to the history of our own Ramsey Heights nature reserve). However, in recent years, the land has been restored to functioning wetland using nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change through rewetting peatlands. These are now rich in sphagnum and other wetland species of flora and fauna. We met a representative from VIPNL – Veenweiden Innovatie Programma Nederland - a peat meadows innovation program in the Netherlands. 

We were taken on a fascinating three-hour boat trip by staff from Landscap Noord-Holland to explore the wetlands. Unfortunately, not as idyllic as it sounds being an aluminium flat bottom boat with no shade in 37° of heat! It was wonderful to explore however and part of the reserve included wet woodland with impressive sphagnum mounds.

The following morning  (another baking hot day) we visited Aldert's polder south of Amsterdam. Here he is experimenting with typha growing and recording the greenhouse gas (GHG) flux associated with wet farming. Water levels on this polder are an incredible 4.7m below the level of the Ijsselmeer lake. Historically, the land was used for waste disposal and toxic chemicals have been found on site. Aldert has also been investigating the ability of typha and reed to strip harmful chemicals from the water, relevant to our own work as we try to clean the water entering Woodwalton Fen NNR. The highlight of this visit was undoubtedly an initiation into Aldert’s system of propagating typha from seed. This is something Lorna and I are very interested in for our new wetlands and paludiculture site at Speechly’s Farm.

Aldert found that soaking the typha seed in water for 2-3 weeks and exposing the resultant mixture to cool nights and warm days enables the seeds to reach a pre-germination status, the seed is then ready for dispersal. The dispersal method is simple and manual: a handful of seed mixture to a watering can full of water which is then broadcast walking through a wetted planting area. Once on the ground, the seed will begin to germinate very quickly, and tiny green strands can be observed. This manual process could easily be scaled up and mechanised using a tanker sprayer with an adapted nozzle (so that not too much water is taken up).

In the afternoon, we visited a paludiculture project adjacent to the Noordhollandsch Kanaal where the University of Utrecht is conducting field trials of potential crops. Here we saw plantings of typha latifolia (broad leaf typha) and typha australis (narrow leaf typha), sedge, miscanthus, yellow flowered Sylphium, reed canary grass, willow, and alder. As with our own trials, some test crops had been more successful than others, but once again the key to success was water level management. We also saw an ingenious technology - lasers, powered by wafer-thin solar panels, beamed between tower and receptor, which act as a geese deterrent.

In the evening we received a presentation from Aldert Van Weeran on the end-use products derived from paludiculture, such as building materials, insulation board, etc. The Great Fen has samples of many of these, and they will be featured in the Tiny House (Mobile Inspiration Hub) that is being commissioned as part of our Peatland Progress project.

The next day, we reluctantly left our host and this beautiful country, travelling to the Hook and back to Harwich by ferry, for a very late return to Cambridgeshire. It was truly a fascinating trip. We had learned a huge amount, met many interested and committed people, and sampled innovation and ingenuity Dutch-style. We certainly hope to return, although with luck our next visit won't coincide with a heat wave!