Greenpeace recently released a report demonstrating that a small group of wealthy landowners and industrial farms absorb the lion's share of European agricultural subsidies. The Netherlands is one of the countries highlighted by the environmental organization. According to Greenpeace, 1% of recipients in the Netherlands receive 40% of agricultural subsidies from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The fine print states that this refers to direct payments. Delving deeper into the Dutch figures reveals a much more nuanced picture than Greenpeace claims. Cooperatives, nature organizations, and (semi-)governmental agencies are adept at accessing funds from Brussels. You have to click through a few pages on the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) website before you encounter the first agricultural company.
By far the largest recipient of funds from the CAP in 2024 (the reference year in the Greenpeace report) was Coöperatie Harvest House UA with €50.594.787,73 to be precise, as can be seen from the figures from the RVOIn second place is the Oxin Growers cooperative with €37 million, and in third place is Growers United Cooperative with €21 million. All of this money comes from the first pillar of the CAP (EAGF), the fund that covers, among other things, direct payments and measures to regulate or support agricultural markets. The goal of subsidies to the cooperatives is a living farm income and food security (SO1) and a stronger position in the value chain (SO3).
Climate and sustainable energy
Fourth on the list of largest subsidy recipients is Coöperatie Natuurlijk Limburg UA with €11 million, and in fifth place is the Drents Overijsselse Delta Water Board with also €11 million. These organizations receive funding from the second pillar of the CAP (EAFRD), known for rural development programs, among other things. Both organizations received subsidies for climate and sustainable energy (SO4), efficient management of natural resources (SO5), and biodiversity protection (SO6).
Among the top recipients of CAP funds are the numerous agricultural nature conservation associations, regional cooperatives, and water boards. Searching for the amount of subsidies farms receive is somewhat difficult in the Netherlands Enterprise Agency's (RVO) database. Greenpeace likely used the method of selecting the Basic Income Support for Sustainability scheme (the CAP's basic premium). This method highlights the farms with the most land in use.
Koninklijke Maatschap de Wilhelminapolder (KMWP) will then be the largest subsidy recipient. According to data from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), the KMWP received a total of €538.000 in 2024. According to its website, the KMWP manages over 1.500 hectares of agricultural land and 500 hectares of leased land, mussel plots, pastures, roads, and water and nature reserves. This makes it perhaps the largest agricultural company in the Netherlands.
In second place is another well-known name in the agricultural sector, namely BV Exploitatie Reservegronden Flevoland (Erf), with a total of €427.000 in subsidies from the CAP. Third place goes to Beheerboerderijen Het Drentse Landschap with €365.000, and fourth place goes to Landbouwbedrijf Limburgs Landschap BV, which received €351.000 in subsidies. Fifth place is WPR, Praktijkonderzoek AGV (Practical Research AGV), also known as the Lelystad experimental farm, with €268.000.
Provincial landscapes are large landowners
The fact that the Drentse Landschap Foundation and the Limburgs Landschap Foundation, through limited companies, are among the largest recipients of direct payments from the CAP in the Netherlands likely doesn't sit well with Greenpeace supporters. The money that reaches farmers and land management organizations through (agricultural) nature management associations and cooperatives is also difficult to ascertain. Moreover, one might wonder what actually ends up in the end. This does cast a different light on Greenpeace's claim that 40% of CAP funding in the Netherlands goes to 1% of the recipients.
On the other hand, it's also a bit easy to dismiss the issue Greenpeace raises regarding European agricultural subsidies as nonsense. By linking premiums to acreage, large farms automatically receive more subsidies than small ones.
Should the "largest" 1% (in the Netherlands, farms of approximately 200 hectares or more) receive the same hectare premium as the "smaller" 99% of farms? Greenpeace disagrees. The environmental organization proposes a degressive premium system in which payments per hectare are gradually reduced based on farm size. There should also be a cap on the CAP subsidies a farm can receive, in line with the average agricultural income or the average size of a farm in a Member State. Farms with the highest environmental and/or social value should be given the highest priority. Furthermore, Greenpeace wants to allocate a significant portion of the CAP budget to climate action.
Keep attractive
Steering small and medium-sized farms through the CAP is, of course, a political choice. It can be argued that large farms, due to economies of scale, have lower costs per hectare and can therefore afford to reduce their CAP premiums. On the other hand, to qualify for CAP subsidies, farms must meet "good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC)" and management requirements. These requirements are the same for all farms, and one could argue that all farms should receive proportional compensation for them. A government or environmental group, on the other hand, wants to support large farms with extensive land use to achieve environmental and biodiversity goals.
The CAP is an important tool for the government to manage farms. If the thresholds for receiving CAP funding become too high, (large) farms might decide not to participate at all. This was already somewhat feared by some within the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) when the current CAP was introduced. That hasn't happened, however, but you don't want to stretch the elastic so far that it breaks.