'Link emergency support farmers to nature and small-scale'

Conditions must be imposed on the emergency support that the cabinet is preparing for the agricultural sector, for example for injured growers of potatoes or cut flowers, in the direction of regional and nature-inclusive circular agriculture. Five so-called NGOs, including Milieudefensie and Greenpeace, are advocating for this.

They believe that the government should link national and European support measures to rules for nature-inclusive agriculture, because "COVID-19 exposes weaknesses in our current global agricultural and food system after the climate and nitrogen crisis." The nature movements believe that the "long-term focus on scaling up and intensifying production for the world market has far exceeded the carrying capacity of our ecosystems."

The nature organizations believe that there is a link between intensive livestock farming and the risk of an epidemic or pandemic. "Partly by keeping many animals in a small area and partly because the expansion of our agricultural system worldwide leads to large-scale deforestation, reducing the distance between wildlife and people." In order to curb these global problems, they therefore believe that the Netherlands must turn to nature-inclusive agriculture. 

Fair price for farmer
They also call on the cabinet to invest in emergency support in "setting up regional farmer-consumer networks, short chains and a fair price for the farmer, giving them a stronger position in the chain." Also, large-scale companies in, for example, animal feed, fertilizer and crop protection products may not receive emergency support from nature organizations. That money should go to "small-scale, nature-inclusive and/or organic farmers."

The 5 organizations are writing this in a letter to the cabinet in which proposals are made on several fronts to distribute the aid according to the conditions they have set. They also call on, among other things, not to allow aviation to recover until the start of the corona crisis, but to limit air pollution. Proposals are also made to exchange fossil energy for sustainable energy.

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