Background Nitrogen mood
Escape from nitrogen straitjacket requires more focus
Minister Wiersma and State Secretary Rummenie have caused quite a stir and indignation in the political and media circus in The Hague this week. Their statements about the NPLG, about the wolf and the national headlines on Dutch nature policy have not been received equally well everywhere. In agriculture and more generally in less densely populated areas, things are different. But there is also a need to deliver.
Wiersma also had reassuring words about the nitrogen policy in her letters and even announced a new incentive scheme for innovative farmers, including support for air scrubbers and new low-emission stables. With the latter, she is in line with the Brabant policy. Minister Wiersma now also explicitly allows a later harvest of arable crops (including corn).
Harvest later, lose less
According to the minister will 'a later harvest of a still growing crop with a later sown catch crop' almost certainly not be detrimental, because it will 'lead to less nitrogen losses than an early harvest of immature crops and an earlier sown catch crop'. She also points out the importance of a good soil structure for the development and growth of (catch) crops, and thus the possibility of absorbing nitrogen from the soil. She does this on the advice of the CDM, the Committee of Experts on the Fertiliser Act, but had it also given such advice under her predecessor?
Minister supports, Council of State has doubts
However, it is very questionable whether the minister will help agriculture with her support scheme for air scrubbers and low-emission stables - which is also required in Brabant. The letter from the minister about this was sent to the Lower House on 2 September. Two days later, the Council of State revoked the permit of a Reusel livestock farmer, precisely because of the air washer required there, arguing that this is, in short, still unproven technology and that the existing guidelines are also insufficiently based on hard measurement data.
Data harvesting for environmental lawyers
The farmer must now apply for a new permit, with more data, something that almost certainly many more peat farmers will have to do. A side-effect of this case for the environmental activists is that they will soon be able to sweep up all the addresses of the livestock farms in question without much effort. With her subsidy scheme, the minister runs the risk of provoking a new round of easily contestable permit applications.
Need more sharpness
If the minister wants to do something about all the nitrogen and manure problems, she must first provide sufficient, solidly substantiated basic certainty. She wants to do that, including a new arithmetic lower limit, as the provinces have requested. But even there she (or, in fact, her officials) do not seem to have the right sharpness.
About the lower limit she writes to the House of Representatives: "A mathematical lower limit indicates which calculated nitrogen deposition with the model is scientifically sufficiently certain to be attributed to a project. The nitrogen deposition below the lower limit is not attributable to the project and is not included in a preliminary test or appropriate assessment. As a result, the cumulative test does not apply to depositions below the lower limit."
Well cumulation
This is not like it in the European Directive is described. There, among other things, cumulation at area level is assumed (Article 6, paragraph 3). It would be sad if this would result in environmental lawyers laughingly standing ready to catch farmers who have been misled.
New policy takes time and a good substantiation of it certainly does. But even within the circle of agriculture there are enough vested interests that oppose new insights and seemingly logical steps.
Measured or calculated?
Recent research by Herman de Boer has clearly shown, based on measurements, that the gaseous losses from cow manure amount to over 9%, and do not consist of ammonia alone. Yet there are still scientists from another school who wave old, calculated losses of around 3%. In any case, it raises questions about the value of new research if old insights continue to prevail.
Putin forces change of course
The will to change is there in the new cabinet, however. It is also there in the European Commission, as indicated by the old and new Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. After first giving her old right-hand man Frans Timmermans more than three years to make things as difficult as possible for agriculture, it is now time for a more farmer-friendly course and a focus on strategic food security. Thanks to Vladimir Putin, that realization has now really sunk in in Brussels (although the EU apparently still gets around 40% of its imported gas from Russia via detours).
Support where needed
Von der Leyen wants to draw important inspiration for her new course from a report that was drawn up under the leadership of a German professor, who goes by the beautiful farmer's surname Strohschneider. The aim is to make the CAP farmer-friendly and less bureaucratic (where have we heard that before?), and to ensure that the support mainly lands with the smaller companies, not with the hectare stackers and nouveau riche from the tech and financial world who suddenly have a rural dream.
Klaas van der Horst
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