News Nitrates Directive
Additional measures 7th Nitrates Directive on the way
The Ministry of Agriculture is working on an addition to the 7th Nitrates Directive Action Program (AP). In December, the measures in the 7th AP were judged by the Nitrate Committee in Brussels as insufficient for achieving the goals of the Nitrates Directive and the Water Framework Directive. The government's aim is to adopt the addendum with the additional measures in mid-February.
This was announced by the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality Henk Staghouwer and the Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Christianne van der Wal today (Thursday 20 January) in a letter to the House of Representatives. "The cabinet is fully implementing the measures laid down in the 7th AP", the ministers write in the letter. "The integrated, area-oriented approach must meet the remaining tasking for water quality." Important instruments in this approach include extensification, conversion, innovation, legalisation, buy-out and buy-out, write-down and relocation. "We try as much as possible to opt for a suitable and sustainable transition together with the farmers. This will not only apply to livestock farming, but also to arable farming, where this is necessary to achieve the water quality goals."
The letter mentions, among other things, measures such as a legal guarantee that no leaching-sensitive crops are cultivated on land that is released from leaching, the withdrawal and cancellation of production rights when buying and buying out livestock farms and a transition to achieve land-based dairy farming. The ministry spokesperson could not immediately provide an explanation of what this means in practice.
Derogation
Due to the rejection of the 7th AP, the European Commission has temporarily stopped the procedure for granting the derogation to await the measures of the new cabinet. If the regular decision-making process is followed, the decision on the derogation would only be made in September, after the riding season. In order to still be able to make use of the derogation this season, the previous minister Carola Schouten insisted on flexibility and the decision-making procedure. The new ministers will continue to do so in their talks with the European Commission.
LTO chairman Sjaak van der Tak reports on the LTO site that he was unpleasantly surprised. "However, we can conclude from the Ministry's reporting that the European Commission has quite a few questions about the elaboration of the coalition agreement. We also have those questions, there are quite a few open ends." Tineke de Vries, portfolio holder for Soil and Water at LTO, warns: "This is the time for confidence, not for panic. With the billions invested in innovation, extensification and voluntary purchase and relocation, every sane person understands that we are going to make a major step towards sustainability. It is up to our ministers to convince the Commission of this."
Jurphaas Lugtenburg
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