Own picture

News Nitrogen file

Schouten knew that PAS could crash

28 October 2019 - Wouter Baan - 33 comments

Minister Carola Schouten (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) reports that she did take into account the fact that the Nitrogen Approach Program (PAS) would not make it legally. This is what Schouten says in a response to an article that appeared in the Volkskrant on Monday 28 October.

In Volkskrant It states that Schouten was warned several times that the PAS was about to collapse, but that she hardly anticipated it. The insiders say that Schouten ignored the warnings. According to the minister, that is not true. "The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality has taken into account all scenarios, including the negative ones," she writes in a letter to the House of Representatives.

In April 2018, 1 year before the PAS was fired, a report from an official working group was published stating that the Dutch nitrogen policy was vulnerable. Schouten never saw that report. The analysis, which stated, among other things, that issued permits may have to be revoked, did form the basis for further scenario development. Schouten acknowledges that she indirectly knew about the existence of the critical report.

Scenario building
on November 7, 2018 it ruled European Court that the PAS does not comply with the European Habitats Directive, but that in principle it was legally tenable. Whether the licensing system was also sufficiently substantiated, the Court left to the national court. That judge ruled on 29 May that this was not the case and completely dismissed the PAS.

In the meantime, Schouten decided not to suspend the license applications as a precaution, but to await the decision of the national court. This despite all the critical voices from Overijssel and North Brabant. Meanwhile, the ministry was working on scenarios that, according to the minister, ranged from the PAS remaining completely upright to a complete collapse. She does acknowledge that the focus was on all scenarios that were based on improving and supplementing the PAS.

Focus on solution nitrogen problem
Schouten expects the reporting in the Volkskrant to be fodder for parliamentary questions. She says she is happy to participate in this, although Schouten currently mainly wants to focus on finding a solution to the nitrogen problem. That is why she refers to a policy reconstruction of the PAS that has already been promised, which will be shared with the Senate and House of Representatives before the summer of 2020.

Do you have a tip, suggestion or comment regarding this article? Let us know

Wouter Job

Wouter Baan is Head of Meat & Dairy at BoerenbusinessAt DCA Market Intelligence, he focuses on dairy, pork, and meat markets. He also monitors (business) developments within agribusiness and interviews CEOs and policymakers.
Comments
33 comments
Burger feels cheated 28 October 2019
This is in response to it Boerenbusiness article:
[url=http://www.boerenbusiness.nl/ artikel/10884476/schouten-wist-dat-pas-kon-crashen]Schouten knew that PAS could crash[/url]
The sooner the government falls, the better.
Get rid of that dirty little friend politics!
Drikus 28 October 2019
Dear Burger is feeling cheated. Everyone in the Netherlands is being cheated. Officials keep things under wraps. Ministers do not officially know . Market forces were supposed to make health care cheaper . Utility companies had to privatize . Affairs were handed over to provinces or municipalities. This under the guise of cheaper and better. And there are more things to mention . Which or until even higher prices became more expensive and which are carried out differently in each municipality or province. Have suffered or lack of help, care and measures that could have been everywhere else . Companies have to invest and wait and see whether the payback period can be completed or whether other measures have been devised before that time. Now think of the current problems in agriculture, construction, earthwork (sand pollution) and the expected levies that are piling up again. The downsizing, voluntary or otherwise, will ultimately cost thousands of jobs. Because transport and suppliers and buyers and processors depend on farmers if they work in this sector . But if they have less turnover, their suppliers will also lose turnover. So there will be more and more of them feeling cheated . But oh well, if politics considers the Zwarte Piet happening and the gender neutral selling of toys more important than food supply in the long term. Because the world population is growing alongside the increase in prosperity in parts of the world. Can the unemployed from here either pick nettles in the countryside or cut down jungle somewhere in the world , because for every hectare that becomes nature here , a multitude of land is reclaimed elsewhere . And I am not shocked that solutions for nitrogen and possibly other matters are deliberately kept under wraps. Because what is the purpose of solving the nitrogen problem or shrinking agriculture and turning it into a kind of crowd puller for holidaymakers who also sell sausage, cheese, leeks, etc. buy when they come by.
Jan Veltkamp 28 October 2019
Here too it appears that the ministers are just front men (or women) of the top civil servants. They simply inform the minister according to whether they have a premonition or not. Also think of the receipt affair from 2 years ago. Elections do not solve anything because the figures are exchanged but the top officials remain. We have to move to a system where a new minister also comes with new officials. As it is now, elections are nothing more than a puppet theater for the stage and everyone else stays where they are.
Ton Westgeest 28 October 2019
You can't blame girl Schouten for all of this. She is stupid and naive, they just needed someone like that. Just look at her two predecessors, they always find some Mongolians who are so crazy about the job that they don't look at anything. They do die, but there is always a nice job afterwards, once you are in the job carousel... For example the NPO or alderman!!

