How they fell in love

Loet Paulussen and Ivo Helwegen met each other in 2016 as first-year students at Wageningen. Loet had started the Bachelor’s programme in Forest and Nature Conservation and Ivo was doing Management, Economics and Consumer Studies. When they started at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), their student houses were back to back, so they were actually neighbours. Their back gardens afforded quick access to parties at both houses, and so they became a happy couple before their first year was over.

Scottish adventure

Ivo: "Before starting at WUR, we didn’t have that much of an affinity with agriculture yet. Loet chose her study programme because she was interested in nature, and I chose mine because I was interested in food chains. During our first years in Wageningen, however, our interest in the agricultural sector developed organically. This may simply have been because of how Wageningen exposes you to it.

After finishing our BSc studies, we got the idea of doing something abroad together for a while. We were open to anything but really wanted to get involved in some kind of project, not just travel. Through connections of connections we met another couple from Wageningen, Jesse Opdam and Jessica Snoek, who were managing a community garden on the west coast of Scotland: the West Ardnamurchan Community Garden. They were returning to Wageningen and were looking for new horticulturalists and managers for the market garden they had left behind. That is also how we came into contact with the village committee that oversaw that garden. We did not have any experience to offer them yet, but our eagerness to learn and our perseverance made up for that to an ample degree. We left for Scotland in 2020, taking with us this promise and attitude.

West Ardnamurchan Community Garden

The 2.5 acre community garden already had all the infrastructure for growing food in place, and everything was beautifully laid out, which afforded us the opportunity to gain experience in the professional cultivation of growing vegetables, fruits and herbs. The idea behind starting the market garden had been to reduce food miles - the nearest large supermarket was a 2-hour drive away - and the entire harvest was for parcel holders from the local community, passers-by who visited the little shop at the edge of the plot, and for local restaurants.

It was fantastic work to be involved with. On the one hand, we were doing a lot of physical labour like sowing, planting, tending and harvesting all crops, but on the other hand the work also involved considerable cognitive challenges; for example, how do you get the crop planning right, where do natural processes come in handy for crop protection if you do not use pesticides, and which marketing routes are suitable for this kind of small-scale agriculture.

We ended up working there for two years. During that time, the idea of starting or developing a place like this ourselves started growing in our minds. As there were not enough prospects for this in Scotland and we had decided to continue studying, we returned to Wageningen. We were buoyed by the idea that, if such a profession was possible in Scotland, it can also be done in the Netherlands.

Back in Wageningen our dream started taking shape

Back in Wageningen, we both started the Master’s programme in Climate Studies. During those two years, we noticed how easily we could focus our studies on the courses we were personally interested in: community farming and short chains. Our course and project choices as well as our thesis topics allowed us to get to know more about the scientific background of these subjects. At that stage already, we were tentatively casting our eyes around for a piece of land on which we would be able to start our own commercial organic vegetable garden. For her thesis, Loet conducted empirical research at over twenty food forests in the Netherlands, and she eagerly spread the word that she dreamt of having an own vegetable garden. One food forest farmer in Limburg was interested. A few years ago, the former LEUKER dairy farm in Baexem changed course, making a complete transition to agroforestry. Future sales are intended for local consumers, but as great diversity is important in this regard, the farm has drawn in other parties as well. The vegetables we grow supplement this diverse system in a valuable way, so we have managed to acquire a long-term land lease and start our own business: de Groentegaard.

Establishing our own vegetable garden

In the autumn of 2023, we moved to Limburg and got going establishing our organic vegetable garden. This past year we have been busy with all the activities that this involves, such as laying out the entire infrastructure, the permanent cultivation beds and building and maintaining a loyal client base. The first year of cultivation is now over. In 2024, there were sixty families from the region and three local restaurants that shared in the harvest from de Groentegaard every week. Over the next few years, we have set the goal of gradually expanding production and sales so that in one to two years' time, we can make a stable income from our business. You can witness the transformation our plot has undergone during the first year in this video and follow developments there on LinkedIn or Instagram (text in Dutch) too.

What was it like setting up a business together

We spend a lot of time together. Not only do we live together, we are fulltime colleagues too. This, of course, means that the line between work and personal life is a bit blurry. It is important for us to safeguard this balance, but we are managing that well. We take care not to talk about de Groentegaard all the time, especially when we go off on outings or holidays. Apart from this, it is great to shape our shared dream together... and we complement each other well. It is a great experience to conceive of and build a place, and to be able to share this experience with each other. We are sure now that we are a good team, both as colleagues and as partners.

Wageningen still plays a role

Building on the foundation our theoretical studies gave us, we have chosen to follow a practical profession. Yet we still apply the knowledge we acquired through our studies at WUR in our work every day. For example: our vegetable garden is based on agro-ecological principles entirely and no artificial fertilisers or pesticides are used. Consequently, we address the challenges inherent in food production using natural processes. This means we put the soil at the heart of our system, and this is complex. We make use of all the knowledge soil research has given us and choose to disturb to intervene in or disturb the soil as little as possible. Also, the vegetable garden feels like a big laboratory, with the cultivation we do being a kind of never ending experiment. Given over 80 kinds of crops, there are a great many options in terms of planning, crop combinations and efficient practices so we can do a lot of experimenting, trying out what works best.

In the background, there are many developments at organisations and in the academic world that are helping this kind of community-based agriculture along. Examples are ongoing studies, coalitions of innovative companies, the monitoring of programmes and platforms for the sharing of knowledge; the sector is seeking answers, and in this manner it is developing at considerable pace. We enjoy being involved in this in the background, and almost invariably we notice the involvement of or a link to the well-known university in Wageningen. It reminds us again of how useful our background in Wageningen has been in establishing our own business in agriculture, a view we certainly agree on.

It is nice to find that we meet many other WUR alumni in this network. For example, we did not yet have a social circle in Limburg because we are not from there, but Jesse and Jessica, the couple that led us to Scotland in 2020, happened to come and live 15 minutes away from us at the Herenboerderij in Weert last year. In this way, our past in Wageningen still brings us social enjoyment even now!"