106
Education
Teaching Fields
It was about agriculture. It was about families. It
was about tourism in a remote corner of The Netherlands. It was about a revitalized local crop - hemp. And, it was
a brilliant method for educating the public. Last summer, over 4,000 visitors found their way to Nieuwe Beerta, in
the north-eastern province of Groningen, to stroll through a huge labyrinth of Cannabis, an almost 2 hectare maze
created inside a 6 hectare hemp field at a local agricultural research institute.
On this sunny Sunday afternoon in late August, we walked the shady paths with families young and old:
clean-scrubbed rural children playing tag on the paths, grandparents, babies in strollers, groups of teenage
children - a cross-section of local society. More than a half a kilometer of paths lead to a tower from which one could
see the 3 to 4 meter tall plants waving in the breeze. In cul
de sacs
there were teaching sites, with displays on local farming and environmental features. "We are a research
institute for farmers of this [the main hemp producing] area of north Holland. We wanted something that would
bring visitors and show them a local crop in production," farmer Titia Schillhorn van Veen told me. "And besides,
it’s something different than taking care of the cows," added farmer Jacques Overbeek. This was a great example
of normalized Cannabis.
The crop of ‘Fedora 19’ was sown densely for fiber production, forming a thick impenetrable crop standing
over 2 meters tall by the time the maze opened to the public in July. A grass pathway through the hemp field was
planted with sod when the hemp field was sown. A tall hemp crop is perfectly suited for building a maze, as you
cannot walk through it and you can only see into it for a meter or two. After the maze field is harvested, it will be
sold to the Hemp Flax B.V. processing factory in the nearby town of Oude Peekla.
The project was likely a one-time-only event. The idea came from the Internet, where the test farm
manager’s son learned about a huge maze created in a US corn field.
Annie Riecken
66 NZ Voorburgwal, Suite 71, 1012 SC,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands