Tulip mania
The cultivation of the quintessential Dutch symbol is a profitable enterprise relying on cheap migrant labour

The tulip season has just begun, Dutch fields are blooming, and the whole world wants to see it. Or rather: wants to be seen with it. Tulip fields have become a popular backdrop for selfies, much to the annoyance of growers who, in recent years, have complained about tourists destroying fields for that perfect selfie. A tulip mania that has prompted some to create tulip fields exclusively for tourists, so they leave the ‘real’ fields alone.
Tulips, alongside sex, cheese, and weed, constitute the quartet of the most renowned Dutch symbols that tourists associate with the Netherlands. Yet, the tulip is not a native species; it does not grow in the wild but is cultivated industrially as a profitable export product — and usually planted and harvested by underpaid labour migrants.
The Dutch iconic flower was ‘stolen’ from the Turks and brought back to the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century. Initially used for experiments at the University of Leiden, the tulip caught the public’s eye when thieves stole some from the botanical garden, introducing them to the market.
The exotic flower was soon seen as a novel luxury product and quickly became a status symbol. By the 1630s, the Netherlands was engulfed in a ‘tulip mania,’ with bulb prices soaring to rival those of canal houses. This bubble attracted many farmers to tulip cultivation and led speculators to trade options on the flowers while still in the ground, sparking a wave of speculation — until the market’s abrupt collapse in 1637, which plunged many into poverty.
Dutch authorities spent years untangling the financial aftermath. Despite warnings from observers that the mania should serve as a lesson, it turned out to be a publicity scoop, cementing the association between the Dutch and tulips for centuries in the public mind.
The enterprising spirit and infrastructure of the Dutch, coupled with an ideal growing climate, have helped them perfect the art and science of growing flower bulbs. Over the centuries, Dutch gardeners have become experts at developing new tulip varieties; nearly all the thousands of varieties existing today have been developed in the Netherlands.
Today, the Netherlands produces some 90% of the world’s tulips, with about 1.5 billion tulips traded annually through Dutch auctions and flower bulb growers producing around 2 billion tulips each year. The export value stands at approximately 600 million euros. The majority of these bulbs come from West Friesland, Westland, Noordoostpolder, and the Bollenstreek – the Bulb Region.
But the Dutch mania for flowers extends beyond tulips. Known as “the flower shop of the world,” the Netherlands is the top exporter of cut flowers and bulbs globally, dedicating over 34,000 hectares to their cultivation — half of which is for tulips. Since 1980, the land allocated to flower bulb cultivation has surged by almost 75%.
For years, flowers have been the country’s largest agricultural export product in terms of value, only recently being surpassed by dairy products and milk when their prices surged due to the war in Ukraine. In 2021, the Netherlands exported flowers, plants, flower bulbs, and tree nursery products worth 12 billion euros.
Thanks to its flowers, the tiny Netherlands has emerged as an agricultural giant, punching far above its weight with its exports. It is remarkable that one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in the world now stands as the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products in terms of value, just behind the US. While tulips are a key part of the Dutch brand and identity, the country is also a major exporter of fruits and vegetables, eggs, meat, and seeds, albeit less iconically.
The Dutch have become particularly good at greenhouse horticulture, which represents 30% of the total agricultural exports and is crucial for the cultivation of flower bulbs, cut flowers, and vegetables. Despite technological advancements, the most important tasks in these greenhouses are still performed manually. This labour-intensive work necessitates hundreds of thousands of workers.
However, such a workforce is hard to find in the Netherlands, as the local population often shies away from this type of monotonous and physically demanding work. As a result, every summer, a significant number of labour migrants, particularly from Eastern Europe and non-EU countries, travel to the Netherlands to plant, care and harvest flowers, fruits, and vegetables. During peak seasons, it is estimated that these seasonal workers constitute up to 80% of the labour force in Dutch greenhouses.
These workers are typically employed on an hourly basis through one of the 16,000 employment agencies in the Netherlands, which also provide housing, insurance, and transportation.
“They live in bungalow parks in the middle of nowhere, are picked up early in the morning by the employment agency van, they work long hours, often work on weekends, and have no time to learn the language or delve into what their rights are,” explains for De Correspondent Karin Astrid Siegmann, a researcher at the Institute of Social Studies.
These workers are employed not just in greenhouses but also in distribution centres and slaughterhouses, two other important sectors of the Dutch economy that rely heavily on labour migration.
Such conditions render them statistically and socially invisible and therefore more likely to be exploited. Employment terms are typically flexible, with wages at or below the minimum wage. Workers often live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, which can be a nuisance to the local population. The physically demanding work poses health hazards, such as exposure to chemicals in greenhouses, and employees face the threat of dismissal if they request sick leave. Moreover, losing a job can sometimes also mean an immediate loss of housing.
For employment agencies, migrant workers turn out to be a lucrative earning model; RTL Nieuws reported last month that some employment agencies earn up to five times from a single labour migrant. At the same time, Dutch companies often lack an overview of the number of people working in their greenhouses, which results in no one feeling responsible for them.
“It actually means that companies often have very little insight into the conditions of the employees: who are these people walking around the workplace? And it also makes it easier for companies to distance themselves from those conditions or deny their responsibility,” stated Ruben Timmerman, a PhD candidate at Erasmus University, in the television investigative programme Pointer. During a year-long undercover field research on migrant workers in the Netherlands, Timmerman encountered many examples of unfair labour practices, mostly because workers were not aware of their rights.
A damning report has also revealed cases of employment agencies profiting by withholding money from the workers’ (minimum) wages. Furthermore, these agencies have been accused of overcrowding poorly maintained housing with more people than permitted or place workers in cheap housing far from work sites, and then charging high fees for transportation. There have also been instances of money laundering, imposition of fabricated fines on workers for inadequate cleaning, withholding of vacation pay, intimidation, and even human trafficking.
In recent years, the government has introduced several policy proposals for better regulation of employment agencies and a better approach to labour market abuses. These include criminalising labour exploitation and mandatory certification for employment agencies, which currently operate under a self-regulation system.
Yet this might not be enough. A recent report by the Adviesraadmigratie highlights the Netherlands as the European champion in employing posted labour migrant workers, referring to them as ‘third-class citizens.’ “We like to think of ourselves as a knowledge economy, but there has been an expansion in the low-wage sector in recent years,” Monique Kremer, the director, told Trouw. “This could further exacerbate societal inequality, with wages at the lower end continuing to decline or stabilise, while those at the top increase.”
Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot put it most sharply. He suggested that greenhouse horticulture, along with meat processing companies and distribution centres, would be better off disappearing from the Netherlands because they do not yield enough. Speaking on the TV program Buitenhof last month, he stated, “I'm not saying there is nothing to gain from them. However, I am saying that the social benefits no longer outweigh the costs.” He pointed out the issues of low wages and the strain on housing and energy. In response, the newspaper De Volkskrant promptly ran a headline: "The sectors that the Netherlands can do without.”
The tulip may symbolise Dutch identity, but it also epitomises a troubling trend in the Dutch economy: a mania for export and an increasing reliance on the exploitation of cheap labour migrants to do the dirty jobs. With employers and employment agencies reaping the benefits, while Dutch society bears the costs. A far less colourful reality than the idyllic tulip fields that serve as backdrops for tourists’ selfies.
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