No, of course it has been going on for much longer, since there was talk of the Habitat Directive and Natura2000. I think that Veerman and Bleker and maybe before that have all helped to screw things up. To be thanked for that with a nice job at, for example, Natuurmonumenten and to have filled your pockets well with every subsidy that was available!!

But ff concrete I see no other solution than to reverse this corruption. So we have to get rid of these areas that are not allowed to be called nature... And Natuurmonumenten and Staatsbosbeheer and everyone else involved in it should pay for it!!

And if necessary, the mess in The Hague will have to be cleaned up. They all have to deal with it... Then new elections because it will not be easy to laugh this off Rutte!

Drent 28 October 2019
exactly, you're right
Drent 28 October 2019
Jan Veltkamp
Connie 28 October 2019
For the main culprit behind all this rambling, you have to go back in time a bit. One Sikko Manshold came up with his sick idea that the Dutch farmer should increase his company, of course with the help of the (RABO) bank, because due to a lot of debt in the company, the farmer is easy to manipulate. Now that everyone is now stuck with debt, new rules are being introduced, with associated new investments, which will never be recouped, so that in the end the bank is the smiling third and the farmer is the loser. Farmers must stop accepting this manipulative policy! Put your heels in the sand and start manipulating things yourself with food delivery restrictions, so that the population also wakes up and knows what it means, food scarcity. It would be good to have to choose between your food or your vacation. The self-evidence of food on the shelves must be removed.
The government must also adjust its immigration policy, because that also involves a lot of nitrogen. Make choices! The farmers and the cattle first!
shoemakers 1 28 October 2019
no connie,

The main culprits are the cost increasers that we have been dealing with for years, these make us no longer able to, and it doesn't stop yet, the cost has to go even higher, the left wing mafia wants our cost so high that no one can buy our products still want, that is the stake and the idea behind it.
Farmer Dieuwke 28 October 2019
Why blame others. We farmers were there ourselves. We farmers should think for ourselves and not follow others like a herd animal. Stay away from Carola, leftists, immigrants and other pimps! Stop stigmatizing stupidly.
Peter 34 28 October 2019
Carola was aware of the possibility that PAS, an idea that cabinets have previously devised as a loophole, COULD crash. With that possibility (it couldn't crash either) should she have taken measures of her own accord? That would not be taken at all, not politically, not by the sector.
No, the angry Pier is with the environmental movement and the judiciary, who are now demanding measures in a hurry. This while the (true or false) nitrogen tax has been too high for years. Why suddenly demand such draconian measures. It's not a war is it? Or as far as they're concerned?
Politics seems to be getting more and more off track with CO2 (alternative causes for climate change are categorically misunderstood), Zwarte Piet, gender nonsense, homonormalization (an anomaly becomes normal here), immigrants who come to ruin things, adoration of sports, 'culture ', 'equality and debt, discrimination, ICT, 'media (social or not), 5G and such quirks, Of course with a price: from every euro the state demands 40 cents for its hobby horses that disrupt society and take away people's responsibility, for Long live the State; the democracy has willed it that way. Victory for the socialists who tear down the Netherlands. Mind you, the v/h liberal VVD is also fully involved in this, because it has denied its origin driven by modernity.
Ton Westgeest 28 October 2019
Who here stigmatizes Dieuwke? Peeking farmers under a pseudonym and pretending to be a farmer's wife very spastic....

A very cowardly person who talks about: "We farmers were there ourselves. We farmers should think for ourselves and not follow others like a herd animal."

