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Farmer doesn't just have to hand over data
An organization under private law, such as the Branche-organisation (BO) Arable Farming, cannot simply demand all kinds of data from peers in the sector. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality is also not allowed to share farmers' data just like that.
This is evident from a decision on appeal by the administrative law department of the Council of State.
The appeal was lodged by an agricultural partnership in the southwest of the Netherlands, which objected in 2019 to passing on acreage data to the BO Akkerbouw. After a universally binding declaration by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the latter was allowed to request all names, addresses and Chamber of Commerce data of arable farmers, but may not use address data from the Ministry of LNV for this purpose. Area data may also not be requested from LNV, but farmers can also object directly to the sector organization against the transmission of area data.
Agricultural entrepreneurs must provide their name, address and area data on the basis of the Agriculture Act passed annually for the benefit of the Agricultural Census† The BO Akkerbouw also thought it was entitled to this information, and declared the partnership's objection to sharing said information unfounded. The partnership then went to court. However, the Zeeland-West Brabant court also agreed with the opinion of the BO Akkerbouw and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. the partnership was proven wrong.
Equal on appeal
On appeal, however, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State ruled otherwise. It stated, with reference to a provision in the GDPR law, that requested data may only be processed if this is in line with the purpose for which it was requested. Moreover, an appeal to the public interest by the BO Akkerbouw fails, because it is an organization under private law, to which no task has been assigned by the government in the public interest.
In view of the latest provisions, the decision on appeal also appears to have consequences for the retrieval and processing of data by other organizations.
Klaas van der Horst
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