Dutch agricultural sector worldwide example

The world's leading Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sets the Dutch risk approach to pests and diseases in livestock and arable farming as an international example. 

The organization emphasizes a number of positive points of the Dutch approach. The limited availability of government-funded aid ex-post requires that all parties in the chain proactively assess their risk exposure and work in a planned manner to avoid and limit risks. Do not react afterwards, but act in advance and that in joint consultation between all links in the production chain and the government. The OECD also mentions the financial solidarity between the parties in the chain and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the policy as strong points. The Animal Health Fund and the mutual insurance company Potatopol are used as examples.

Climate change and corona crisis
This is apparent from the OECD report 'Strengthening Agricultural Resilience in the Face of Multiple Risks', published in early September. Resilience is defined as the ability to prepare and plan, endure, recover from, successfully adapt to, and grow to a higher level in response to adverse events.

The report emphasizes the importance of planning and prevention, while also ensuring that agricultural systems remain flexible enough to respond to future uncertainty. Climate change and the corona crisis are the current motivation for the OECD study, which contains a framework for good risk management and maximizing the resilience of the agricultural sector.

This framework is illustrated on the basis of 4 countries: the fight against drought in Australia, the Canadian (preventive) approach to natural disasters and the Italian and Dutch animal disease and plant health policy.

Collaboration in the chain
Dutch policy scores relatively well, in particular because of the preventive approach, the focus on cooperation and shared responsibility. An advantage here is that the policy can benefit from the favorable innovation climate that prevails in the Netherlands, the OECD researchers write.

One factor likely to contribute to the success of Dutch animal and plant risk management schemes is the collaborative process under which the frameworks are developed. All relevant stakeholders are involved in the risk assessment, monitoring, prevention, evaluation and policy-making processes. This helps ensure that all links in the chain are aware of their responsibilities for controlling the risk of animal and plant diseases and are exposed to strong incentives to do this.

Timely Notification Outbreaks
This approach has also contributed to a greater acceptability of disease control measures in livestock farming, as farms are informed in advance about possible measures and are financially incentivized to report suspected outbreaks quickly.

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