AGRICULTURAL students from Duchy College, Stoke Climsland, last week embarked on an educational journey to the Netherlands.

During their whistle- stop tour, students and staff visited the Energie rijk project, a renewable energy farm with a three-way project featuring bio-digestion, bio-ethanol, and algal production. They also saw Waiberhoeve experimental farm, a dairy farm located in Lelystad, which has around five hundred milking cows used for high quality research.

On the second day, students took in the Aalsmeer flower auctions, the largest flower auction in the world where flowers from all over the world are traded on a daily basis, and the Clara Maria Cheese and Clog farm where, rather bizarrely, students got a chance to experience the Dutch method of making cheese alongside the traditional craft of making clogs.

Roger Clarke, agriculture programme manager and tour organiser, said: 'The students thoroughly enjoyed this experience. With the generous help of the European Social Fund (ESF) we were able to give the students an opportunity to see a variety of agricultural methods while experiencing a different culture.'