Tuinderij De Stroom is an organic vegetable farm in a small village in the Netherlands. It is owned and managed by three young women who have proven that it is still possible to start land-based farming activities with low financial investments.

In 2005, Welmoet de Waard (35) and Angelien Hertgers (33) were looking for land where they could start producing vegetables for their own vegetable box scheme. They wanted to rent the and, since they did not have money to buy it. They had a look at several pieces of land around Utrecht, since there they expected they would be able to find a market for their vegetables. Angelien: “None of the places really attracted us, until we came to Hemmen. We immediately fell in love with this beautiful and historical village! It was also fantastic that we could make an agreement with the organic arable farmer in the village. We would rent a small piece of his land and we would be part of his larger rotation scheme.”

But there are more synergies of working together with arable farmer André Jurrius. Welmoet: “We did not have to plough or fertilise the land and we did not need many machines to start with.” But the cooperation goes further: last year the vegetable girls (groentmeiden) how they call themselves moved into a part of André Jurrius´ sheds, where they have a small shop and even built a small cold storage. Welmoet: “It was a great opportunity for us since we did not have any buildings ourselves. Now we pack our 280 boxes in this shed as well and we have lunch and coffee breaks together with the workers of André. That is really nice!”