The autumn break ensures a relatively quiet political week. No parliamentary debates and hardly any letters from ministers. Yet it is not completely quiet. The joint agricultural organisations, known as the G7 and the dairy umbrella organisation NZO are trying to reach an agreement before the manure debate of 7 November in the House of Representatives on how to get under the new manure ceiling for 2025.
It is a cliché to say that this is a challenge: seven farmers' organizations that have to agree among themselves and then the dairies. There is a lot of consultation going on in the dairy farming and dairy sector in particular, because that is where it is most difficult and where the division is also the greatest.
Prefer to handle the knife yourself
For agriculture, however, this division is a given. They have to deal with it and try to come together, or not?
The BBB, the party of the two ministers at the ministry of LVVN wants to prevent a forced reduction of the livestock population at all costs. The political preference option is therefore to let agriculture and dairy handle the knife themselves. After all, there has to be a reduction anyway.
Pot is ready
Minister Femke Wiersma reportedly has around €250 million available for a supported approach. The dairy farming and dairy industry must also raise €20 million of their own money to help temporarily (three years) remove a large number of dairy cows from the market. A levy could be imposed for the collection via the NZO or ZuivelNL, if the cabinet approves this at least.
The idea is to buy the oldest cows from all farmers, including phosphate rights, and to give compensation for production loss. The total costs would amount to €6.000 to €7.000 per animal. It has yet to be determined whether this does not count as state aid, but because it can be seen as an environmental measure, this would not be a problem.
The question remains: can the organisations agree on the plan, and do they want to? Not everyone shares the same opinion and there are also parties that prefer to have the minister explain why and where shrinkage is necessary, it is said. However, there are still a few days to go and if there is no sector agreement after all, the BBB can at least say that everything has been done to prevent forced shrinkage.
In between, there is also a lot of lobbying to further mitigate the damage caused by the shrinkage, in particular by tinkering with a number of calculation factors. Something like that would be easy to explain scientifically and would not have to meet with objections in Brussels. It would also reduce resistance in the sector and cost less money. However, the minister and her officials must continue to work towards this.
No business to do in Brussels yet
Wiersma and State Secretary Jean Rummenie are keeping in touch with the European Commission in the meantime. Both have already travelled to Brussels several times, but they cannot do much real business yet, but they can create understanding among fellow ministers from other countries and possibly among civil servants. For the rest, it is mainly a matter of waiting until the new European Commission is installed. The old commission is in fact resigning.