Background Nitrogen mood
Stay out of sight to save the situation on the nitrogen battlefield
Livestock farmers would be best advised to sit still and not plan any expansions or engage in other activities that require amendments to their permits. If you do, you will come to the attention of activist groups such as MOB/Vereniging Leefmilieu and related clubs, and run a high risk of facing the axe.
The Nitrogen Claim Foundation (SSC) provides this advice during evenings it organizes for its members. The climate surrounding livestock farms in particular has become so toxic that anything seems better than tampering with licensed rights. You do not have to be a PAS notifier to feel insecure. Moreover, the business situation is not in safe hands with the government either, the SSC warns its members.
Ever-widening danger zone
Anyone who has everything in order regarding permits but does not keep the barns fully occupied is also in the danger zone. More and more authorities, including those in North Brabant and Utrecht, view unused production space (latent capacity) as a legitimate objective. So, keep that barn full, says SSC.
Legalisation offers no flexibility
That is what the gentleman from Nijmegen with his yellow recumbent bike is reaping: he has really instilled a scare, but he is also ensuring that companies have started keeping more animals than they normally would have. Of course, the blame does not lie solely with Johan Vollenbroek.
It is also the extreme legalisation that is sweeping across the agricultural sector. The tightened regulations offer no room to move with the market, or even with the seasons and the climate.
trap
To the question from SSC chairman Jan Cees Vogelaar about who dares to entrust their permit to the government, there is a deafening silence. The legal trap in which agricultural businesses find themselves is being tightened even further with the help of targeted Freedom of Information Act requests from activist groups. Sometimes these are directed at individual companies, sometimes they involve mass requests, such as last year (actually earlier) regarding the May census. Minister Wiersma did not want to release the data, but had to give in.
Every Dutch citizen has the right to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, because government information must be public, especially environmental information. That is the law. However, there is a catch, as more and more politicians believe. This was discussed again in the House of Representatives this week: should a FOIA request from the government be granted if the request concerns sensitive third-party information collected by the government? Would the same apply in the case of Shell or ASML?
Stands as a data broker
For agriculture, one could think of data from, for example, the Circular Economy Indicator or other data programs intended for mutual use by businesses, but which also have a backdoor to Statistics Netherlands (CBS) or Wageningen University & Research (Wageningen UR). In fact, this does not involve information from the government; instead, the government is forced to act as an information broker for private individuals.
Alternative on the way
It is possible that the predicament described above will not remain in place for much longer, but a number of things must change in the short term. The arithmetic lower limit for (calculated) nitrogen deposition must be raised to 1 mol or higher, the Aerius calculation program must be removed from the law or be given a different status within the law, and the critical deposition values (CDVs) as currently applied must also be removed from the law or used differently. They are model-based constructs with enormous margins of uncertainty, wrapped in a legal guise, but say little or nothing about reality.
New reference points, new hurdles
The bureaucratic nature lobby opposes these types of adjustments, but anticipates that something will have to change regardless. Therefore, hard work is currently being done to redefine the 'state of conservation' of nature – the new benchmark. The underlying requirements are being tightened at a rapid pace. Requirements regarding water and crop protection may also be increased.
Goal-setting buzz
At the same time, agriculture must make a shift towards goal-oriented management. This is the major 'buzzword' in political and administrative circles. Companies must be encouraged to achieve concrete and 'accountable' targets for, among other things, emissions, energy consumption, and other matters. The so-called building blocks agreement between the business community (VNO-NCW, LTO, Bouwend Nederland) and the government also devotes several paragraphs to it. But goal-oriented management is also the elephant in the room, because no one can or wants to say exactly what it entails.
Briefing for the House
The House of Representatives received one this week official briefing over, because The Hague politicians also wanted to know the details. According to the LVVN officials who showed up, various data harvested at primary farms through numerous initiatives (Boerenverstand and the like) and pilots form the basis for this, alongside data from, among others, the aforementioned Circular Economy Indicator and similar instruments. However, goal-oriented steering is not the only means to make agriculture 'cleaner', nor does it replace all other measures, it was stated. The goals are not yet very concrete, however. New standards should, however, be 'technically feasible, taking into account circumstances/specific area'.
Another question is which objective should be targeted: a technical KPI, animal numbers, barn emissions, and the like. This more concrete information will come later, perhaps at the same time as the major letter arrives in which Minister Van Essen intends to present his concrete plans regarding agriculture.
It is also quite conceivable that some old standards will be shuffled under the banner of goal-oriented steering in a slightly tightened form. It would not be very elegant, but it is something that is apparently being considered. One can only hope that it does not become the stick that replaces the whip of Aerius and other attributes.
Moreover, no one can yet say how the transition from the Aerius regime to the goal-oriented steering era should be made. Also the synthesis report from a group of nitrogen and environmental scientists that appeared last week does not come out of that well.
Klaas van der Horst
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