User:Martijn22/Volkert Engelsman

Volkert Engelsman (* 1957 in Winterswijk) is a Dutch businessman and pioneer in organic agriculture. In 1990 he founded the company Eosta, later followed by the companies Soil & More and Vitalis Biologische Zaden as well as the own brand Nature & More. Engelsman is a proponent of organic farming, sustainability, fair trade and True Cost Accounting.

Past
Engelsman was born in Winterswijk in 1957, the son of a textile entrepreneur and a German mother. He attended the Waldorf School in Krefeld and studied economics and business administration in Rotterdam and Groningen. In 1983 he started his career at the multinational company Cargill, where he got to know the world of international futures trading - a contrast to the organic farming he later chose. "I have always felt like a citizen of two worlds. At Cargill, I enjoyed the directness of Americans, their pragmatism, their entrepreneurial spirit and their ability to get things done. But at Cargill, my commitment to sustainability and my interest in spirituality were not welcome. Nevertheless, I met many like-minded people there." Working for Cargill led Engelsman down a new path: entrepreneurship in sustainable food and farming. During his business trips, he met farmers in South America and Australia who wanted to convert to organic farming because their soils were being destroyed by fertilisers and pesticides. At that time, organic consumption was on the rise in Europe; supermarkets were slowly starting to take an interest. Engelsman saw an opportunity there and founded the trading company Eosta in 1990 together with a university friend.

Public appearance
As a self-proclaimed "greengrocer with a radical vision", Engelsman constantly campaigns for sustainability in agriculture. His initiatives have received several awards. In 2017, he was voted first in the sustainability ranking of the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw. The jury particularly praised Engelsman's practical implementation of the principle of True Cost Accounting. Engelsman: "Many financial institutions are beginning to realise that there is something wrong with our definition of 'profit' when it leads to the destruction of our natural habitat and worsens life for 90% of humanity, including our children's children.

With Bernward Geier, he published the book "Die Preise lügen - Warum uns billige Lebensmittel teuer zu stehen bekommen" in 2018.

In 2018, he ran the campaign "The true cost of food".

He was interviewed at the Farm&Food Congress in early 2020. and by the Frankfurter Rundschau in 2022.