You yourself were nowhere to be found, at most last week at the Dam, but you articulate exactly what you should do, namely start thinking for yourself and not following others like a herd animal!
shoemakers 1 28 October 2019
Farmer Dieuwke wrote:
Why blame others. We farmers were there ourselves. We farmers should think for ourselves and not follow others like a herd animal. Stay away from Carola, leftists, immigrants and other pimps! Stop stigmatizing stupidly.
I don't think you can speak of us farmers, but I, and many with me, are not to blame for this mess
Farmer Dieuwke 28 October 2019
Nice to point to others. That is not the beginning of solutions. Just as stupid as: let's not supply products to consumers. The supermarkets have plenty of alternative purchasing options. Don't be short-sighted, our sector only supplies raw materials! Start selling end products yourself.
shoemakers 1 28 October 2019
nice and easy, fluttering around like a headless chicken, you obviously don't know what's going on, then don't pretend either, anyone with a sane mind wouldn't have sunk as far as you, wise men come from the east
Subscriber
roy 28 October 2019
that's what you thought! it would be very good to stop supplying food to people who vote on the left (D66 and the Green Left). 50% must go, they say, then no more food from the farmers. There are enough products in the supermarkets (vegetables, etc.). There is indeed an acute problem if the Dutch farmer stops supplying. Sounds like you're from the industry...
shoemakers 1 28 October 2019
and indeed, supermarkets have plenty of alternatives, such as ddt sprayed organic vegetables from Africa, go bad, or is it not so harmful if it has the right stamp on it???????????????? ?
carpenter teun 28 October 2019
Well opposition go do something about it now is the time to crush that lie nitrogen with that cabinet
Pieter 28 October 2019
carpenter Teun,
And so it is, vote en masse for those parties and remove the entire nitrogen problem that does not exist.
The current government's only reason is to implement the UN agenda21/30.
Fertile land back to nature so that the NWO can control all food supplies.
Farmer Dieuwke 28 October 2019
Supermarkets own 85%. Most of the food comes from abroad. Vegetables, fruits and early potatoes are not the problem; especially livestock. These livestock sectors are nothing in the Netherlands and actually no longer fit in this little country: too much nitrogen, CO2, particulate matter, stench, etc.. Knowing this, go farmers across the border and according to know-it-alls - ha, ha - there are no or fewer rules . Think about it and don't run after others like a headless chicken. Why are there some farmers who are very wealthy and a lot of nerds aren't?
Peter 29 October 2019
@ farmer Dieuwke "go abroad",

tell that to all the “successful seekers” who come to pollute our country with their nitrogen and other problems!
Ton Westgeest 29 October 2019
You give the answer again Diewke, because you are a bitch. Just go to work...
Farmer Dieuwke 29 October 2019
Peasant women stand up, the farmers are at their wits' end, after so many decades to follow patiently...
Drikus 29 October 2019
Dear Farmer Dieuwke If you are really a farmer then you also know that there are rich farmers who actually have another large income on the side. Count this off and there are still farmers with considerable wealth and considerable money turnover. But this is wealth that is in business and not, as citizens think, thick bank balance. But if these assets do not lead to an income that belongs to yield and turnover, then you are really just a poor farmer. In the past one would say a Dolle Mina die Dieuwke. You call on the farmers' wives to more or less take over the business. I hope and believe that where the woman is involved in the company she also has a say and if necessary calls her man to order and vice versa. And where the partner man or woman is not involved in the company, there will also be a balance in one way or another. And what and who are the minkukuls? .Just think what you mean . But people who work and just earn will never get rich in this country . And people who are okay and just don't want to work have to blame themselves. But from your writing I gather that you are not worthy of the titul farmer's wife. But just anti farmer and you want to put the farmer 's wife in front of the cart to contain the farmer . But then you are mistaken in many cases because in many places the woman is the pivot in family and business and so she will really not whistle back to her husband at your request. But she can be the key to organizing nonviolent protests . Man in jail and a lot of costs nobody is watching
Farmer Dieuwke 30 October 2019
Good story Dirk! I am optimistic looking ahead; respond to the situation that you saw coming years ago.
Malherbe 30 October 2019
Judging by the reactions, the last generations have always become the dumbest child farmers. What a bunch of pussies.
shoemakers 1 30 October 2019
Malherbe wrote:
Judging by the reactions, the last generations have always become the dumbest child farmers. What a bunch of pussies.
you discriminate, or should I say stigmatize, just as much as the government
Ton Westgeest 30 October 2019
Almost 40 years ago it was already anticipated that a nitrogen problem was coming if they continued like this. But the government has nevertheless worked on a gigantic increase in scale....

The Pfas problem can certainly be seen coming for just as long, but the large industries are still given free rein and are favored with all kinds of tax benefits in order to achieve growth....

The drinking water problem is also coming and everything continues, DSM, and Chemours, etc. may continue to discharge, there are now also 6000 substances in which you get cancer .....

We get poison from across the border to deepen our "natural lakes". We exchange clean sand, without Pfas, for poisoned dredging, with Pfas, with Belgium ....

We have created a consumption/throwaway society that is unparalleled. The micro and macro plastics are already in the air everywhere...

We create an unprecedented horizon pollution, now it even appears that the windmills release heavy toxic gas! Soon we will have the big problem of solar panels pollution, because where do we put them if they are written off?

We take in the biggest poison and mix it with heating oil, and we sell this poisonous oil all over the world. Which also causes enormous air pollution.....

We import waste which should be a cheap source to run power plants. For the sake of convenience, we forget about the CO2 and the pollution it takes to get it here and burn it....

We import biomass, for which we have trees cut down, which stores CO2 for centuries. Which we also pollute the air with the deprivation of it. As a result of asthma and COPD...

