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Dairy farmer crosses swords with Sigrid Kaag

1 March 2021 - Redactie Boerenbusiness

D66 party leader Sigrid Kaag will visit dairy farmer Bert-Jan Verboom after the elections to discuss reducing nitrogen emissions. Verboom is one of the dairy farmers around Nieuwkoop who have launched their own plan to solve bottlenecks in nitrogen policy.

Kaag invited dairy farmer Verboom last night (Sunday 28 February) during the first TV leader's debate on RTL4. The 6 leaders of the largest parties present in the current House of Representatives each got an angry citizen for themselves about a different subject. Kaag told the dairy farmer that the only option is to halve the livestock to reduce nitrogen emissions. She had not yet heard of the Nieuwkoop plans, which had already been presented to Minister Schouten.

Dead sparrow
According to the dairy farmer, Tjeerd de Groot, Kaag's party colleague, rather called the plan a dead sparrow. The content of the plan was not discussed further. This involves leasing nitrogen space and taking innovative measures with the proceeds, in particular separating manure and urine.

"If you halve the livestock, the other half will still have a problem," Verboom told Kaag. "If you start working in our way, you can be 4 to 9 times more effective. We can even go to 0. You are not going to do anything with the other half. How do you get started with that?" asked Verboom. Kaag replies, "Well, "If you have a better plan... I'd be a fool to just turn down a good suggestion or an important plan." 

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