Interview Gerard Ros (WUR)
'Government nitrogen targets punishment, but doable'
Significantly limit emissions: halving ammonia by 2030 or 2035, greenhouse gas by 2050, and nitrate in groundwater must soon fall below 50 milligrams per litre. These are goals about which there is still considerable political discussion, but which the cabinet wants to keep agriculture to. For individual farms, these are goals that are often far from their goals and that are often seen as unattainable in advance. This is the case for some companies. They will stop, but another part can indeed meet the strict goals.
This is the opinion of Wageningen researchers Gerard Ros (photo), Wim de Vries, Roel Jongeneel and Martin van Ittersum. They wrote a vision paper that follows on from an essay that was published last week, commissioned by Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Christianne van der Wal. They also developed a method on how to achieve those goals. According to Gerard Ros, with which Boerenbusiness this can be done on the basis of targets for (key performance) indicators per company for the emission of ammonia and greenhouse gases and the permissible nitrogen soil surplus. Each farmer can control how these are realized.
Shouldn't companies have to register a lot of extra data for this?
"Most of the numbers for dairy farming are already in the KringloopWijzer, so that's not too bad. The method currently uses fixed values based on known company data. When the phosphate legislation had to be complied with in 2018, that was technically not very difficult. It was arranged in two years. Now the task is bigger. A livestock farm has to work towards 20 to 25 kilos of ammonia per hectare and 0,05 to 0,5 kilos of ammonia per chicken or calf. These targets can be increased, however if stricter standards are introduced within a radius of 500 to 1.000 meters around sensitive nature. The maximum soil surplus for nitrogen may vary from 50 to 125 kilograms per hectare. In addition, there are maximums of 9 kilograms of nitrous oxide and 150 kilograms of methane per hectare. the permissible emission express 3 to 12 kilograms of methane for pigs and veal calves."
These are company-by-company standards, but it probably doesn't make sense for companies to start striving for them on their own, right?
"Certainly. These permissible emissions apply to every company in order to achieve the national target. The condition is that everyone meets them, otherwise it won't work. We therefore propose an emission allowance system that decreases to the target, where you are rewarded for a higher reduction and pays for a lower If the buy-out of peak loaders continues, the task for the rest of the companies will become less onerous.
You argue for a national approach, but isn't it almost inevitable that regional differences and per type of business are taken into account?
"Our approach takes this into account because the permissible standards vary per soil type, land use and groundwater level for the nitrogen soil surplus. The specifications for ammonia and greenhouse gases are related to land use and animal intensity per province. However, there is discussion about what to do with matters such as latent space and area-oriented interpretation around Natura 2000 areas, but that is something that must be decided by politicians."
From a technical point of view, companies should be able to make the desired transition, you say, because the basis lies mainly through the Kringloopwijzer, but financially and economically it will be quite a job. How do you do that?
"A budget of €25 billion is available from the government for the transition phase. The whole of Dutch agriculture is moving towards more extensive production. The integrated approach in our approach prevents agriculture from having to get back to work in a few years. it is important that everyone participates in order to make the desired transition possible: farmer, bank, government and citizen. The stoppers must be able to stop, the stayers must be able to continue. The desired more sustainable production must then be profitable, can provide a good income, supplemented with, for example, income from nature and landscape management. You could think of something like a landscape tax for this."
Please return to the integral. Not everything is arranged in your system for all assignments, right?
"The requirements for soil and surface water are not included in the intended standardization and pricing system, but they are not necessary. Targets for this can be implemented using existing instruments such as Agricultural Nature and Landscape Management, the Open Soil Index and the Business Soil Water Plan. That is therefore realizable."
I understand that there are still several open ends to be closed for the phase after the transition, the desired new normal. For example, your fellow researchers have calculated the necessary income supplements from nature and landscape management and have determined that more subsidy is needed than Brussels currently allows.
"There is a bottleneck there, but I understand that there is good hope that Brussels wants to offer more space. We are making various proposals on how this can be achieved, such as a landscape tax for every citizen."
In addition, there is an issue to be resolved with regard to the financeability of companies. Banks maintain a lower value for land.
"The valuation of landscape land needs to be looked at closely. We note that the long obscurity surrounding landscape land is in fact paralyzing. As a result, a potentially powerful policy instrument now seems to be discredited even before it has actually been used. But we have tool really needed."
Due to the Basel-4 agreements, banks must value all agricultural land 30% lower. That also poses a big problem.
"This needs to be looked at further. More important than the value, or solvency, is often liquidity, or future earning capacity. We provide an analysis along which tracks such a revenue model can be realized, pointing out both new sustainability initiatives via the market as well as through policy. What we emphasize is that the farm structure must receive sufficient attention in the transition process. Farms must be able to grow larger, at least measured in hectares, less or not at all in animals. This way they will also become more extensive. We think that there will be perspective is to be a farmer in a good and financeable way. In fact, a large number of companies elsewhere in the EU have been working this way for years."
With fewer emissions, less manure is allowed on the ground. Then production can drop considerably.
"We don't see the biggest problems for arable farming because there will be no additional restrictions on the usage standards. With our goals you can still supply 170 kilos of nitrogen from animal manure. It is not said that you can keep all crops afloat in every province, due to limitations due to the permissible nitrogen surplus. The biggest changes will take place in livestock farming. Production will drop the most there, but the aim is to achieve further extensification and sustainability."
Klaas van der Horst
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