Background Nitrogen mood
New nitrogen limit as a long-lasting sausage
You are being held up a sausage (or a carrot, for the vegans among us) and you are not allowed to eat it for another year and a half. It was a bit of that feeling that was left behind by all the nitrogen issues this week.
On Friday, February 14, the BBB announced that Minister Wiersma the nitrogen lock would break open with an arithmetic lower limit of 1 mole. Only a few days later this was confirmed in an official letter from the minister, but then with the caveat that it will take another year and a half. Understandably, no one is happy about that. Something like that deserves a more sober presentation, not first seeking applause and then waiting for results.
Guardians of dogma
Of course, it has to be done carefully and tinkering with the arithmetic lower limit does not go unpunished. It immediately brings the guardians of the prevailing dogma into action, as became clear on Thursday. Nitrogen professor of the fatherland Jan Willen Erisman had barely read the articles of fellow scientist Arthur Petersen (who is working for the minister on the intended new lower limit) when he already knew that his study was not good. A whole battery of scientific employees of the RIVM rang the alarm bell at the NOS to tell a similar story there.
Not sure about this
It is a sign that these people do not feel confident, otherwise they would have kept quiet by now and used those one and a half years to undermine Petersen's solution, you would think. Petersen is not just anyone, he himself once supervised a number of RIVM employees, knows how things work there and now works at a prestigious British university.
Nostalgia, thoughts and support elsewhere
But suppose that the Lower House, which debated the nitrogen dossier on Thursday, had already been able to agree to a new lower limit, would much have changed then? The answer must unfortunately be no, because the co-governing parties do not agree at all, as is well known. The VVD suffers from nostalgia for the previous cabinet when it comes to nitrogen, the NSC has all sorts of reservations due to the nature of the party and the BBB and PVV only find support for their vision among non-governing parties such as SGP and JA21. Furthermore, the VVD and NSC do not want nature to deteriorate as a result of the introduction of a new lower limit and in doing so they assume the definition that was used under the last Rutte cabinet. That definition is that 'nature is on the verge of collapse', because the nature target analyses according to the format used at the time gave a negative assessment in the majority. Unfortunately, no Arthur Petersen has yet been found to measure the true state of nature.
Hansen moves beacons
While the Netherlands continues to go round in circles with the nitrogen and nature debate, Europe is changing more and more in favor of agriculture. New agricultural commissioner Christophe Hansen is taking on the role of long term vision document, and supported by Von der Leyen, clearly distances itself from the restrictive policy of the previous commission. His approach is to give farmers more space, limit bureaucracy and ensure Europe's own food security. For him, livestock farming is no longer a loaded or undesirable activity that should be consigned to the dustbin of history as quickly as possible.
Support only where necessary
Hansen wants a sober and businesslike policy, no-nonsense and stimulating. Not with subsidies for companies that do not need them, or for land management organisations that pretend to also do agriculture, but only for farmers who really need subsidies to make ends meet. Hansen will certainly still encounter resistance and Dutch farmers will have to be extra patient, trapped in the Dutch web of national heads and their own applications as they are, but hopefully that will change more within a year and a half.
Klaas van der Horst
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