Everything revolves around money and people look away everywhere. The whole paid green industry doesn't seem out there to improve anything. They are used and paid for by investors from the aircraft and other industries.

And politics still makes everything happen. They don't think about the consequences and just do what!!! We point to corruption abroad, but I don't think it's comprehensible what's going on here!!!

It used to be said, you can always become a farmer.... Today it is so, maybe through evolution?

If you can't do anything anymore, you can always go into politics!!!
Drikus 30 October 2019
Dear Malherbe There are no stupid people, every person has his gift and every person is different. And if you don't like something you should come up with counter arguments and to speak in your own terms not with a stupid comment. I take it you are a normal citizen and not stupid like any other human being .
Pippi 8 November 2019
Always blaming others for your own miserable business is of course nonsense. Anyone who decides to make his company bigger can calculate for himself that this will lead to more emissions. Especially if you have too many animals and are not soil-bound, PLUS also uses fertilizers and pesticides. Yes, these are self-made choices that are made per entrepreneur/company. If you make the wrong business choices then you only have to thank yourself???? Duh!!!?
Unbelievable that people are always looking for a scapegoat. Just look at your own first.
In addition, intrusive and rude demonstrations is also of little use. I can tell you that the support for farmers in the vast majority of the Netherlands is diminishing enormously because of this brown shirt stuff from organizations such as Farmers Defense Force etc. Driving up police officers and windows through everything with heavy tractors will give the farmers little support. Believe me.
I hear a lot of distaste for this kind of violent action in the big cities. Doesn't work BUT keep it up.... Next demonstration Amsterdam December 13th. Go all and then get 80% of the Dutch population against you. Because that's coming.
Deconstructive and aggressive.

until here and no further 8 November 2019
pippie has spoken on behalf of Rutten and co, they feel the power slipping from their fingers, they have known for a long time that they are doing the wrong thing, they are trying to get people on their side through the media so that they can continue their rampage, the farmers will not rest until there is justice, apparently it is inevitable that Rutten has to disappear, he does not have the brains to do it right, only protect the elite. Heard yesterday, at a cattle farmer, everything is in order, the activists of the nwva can still comment on everything, if you then start about abuses in the citizens' animals, they say, they are bred for that, well our animals are not bred for the purpose that the government has with them
Pippi 11 November 2019
What a pity that so many farmers here on various forums think very shortsighted and react very bluntly. That shows a lot of ignorance and naivety.
A pity because if you, as a conventional intensive large-scale farmer, still do not understand that a gigantic change in agriculture is coming, then you have really been living under a rock (on another planet too!)
Don't you understand???
That the current, mega-export oriented artificially kept Dutch intensive large-scale agriculture is not sustainable???
The helm has to change!!
Christian farmers here must then stop being hypocritical because this has nothing to do with respect for the earth (stewardship). This is exhausting the earth and your own agricultural soils.
I think if your ancestors saw your farms now they would be greatly disappointed with your destructive farming methods. Toxic pesticides, mega-stables, fertilizers, etc. just don't fit in a sustainable world.
So sooner or later this common system will completely crash!
A sinking ship.
If you haven't seen the light now, you will really stick in the nitrogen and sink into the shit.
Would be a real shame for farmers who have farmed for generations.
So don't become the last generation and grant your descendants a green beautiful AGRICULTURAL future!! A sustainable ecologically responsible farm. That does not depend on animal feed and artificial resources from abroad. But one that can sustain itself (circular agriculture)
You can get angry and provoked at my opinions BUT try to understand that I also want the farmers to be able to continue in a nice way and that Dutch agriculture does not implode through its own actions. Because in the end, farmers are just (important) entrepreneurs who are themselves responsible for healthy business operations (in EVERY WAY!)
until here and no further 11 November 2019
then let them take responsibility themselves and don't keep pushing in the wrong direction what you keep trying to do, pick it up yourself what your idea is what is good, if it works you will definitely get followers, but don't always try to just keep trying to place more burdens on agriculture
agri 2 11 November 2019
who's going to pay for that? we are not all two-income households with four times the average, the majority does not want or can no longer spend on food and small-scale agriculture has a much higher cost price!
You can no longer respond.

Sign up for our newsletter

Sign up and receive the latest news in your inbox every day

Opinions Arjan Ausma

Look ahead without losing vision under grids

Background Economy

Extensive livestock farmers receive considerably more than arable farmers

News milk

Other phosphate excretions not coordinated with Brussels

BBTV Lubbert van Dellen

All about renure, nitrogen and new termination scheme

Call our customer service +0320(269)528

or mail to support@boerenbusiness.nl

do you want to follow us?

Receive our free Newsletter

Current market information in your inbox every day

Sign up