IN PALMER, Alaska, farmer VanderWeele tends to his 200 acres. Ben and Suus VanderWeele, along with their children and grandchildren, are head and shoulders the largest potato producers in all of Alaska. Van der Weele is a Zeeland name, Wissenkerke, Veere, Ellemeet, Colijnsplaat. About a thousand Van der Weeles live in the Netherlands, another approx. 500 in America. There they are spelled VanderWeele. Just like farmer Ben. He emigrated in 1967 together with Suus and two suitcases.
Alaska is big, Holland fits more than 40 times in it. There is often much difference in weather types between cities like Anchorage, Juneau and Fairbanks. As soon as Ben and Suus set foot on Palmer’s soil, in the middle of nowhere, they needed to know everything about temperature, rain, snow, wind and hours of daylight. They decided to collect that knowledge themselves and share it daily with the NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who, out of gratitude, eventually issued them an award.
WHY ALASKA, and why Palmer? In the sixties an immigrant had to have a sponsor, for five years, and back in the Netherlands Ben had met a farmer from Palmer, who was willing to help him and his girlfriend Suus, she of the Verhoeks family from Leiden. In Holland, farming was already under pressure back then, Ben’s parents had sold the family farm, so why not?
All of Alaska now eats VanderWeele’s potatoes, and a variety of vegetables, carrots, strawberries, plus today the family also produces rye and barley for whiskey and beer. Just about all supermarkets in the state have VanderWeele on their shelves, because the yields are invariably huge. No wonder, they’re farming Wageningen style, as developed by the world’s pre-eminent agro university there. Dutch farmers currently export the most fruit and vegetables in the world, after only America, and are the number one seed exporters. No other country has become so expert in how to feed a growing world population, using a minimum of water and no pesticides.
WHEN a few years ago the Dutch ambassador visited the VanderWeele family, to compliment them on their great success, Ben VanderWeele was unimpressed. He didn’t take a moment to quickly change his clothes. Thirteen generations of VanderWeele are already farmers, and he had to get back to the greenhouses and the fields right away, because it was August and that’s when the sun doesn’t set in Palmer until 10 o’clock and you have to take full advantage of that. That attitude is what made VanderWeele Farms great. The ambassador was totally understanding.
