Technical support in the development of sophisticated cultivation concepts, for new strawberry varieties of breeding company Flevo Berry.

For Agriterra I visited Rwanda 3 times. My assignment is to teach five different farmers cooperatives about growing strawberries and to teach them about good agricultural practises. February 2020 we planted the first 5000 Bravura and Furore plants as a trial at the fields of 2 cooperatives. In February 2021 the next batch of 70.000 Bravura plants was planted by 5 cooperatives with together hundreds of farmer members in Rwanda. Due Covid-19, training of the farmers and support during planting in 2021 was done by frequently remote coaching.

On November 25, 2014, I presented my book named Liefde voor Aardbeien (Love for Strawberries).For more than 10 years I had planned to write a book about strawberries. No, not a cookbook, although culinary inspiration is certainly part of the content. Not even a book just for the real professionals, although they also can be inspired by it. It is a book for everyone who loves strawberries and possibly tries to grow them.But it is also a book for anyone who wants to learn something about the connection between the weather conditions and the growth and flowering of nature. Guided by the vulnerable process a strawberry plant goes through, from young plants to ripe fruits. Strawberries have a hate-love relationship with the weather and you can see that in the book too. The weather is the 'common thread' in the strawberry book.

Since August 2017 a few short periods every year, I'm working as a volunteer to help strawberry growers in developing countries. For this organisation, until now, I visited growers in Armenia (2 times) and Nepal (2 times). By remote coaching, I supported growers in Peru and Philippines.

The Aardbeienacademie (Strawberry academy) was founded, because many consumers who wanted to grow their own strawberries needed knowledge about that. People could buy some strawberryplants, from different tasty varieties. With a little knowledge I helped the people to grow the most tasteful strawberries they ever had tasted. Two years after founding the Strawberry academy, more and more foreign growers became interested for getting consulted by me. Since 2015 I'm focussed on consulting foreign strawberry growers. Most of them are changing their farm from traditional outdoor culture , to substrate culture in greenhouses, plastic tunnels or just outdoor table-top systems .

In 1983 I started my own company, specialized in growing strawberryfruit and different types of strawberryplants. At the end of the last century I was the first strawberry grower in The Netherlands having a Milieukeur (for a better environment) certificate for strawberries. Than I shifted my focus to more flavorful strawberry varieties.In 2014 my book Liefde voor Aardbeien (Love for Strawberries) was published. My lifelong experience and passion for strawberries in 320 pages word and image expressed.Since 2015 until november 2018, I was working for a large part of every year as a grower in the Bremen region in Germany. At one of the largest strawberry companies in Germany, The objective of my work in Germany was to achieve the best possible result for the company and also to achieve the best possible taste and quality of the picked strawberries.Foreign challenges appeal to me very much. In 2016/2017 during 4 months, I was in China, supporting a 5 hectare modern glass strawberry company to make a good start. In September 2018 I returned to the same company, but invited by another department, to organize a training about growing Junebearing varieties under Chinese conditions. In December 2018, I was in Colombia to give a training about growing strawberries under Colombian conditions.In addition to all my activities, I am always looking for new challenges. Do you think we can do something for each other? Please contact me.

Advising a strawberry company with an airconditioned greenhouse in Turkmenistan. The company is growing everbearing strawberry varieties year round.

During the international horticultural exhibition Floriade in Venlo, for the dutch strawberry sector I was the ambassador. Besides the communicative work as an ambassador, I was co-responsible for the development and implementation of the sector presentation.

An association of entrepreneurs with the aim of a healthy economic, social and cultural climate in the municipality of Oirschot. In this organization it's important to create and facilitate cross-overs within a large diversity of entrepreneurs, institutions and organizations. All initiatives fit in with the monumental, cultural, burgundy and / or rural character of the municipality of Oirschot