The ominous messages that Agriculture Minister Piet Adema poured out about agriculture in recent weeks regarding manure legislation, derogation and emissions were not out of the question. Until now, the agricultural sector has reacted quite apathetically to this, almost with an attitude of whether you will be bitten by the dog or the cat.
Of course, administrators responded with a certain perfunctory anger, but often only to fall back into the position of: what else can I do for you, government?
Little face
Of course, it also plays a role in the fact that agriculture has almost completely disappeared in recent months. Sjaak van der Tak has left as LTO chairman, but he was also very cooperative. The NMV no longer has much of a face, nor do many other agricultural organizations. Only the FDF and Agractie remain somewhat militant.
Debate about rule knitting
The militancy is currently mainly in the new House of Representatives. Actually the best place for that. In that Chamber, they want to put outgoing Minister Adema to the test again next week about the enormous number of new rules and warnings that he unleashed on agriculture. Because of him, he currently feels like he has been bitten by both the dog and the cat.
Much of what the minister released seemed to be passed on unfiltered from Brussels or from official agencies. Take the well-known eco scheme, but also the decision not to adjust the rules for highly productive cows. The minister gives away the excuse that cows that emit less nitrogen and ammonia still do so on paper (based on old data). New lower fertilizer ceilings may be a concern, but no attempt has been made to solve this situation in a regulatory, creative and taking into account the Dutch situation. Everything is on the brakes.
Judge sees lack of 'fair play'
It is well known that things often go differently in terms of nature policy. Yet it does not happen very often that the judge then reprimands the minister. So on December 15th. The court of East Brabant reprimanded the minister (in this case Christianne van der Wal and predecessor Carola Schouten) for violating the rules for 'fair play'. In the spring of 2018, amendment decisions for a number of Natura 2000 areas were made available for inspection in East Brabant, but without stakeholders being able to see what exactly was being changed.
Disclosure obligation violated
This was partly because the National Database of Flora and Fauna and the National Database of Vegetation and Habitats could not be viewed. Boundaries were also changed during the inspection process. Van der Wal adopted the decision in November last year, despite protests from farmers. Those (and not environmental organizations) went to court and were proven right. The minister was found to have violated the disclosure obligation and the procedure must be over. It is expected that this course of events will repeat itself in several places in the Netherlands. No projection of new nature outside the established boundaries without evidence of its presence. The province of Gelderland previously managed to prevent a situation like that in Brabant by removing too much nature from the map itself.
Confidentiality rules also violated
Another example of how the ministry goes about its business too much without paying attention to the rules, comes from a recent series WOO documents about PAS detectors. It states that Minister Schouten was pressured by MOB to provide all addresses of PAS reporters to the said action group via the ministry, while she was not legally entitled to do so (this is a competence of the provinces). This may therefore have a legal impact.
Wösten with children in the sandbox
This series of documents convincingly shows how great the dismay and inexperience was at the newly reestablished Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality after the PAS ruling of 2019. MOB had won and, after the aforementioned ruling, regularly succeeded in getting the LNV officials to bluff and take by the hand. Valentijn Wösten, Vollenbroek's legal right-hand man, wrote in an email to the ministry that he often felt 'like an adult who played with children in the sandbox' during consultations with civil servants and agricultural managers. Actually a waste of his precious hours.
True value still black box
How to proceed with agricultural and nature policy is a matter for a new cabinet. Until that happens, the old policy will continue. Rabobank indicated today that it did not want to wait for that. The bank continues its own agricultural vision and associated financing policy. It is hardly surprising that sustainability weighs heavily in this regard. As far as the bank is concerned, this also includes a specific financing policy, based on the 'true value' of products, the intrinsic value, including environmental costs. Unfortunately, the bank does not yet want to reveal exactly how this works.
FAO sees it differently
At the FAO they would probably be somewhat hesitant about this. At the COP28 climate summit, Chief Economist Maximo Torero said the world should nurture efficient and highly productive agricultural systems, such as those in the Netherlands and New Zealand, and help them export more dairy and meat, because it is the only way to support many people elsewhere. to provide the world with sufficient essential nutrients. What was just missing was that he accused many of the NGOs active on our continent of being selfish: as long as things are clean here. The FAO substantiates this in a robust manner report.
Rather not ultraedited
It also makes a few critical comments about ultra-processed food, which also includes a large part of the now popular vegetarian foods. They are unhealthy and feed only moderately. Perhaps the latter is exactly what Western consumers want, but for most people it is still not good.
End of pipe
Another, less publicized report, cracks another nut. The FAO concludes this that many countries are working on reducing emissions and that a lot of money is being invested in this. That is also necessary, but in the meantime hardly any money is being made available for a much-needed, accompanying transition of agricultural production, in the sense that hard work has to be done in many places to maintain food production.
Reading this, the parallel comes to mind with Dutch citizens who, at the beginning of the Covid epidemic, prepared themselves for a long period of staying at home. Unlike most global citizens, they decided to hoard not so much food, but toilet paper.