Merijn Bos Ph.D. and Jan van Kempen, Netherlands

Merijn Bos is an agricultural ecologist mainly working on agrobiodiversity. He has led the project 'Bloeiend Bedrijf'/ 'Flourishing Farm' since 2011. As part of this project, approximately 600 farmers planted over 1000 km of flowering field margins in the Dutch arable landscape in 2013 to stimulate natural pest management. Jan van Kempen is a Dutch arable farmer who participates in the project 'flourishing farm'. He is very enthusiastic about increasing functional agrobiodiversity on his fields. He points out the benefits of offering habitats to natural enemies, the enthusiasm of people who pass by the land on their bikes and his own happiness during harvesting his crops. Van Kempen is running successfully his arable farm. He hardly applies insecticides in his potato fields which are now surrounded by flowering field margins.