Top Net Food-Exporting Countries

And eggs might be counted too! There's now an ongoing egg scandal in the Netherlands which also hit Germany, Belgium and the UK, because Dutch 'bad' eggs were exported to them.

Actually, when you only count exports, the Netherlands is the second biggest agri and food exporter in the world, only behind the USA and ahead of Germany, Brazil and China. Exports totalled € 85 billion in 2016, of which only 24 billion comprised products that were imported and processed in the Netherlands. There are lots of very fertile polders, and there is very advanced agricultural knowledge (Wageningen might be the best agriculture university in the world).

See https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2017/01/20/agri-food-exports-achieve-record-high-in-2016 - it's a Dutch gov site, so it's not really an independent source, but I guess they didn't make up the numbers. :)

It's really bizarre that tiny, severely crowded Netherlands is the #2 net exporter and fertile land rich Russia is one of the biggest net importers.

I don't think I read the whole article, but I remember the BBC put up something once about how the Netherlands has a bunch of really advanced greenhouses that collectively have the capability to grow massive amounts of crops. I think most of the land that they don't use for cities (or tulips) is used for agriculture.

Russia may be large and have a lot of agricultural land, but as a proportion of the country, it's pretty small. There's not much to grow out in Siberia. And keep in mind that China is produces even more agriculture, and yet is the largest net importer. These lists don't always follow the patterns you'd expect :/

The Netherlands were the last Western country to suffer a famine, at the end of World War II. They have made agriculture a priority. You should check out their Food Valley region. Tons of research and development going on there. Really fascinating stuff.

I think an important criteria for something being an 'agricultural' product is its ability to be consumed. When's the last time you had flowers for breakfast? XD