The world is moving towards more locally produced food. This local-for-local trend requires a fundamental shift in the technology needed to produce sufficient, high quality, diverse and healthy food. This is where opportunities arise for international collaboration.

The Netherlands and Maryland both focus strongly on local food production and ways to benefit from their central locations with easy access to densely populated areas. The influx of more high tech equipment in controlled environment agriculture is increasing yields, but also requires essential risk-mitigating measures to safeguard the systems against online intrusion.

In this webinar both regions will highlight the commercial opportunities for entrepreneurial companies to meet these regions’ ambitions in food production.

InnovationQuarter, Maryland Department of Commerce, F3 Tech, Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee, Netherlands America Chamber of Commerce Washington Metro (NACCWM), CyberAg and Rotterdam Partners are hosting this webinar on January 27th, 2022 from 9am – 10.30am ET (Maryland time), 3pm- 4.30pm CET (Netherlands time).

For Dutch and Maryland AgTech companies interested in expanding operations or finding partners overseas.

In this round table, we will zoom in on the opportunities in food production technology, both in hardware and digital. We will explore opportunities to expand the AgTech collaboration between the Netherlands and Maryland. This roundtable will:

• Provide Dutch and Maryland parties with an overview on AgTech and CyberAg in the respective markets, specifically on the topics of controlled environment agriculture and cybersecurity in agriculture.

• Get companies acquainted with key organizations in the respective markets.

• Provide insights on facilities available to support collaboration between Maryland and Netherlands-based organizations, such as soft landing programs and financial incentives.

• Discuss areas of opportunities for maryland and Dutch companies

• Rolf Karst — Projectmanager Internationalisering, InnovationQuarter.

• Eric Egberts — CEO, Dutch Greenhouse Delta.

• Steve Connelly — Assistant Secretary of Marketing, Animal Industries and Consumer Services, Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA).

• Ewing McDowell — Maryland Department of Commerce

• Chris Hlubb — Program Director, F3 Tech

• Nina Lamba — Assistant Director, Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET)
• Mike Thielke (Moderator) — Executive Director, Eastern Shore Entrepreneurship Center (ESEC)

This mission is part of a long-term effort by the Dutch Embassy in Stockholm, FME, InnovationQuarter, the Regional Business Development Team for the Baltics and Nordics, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and ROM Utrecht Region to support Dutch companies in the sustainable building and energy systems sector with their market expansion to the Scandinavian market.