Emmy Koeleman
Emmy Koeleman (31) was born in Uithoorn, which is around 8 km from Amsterdam and very close to the famous flower market in Aalsmeer.
Despite having grown up with the main horticultural area in the Netherlands on her doorstep, her interest lay in agriculture.
In 1996, she began a BSc degree in Animal Husbandry at the Agricultural College in Delft. And then went on to complete an MSc in Animal Science at Wageningen University, where she completed her thesis at its department of Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology.
Since graduating from Wageningen in 2002, Emmy has worked with a variety of companies involved in agricultural publishing. In 2003, she took up a position at Reed Business, initially as editorial assistant for the magazine Pig Progress, since 2005 she has been the editor of Feed Mix and co-editor of Feed Tech. In January 2010, Emmy became editor of Vetsweb.com, a leading online platform for large animal veterinarians.
Latest Blogs (11-20 of 14)
Agriculture is changing. Fuelled by altered views on the way we should produce our food in combination with growing human population we see farms grow bigger and become more efficient. The basic principle for this expansion has always been: more production! However, buzz words such as sustainability, green and carbon footprints force us to re-evaluate the way (and moreover where!) we produce our daily food. In contrast to single farms getting bigger, initiatives such as "urban farming" - that integrate multi systems at one urban location seems to be gaining interest.
Increased hygiene and a lack of exposure to various microorganisms may be affecting the immune systems of many populations – particularly in highly developed countries like the USA –to the degree that individuals are losing their bodily ability to fight off certain diseases.
Huge improvements in lean meat production of pigs have been made over the last 30 years. For example, since 1972, backfat depths have nearly halved in 60-80 kg carcasses. And still, the quest goes on to produce a pig that has a 'perfect genoytpe', which can deal with environmental factors, diseases and most of all can deal with feed very efficiently!
A few weeks ago I received a question from one the Pig Progress readers. She asked me if she could feed her backyard potbellied pigs some leftover peanuts and peanut butter. My first reaction was: of course! Why not?
