Diary (24th July 2024)
Bulbs, bulbs and bulbs flow before your eyes. To keep up with the speed of the flow, I remove rotten bulbs, weeds and other debris. As I concentrate on this work, I feel as if it is not the conveyor belt in front of me that is moving, but myself. The conveyor belt goes into slow motion, its movement stops and you start moving. My hand follows the bulbs so that I don’t get left behind.
The harvested bulbs are sifted through two types of machines that remove soil and excess roots and weeds. First, thousands of bulbs are placed into a stair-step machine from the top, which sifts out any soil, pebbles, roots, etc. that were not removed during the bulb harvest. The removed bulbs are then transferred to another conveyor belt machine where they are again sieved and sorted by size.
Working alongside the machines, removing soil and roots and sizing the bulbs are part-time students during the summer holidays, live-in seasonal workers from Poland (for eight weeks), Dutch employees and interns.
These bulbs bloom beautifully in the Netherlands. Tulips are symbol of the Netherlands. However, many of the people who work at the site are not Dutch. Here they are Polish seasonal workers. I remember when I visited a tulip cut-flower producer in Poland. Many Ukrainians were migrant workers there.
