News Council for the living environment
Advice: 'Give farmers freedom to comply with rules'
In order to be able to do business and to farm sustainably, it is necessary for the short and long term to become clear which requirements agricultural entrepreneurs must meet. This is the opinion of the Council for the Living Environment and Infrastructure (Rli). According to the Council, entrepreneurs should be given as much freedom as possible in how they want to comply with rules and regulations.
The emphasis is currently strongly on the reorganization of agricultural companies (buying up and expropriating), but according to the Council, government policy should focus more on those who continue. That is why the Rli entered into a dialogue with farmers to answer the question of which government policy helps agricultural entrepreneurs to be able to do business within sustainability limits. The advice 'Farmers with a future' was presented today to Carola Schouten, the outgoing Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV).
Clarity about the requirements is necessary to enable agricultural entrepreneurs to make appropriate investments in a timely manner or to adjust their revenue model, according to the Council. The rules and regulations must give as much freedom as possible in how entrepreneurs will comply with them. Then they can decide for themselves how they can best fit this into their individual business operations, says the Board.
According to the Rli, in areas where there are joint tasks - for example an increase in the water level or biodiversity recovery - requirements must be drawn up for individual companies in consultation with agricultural entrepreneurs. Central government should be actively involved in these consultations and the province should play a supporting role.
In order to limit the administrative burden as much as possible, the Rli proposes to introduce a system of certification and to set up a body for this. These certificates can be linked to systems that reward farmers if they go further than prescribed by the standard. According to the Rli, governments must also actually enforce this, for example on the basis of measured emissions, if sustainability standards are not met.
Increase sales market
The Council also believes that the government should take initiatives, also internationally, to encourage parties in the food chain to move in the direction of more sustainably produced food. The aim is that lenders, purchasing groups of supermarkets, marketing cooperatives and consumers contribute more to sustainability.
Possible measures mentioned are: obligation for the retail sector to have a fixed percentage of sustainable products on offer or on the shelf space; obligation for parties in the chain to purchase a fixed percentage of sustainable products (for example, an obligation for slaughterhouses to slaughter a fixed percentage of meat from sustainable livestock farmers); certification of supermarkets and catering establishments that have a certain share of sustainable products in their range; VAT increase for non-sustainable food or VAT reduction for sustainable food; introduction of a legal distance restriction (eg a circle of 500 kilometres) for the purchase of animal feed intended for the production of sustainable food.
Linda van Eekeres
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