Should we send warships or Growboxx plantcocoons® to Africa?

My father – born in 1930 – had to leave school when he was 11, at the start of the 2nd World War. As a grower he taught me a simple truth: ‘never spend your money on milk, it’s better to buy a cow’.  

Over the past few months we´ve seen horrifying images of thousands of refugees from Africa, trying to find a better life in Europe. Europe decided to send warships. Is that the right response? The real problem is not the vessels transporting the refugees, but the desire to leave the African continent. 

Is the world’s water stress situation hopeless or hopeful?

Last week was a very interesting week. The United Nations published a report about the dramatic water situation in the world. Here you can read the report. A few weeks ago, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite Foundation published the ‘Global Opportunity report 2015’. Sir Branson’s team has analyzed that indeed the water stress is one of world’s biggest challenges. 

Dutch milk as healthy as cola

This month I heard on the news about the opening of a new milkfactory in Holland. They are processing milk from their suppliers to all kinds of milk derivates like cheese, yogurt, etc. The news was that they have created a new type of filter that cleans the milk from all the bacteria’s. The spokesperson said “now the milk remains 7 days fresh, because there are no bacteria’s in it”.

A journey to a better world

In the November blog I have tried to explain about the difference between deserts and manmade deserts. A manmade desert is in fact degraded farmland, caused by the influence of man. Our view is that  if man can destroy it, man can recover it. That is a simple truth. This is what Groasis stands for: make the 2 billion hectares (5 billion acres) of degraded farmland productive again.

Christmas thoughts

When I was a kid, I was taught that the devil was a dangerous man. What he actually did was not really clear, we were just taught to be afraid of something ‘bad’. In my teenage years, I started to think that this whole concept of a bad man - with the name Satan – was a joke. A way to manipulate me. 

The difference between “deserts” and “manmade deserts”

People tend to think that all deserts are more or less the same. But there are big differences between them. Some deserts – for instance in Somalia - seem dry, but they aren’t. They get a lot of rain – up to 40 inches (1,000 mm) -  it only falls in a very short period. Some deserts – like the North of Chile – never have rain. Some deserts have temperatures that are never below +32⁰F (0⁰C) – e.g. the Middle East -  others – like the Los Monegros Desert in Zaragoza Spain – can go up to +113⁰F (+45⁰C) during Summer, but have Winter night temperatures as low as +5⁰F (-15⁰C!)

You can’t eat money

Every day people work hard to make money and comply with their responsibilities. This is good as it keeps our societies going. However, as most of us are tied up in those daily obligations, we sometimes tend to forget where it all starts. Especially when you live in a city, you start to think that a city is important and a basic entity of our society. However, it isn’t.