'Preventing the deregulation of pig farming'

The new action plan has tightened the rules again. What does the new plan mean for farmers?
The rules haven't been tightened. We're building on what was already in place with new agreements on Climate and Animal-Friendly Livestock Farming. With this plan, we prevent pig farming from becoming overly regulated. Society is placing ever-increasing demands on sustainability and animal welfare. It's important that, as a sector, you don't just sit back and wait, but demonstrate your own ambitions. If you don't, you'll be bombarded with regulations and laws, while the market should be leading the way. By demonstrating that you, as a sector, are actively taking action, you prevent measures that are impossible to implement in practice. Based on the previous action plan, for example, we can demonstrate that we've reduced ammonia emissions by 85% and methane emissions by 55%, all without stricter legislation.

The plan states that pig farming plays a central role in the circular economy. It's well known that pigs consume a lot of waste streams. What kind of volumes should we consider?
Pigs are kings of the cycle, as they process large amounts of waste streams from the human food industry. Dutch pig feed consists of 85% streams unsuitable for human consumption, 35% of which are waste streams. We are also working hard to close the manure chain. We can make a significant difference by producing green gas from manure and by recovering minerals for crops.

The action plan states that the sector aims to increase the amount of residual products from approximately 36% to 40%. There is increasing experimentation with feeding residual products to other animals, such as chickens. Won't it become difficult to achieve this goal if competition for raw materials increases?
I don't expect that to become a major problem. It's often said that food waste should be reduced and that this will eliminate residual flows, but in practice, we're actually seeing these flows grow. This is due to the growing market for processed food. The production of these types of products generates significant volumes of residual products. A pig's intestines are suitable for processing many different flows.

Will consumers accept the higher price? In recent years, the consumer price has already made pork difficult to sell.
I wouldn't necessarily endorse that conclusion. We do see, however, that there's work to be done to increase the popularity of pork. Chicken has handled that more intelligently. I'm not particularly concerned about the higher price, at least in supermarkets. There, you can link higher standards to a higher price. The problem lies primarily in out-of-home consumption: restaurants, catering, and similar channels. There, purchasing for sustainability is much less organized. In that market, price is paramount. As a result, there's less room to recoup higher standards. That's a weak point in the system, because a significant portion of the meat is sold through these channels.

You emphasize the importance of a level playing field, but by introducing stricter national animal welfare legislation, you create inequality in the European market. How do you solve this?
A level playing field in the EU is still a concern. We must especially ensure that the requirements in the crucial Northern European market don't diverge too much. That is by far our most important sales area. We don't expect to fall significantly behind Germany and Denmark in the coming years, as those countries are tightening their standards at a similar pace. This doesn't apply to the rest of the European Union, however. Unfortunately, it's not even a given that all countries will adhere to European regulations, especially in Southern Europe. Even if we could guarantee that, it would be a major step. We are lobbying for this in Europe. We have agreed that we will not take any further steps if there isn't a level playing field. For now, that's not on the agenda.

You say the market should determine the premium. That's actually an abstract way of saying that consumers should pay more. In practice, we don't eat the whole pig, so shouldn't that price be determined by a small number of products?
That's indeed how the market works. By exporting products that don't sell as well here to China, we can ensure that the products we eat here remain affordable. Ultimately, the additional cost of these standards must be recouped in the supermarket and through other consumption channels. A sound and transparent cost price model helps with this, including the calculation of future investments.