Did someone say food fight?
Around 2,000 people took part in Tomatofest, a giant food fight in Amsterdam’s main square, as a way of showing solidarity for Dutch farmers and to raise money for the cash-strapped sector. 
Inspired by Spain’s annual La Tomatina festival in Valencia where revelers pelt each other with juicy tomatoes, the Dutch went out in force on Sept. 14 to support the country's produce sector which has been hit hard by the Russian ban.
Tomatofest was organized several weeks in advance with participants invited to pay €15 (US$ 19.3) to take part in a large scale food fight with all contributions donated to the cause.
Hundreds of kilograms of overripe tomatoes that would have otherwise been destroyed were used in the friendly tomato battle.
Although there was a party-like atmosphere, the event had a serious point to make by raising awareness about the plight of Dutch tomato producers. The domestic market has been flooded with a glut of produce since the Russian ban began last month with local tomato prices falling by around 70%, according to ABN AMRO agri-food economist Frank Rijkers.
Organizers of tomatofest asked participants to add their images to social media and spread the word about the importance of Dutch tomatoes.
"It was a great day, extremely messy and such fun to see so many people having a giant food fight with tomatoes. People really got into it," a tomatofest spokesman told www.freshfruitportal.com.
"But there is a serious message here and that is Dutch producers, like many other people and agricultural sectors all over Europe, are being hit hard by what is going on in Russia.
"We wanted to show the world that we stand by our agricultural industry, we love our tomatoes, they are an important product from our country and most importantly that we can turn something negative into something positive."
The Netherlands is a world leader in the export of tomatoes.
Following the food fight leftover tomato pulp was scraped up and taken to a biomass factory where it will be used to generate energy.
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