CDA thinks towards D66: contraction of agricultural sector

The CDA is considering a change of course for Dutch agriculture and horticulture. According to the scientific institute of the political party, the farmer should get rid of bulk production, earn more money from quality products and get closer to the citizen.

The values ​​of sustainability and animal welfare and farmers' income must be more important than the ambition to remain the world's second-largest food exporter. in the 'Side by Side' report, a future perspective for the Netherlands in 2030. This report serves as a discussion paper at the CDA party conference next Saturday. 

The CDA committee that compiled the report believes that 'we should see farmers more as part of our living environment.' The committee sees Dutch farmers producing quality products in the future for the free world market and the local Dutch market. Locally, the party sees great benefit in a new form of cooperation that is aimed at farmer-citizen cooperation. 'The farmer sells directly to the citizens and the farm becomes an inspiring learning environment for young generations.' The CDA has probably looked at the concept here gentlemen farmers.

Connecting farmer and citizen
According to the party, citizens will thus be able to reconnect with their food source: the farmers. 'The advantages are countless: fair food from the own region, more biodiversity, less unwanted increase in scale and less food waste in a long food chain.' The CDA expects this approach to connect farmers and citizens is the approach it considers urgent issues: climate, food and agriculture.

Putting the CDA's plan into practice means that the entire Dutch food chain must be shaken up. Leonard Geluk, the chairman of the CDA committee, acknowledges that also in AD† “The focus in agriculture has long been on exports, economies of scale and profit maximization for intermediaries such as supermarkets. But if that comes at the expense of farmers' incomes and ecology, then something has to change.”

No agricultural influence
Implementing the plan also undeniably means a shrinkage of the Dutch livestock and agriculture. The CDA committee, which does not include a single agricultural representative, does not care about such statements. But the arguments of: opting for quality, producing for the local market, no longer wanting to be the second world exporter, combating unwanted economies of scale and balancing nature and agriculture, D66 MP Tjeerd de Groot undoubtedly sounds like music to our ears.

Behind the D66 position to halve the livestock, there is also a similar vision for Dutch agriculture. 'Earn more with less', is what De Groot calls it regularly. The substantiation of this, how the Dutch farmer can really earn a higher income in the Netherlands as part of a world market, is currently lacking at both the CDA and D66.

Current agriculture unsustainable
According to the CDA, the current structure of the Dutch agricultural chain is no longer tenable, the committee writes in the report. 'Animal welfare, the environment, animal health and nature must be brought into balance with economic earning motives. In order to achieve that balance, a complex regulatory system has been set up, which is hardly feasible for farmers and can certainly no longer be enforced. Many farmers experience this regulatory burden as a source of legal uncertainty and therefore feel less and less responsible for their own actions.'

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