On March 14, Mayor Cornelis Visser, together with Steven van Schilfgaarde CEO Royal FloraHolland and Peter Koot, Katwijk-Noordwijk Police team chief, opened the third Weerbare Sierteeltsector Center. The center is located at the Royal FloraHolland site in Rijnsburg and, like the other two centers in Aalsmeer and Naaldwijk, will contribute to good operational cooperation to combat undermining in the floriculture industry.

The opening of the Center Weerbare Sierteeltsector in Rijnsburg creates a physical meeting place for partners within the public-private partnership Weerbare Sierteeltsector. In this approach, government agencies and companies work together to take preventive and repressive measures against criminal interference within the floriculture sector. The goal is to increase the safety of business owners and employees. These include physical measures such as camera surveillance and conducting integral checks, as well as sharing knowledge on ways to recognize undermining.

Ornamental horticulture’s strong logistics processes and export position have a downside. The industry is vulnerable because of international and daily fresh logistics. Criminals take advantage of the sector’s strength and many transport movements for smuggling narcotics, weapons and cash, among other things. Entrepreneurs are not always aware of this and we see that employees are sometimes pressured or forced to cooperate through extortion. This potentially creates an unsafe work environment and we want to avoid that. Tackling labor exploitation is also the focus of the Weerbare Sierteeltsector approach.

Cornelis Visser, Mayor of the Municipality of Katwijk says he is very proud during the opening of the Center Resilient Sierteeltsector. “What started as an initiative here in Rijnsburg is now a mainport approach within which we operate as partners with a focus on prevention. We share information with each other as best we can to keep the living and working environment safe for everyone and a workplace like this is important in this.”

Photo: Thierry Schut