Guidance Grassland and cultivated land
Index section Grassland and cultivated land
- Subsection: Grassland and cultivated land: area cultivated
- Subsection: Grassland
- Subsection: Cultivated land
Introduction
The agricultural area (grassland and cultivated land) is used for livestock farming, arable farming, horticulture and nursery crops. Almost two-thirds of the area of the Netherlands is taken up by fields of grass, arable fields, horticultural holdings, nurseries producing trees and garden plants, and bulb fields.
Area
A large part of the agricultural area is taken up by plots of grassland which, in the low-lying parts of the country are delimited by drainage ditches and canals rather than by hedges or fences and therefore give rise to a very open (i.e. few visual barriers) landscape. This is the most common landscape in the carr peat area. The remainder of the agricultural area consists of open arable land with few trees (mostly in the marine clay areas), and an agricultural area that is visually more broken up by clumps of trees and wooded banks: this so-called half-open agricultural area is typical of the higher-lying sandy soils. In this landscape there is alternation between grassland and arable land.
Use of grassland
The intensive land use and the landscape changes have both had significant impact on nature - in the grassland areas and in the remaining cultivated land. Round about 1950 much of the grassland used was damp and hardly fertilised (so-called semi-natural grassland). This type of grassland is home to many plant species and butterflies. Meadow birds are also very common on this grassland, especially if there is fertilised grassland nearby. The semi-natural grasslands mostly disappeared before 1975.
The use of cultivated land
Rye and oats were very important crops before World War II. But they have now almost vanished and the area under silage maize has increased hugely.
Many arable weeds have become rare, and many bird species that nest on fields or on the edges of fields have declined, including the corn bunting and ortolan bunting. The common hamster, which lives in cereal fields, has almost disappeared.
References
- LEI en CBS (1999). Landbouw, milieu en economie. Landbouw-Economisch Instituut, Den Haag en Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. Voorburg/Heerlen.
- Chamberlain, D.E., R.J. Fuller, R.G.H. Bunce, J.C. Duckworth en M. Shrub (2000). Changes in the abundance of farmland birds in relation to the timing of agricultural intensification in England and Wales. Journal of Applied Ecology, 37:771-788.
Relevant sections and indicators in the Environmental Data Compendium
Relevant information outside of the Environmental Data Compendium
- Introduction to the Waste Disposal theme
- More relevant information about developments in agriculture can be found at: www.cbs.nl/en/
