The Netherlands has everything it needs to remain a global leader in agricultural and food innovation, but risks losing its competitive edge to countries that are moving faster, according to a new report from national promotional institution Invest-NL.

Faster routes to market and scale-up could unlock around €17 billion in additional annual revenue for Dutch agrifood biotech companies by 2040.

Invest-NL’s Deep Dive Agrifood Biotech finds that the expertise is already in place, from alternatives to chemical pesticides and climate-resilient crops to new proteins produced through fermentation. The problem lies in getting those innovations to market. Companies seeking to scale up in the Netherlands face significant barriers, the report concludes.

The findings draw on interviews with more than 150 entrepreneurs, investors, researchers and policymakers, alongside investment data covering 2010 to April 2026. The research examines three value chains: seed breeding and genetics, biological agricultural inputs, and biotech-derived ingredients and food applications.

A ten-year wait for biologicals

Biological crop protection, an area where the Netherlands is a global leader, illustrates the challenge. Regulatory approval for a new product in Europe can take eight to ten years, the report finds, because the framework was largely designed for chemical products and does not always reflect the characteristics of biological alternatives.

As a result, some companies choose to launch in Brazil and the United States first. According to the experts consulted, that leaves the Netherlands at risk of missing out on growth in a market expected to expand seven- to tenfold by 2040.

The findings are directly relevant to the crop protection agreement currently being developed in the Netherlands, since reducing chemical use depends on viable alternatives. The report argues the Netherlands can act within the existing European framework. The Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides (Ctgb), the Dutch authorisation authority, could allocate more resources to biological products, provide earlier guidance to companies and prioritise their assessment. Growers should also be able to test new products under real-world conditions while regulatory assessment is still under way.

The first-plant funding gap

Companies developing novel food ingredients, such as fermentation-derived proteins, face a different but related hurdle. Regulatory approval in Europe takes one to three years longer than in the United States, and building a first production facility can easily cost tens or even hundreds of millions of euros.

Yet, according to the report, there is no clear financing pathway for that stage. Existing support schemes are often unsuitable and sometimes exclude these companies precisely because they operate at a loss for several years.

The gap between outcomes is stark. With the right measures in place, Dutch companies could generate approximately €8 billion in annual revenue from these ingredients by 2040. Under current policies, that figure is expected to remain at around €2 billion.

Corjan van den Berg, co-founder of Revyve, which produces proteins from yeast, says the funding challenge is now more pressing than the science. “The science is becoming increasingly effective. The real challenge is financing the journey to commercial scale,” he says. “Venture capital alone is not enough. Scaling food biotech also requires loans, guarantees and grants to make the transition to industrial-scale production.”

Sharing the Risk

Invest-NL calls for coordinated action across the sector: more companies emerging, better regulatory conditions and access to testing facilities, and customers involved earlier. Public capital can also help share the risks of first-of-a-kind production facilities, unlocking private investment.

The report is explicit that this does not mean lowering safety standards; rather, regulatory frameworks should be appropriate for the products being assessed. Nor does the Netherlands need to manufacture everything domestically. The priority is to retain knowledge, companies and strategically important parts of the value chain in the country.

“The Netherlands is well positioned to lead in agrifood biotech, but this opportunity will not wait,” says Jellie Banga, chief business officer at Invest-NL. “New technologies need regulators willing to authorise them, farmers willing to test them, consumers and food companies willing to buy them, and investors willing to finance them. Making this happen requires collaboration across the entire value chain.”

The report was presented at an event attended by approximately 100 entrepreneurs, investors, researchers and policymakers, and formally handed over to Marten van den Berg, director-general at the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature.

Time & capital

The report’s central message is that the Dutch constraint is no longer knowledge but the time and capital needed to cross the gap between lab and market. For ingredient developers, the difference between roughly €2 billion and €8 billion in annual revenue by 2040 rests largely on whether a financing route for first production plants emerges. For biological crop protection, it rests on whether approvals can move faster in a market expected to grow seven- to tenfold.

With companies already choosing to launch in Brazil and the United States first, the risk is that Dutch innovation is commercialised elsewhere. The report forms part of a series of four Invest-NL deep dives exploring the most significant biotechnology opportunities for the Netherlands.

The full report is available at invest-nl.nl.