News Ground
Agricultural area shrinks in all provinces
The agricultural area is decreasing in all Dutch provinces, especially new construction is at the expense of agricultural land. This is apparent from new figures from Statistics Netherlands on the use of public space between 1996 and 2015.
From the Numbers it appears that expanding buildings, especially in the provinces of South Holland, Flevoland, Utrecht and North Holland, are at the expense of agricultural land. This is where the agricultural area fell the fastest and the built-up area increased.
South Holland is the province that stands out. The agricultural area there fell by 5,4 percentage points. It means that no less than 14.600 hectares of agricultural land have disappeared. It was replaced by 9.000 hectares of built-up space.
Critical Limit
The agricultural area was already the smallest in South Holland. The decline means that it is currently almost at the point where less than half of the area is used for agricultural purposes. In the provinces of Utrecht, Flevoland and Noord-Holland, the acreage fell by 4 percentage points. That this has to do with expansion is apparent from the fact that the built-up area in the aforementioned provinces expanded the most.
However, the decrease in the agricultural area is not only due to the increase in built-up areas. In the provinces of Friesland and Drenthe, which already have relatively few built-up areas, built-up growth was the least.
Nature
Despite this, the agricultural area also fell sharply in Drenthe, by 3,7 percentage points. This is partly due to the emergence of more nature reserves. In the province of North Brabant, the largest area of agricultural land was given a different destination: more than 18.000 hectares.
| Province or State | Percentage of land for agriculture in 1996 |
Percentage of land for agriculture in 2015 |
Difference between 1996 in 2015 toy |
| Groningen | 81,3% | 78,3% | -3,0% |
| Zeeland | 77,8% | 74,3% | -3,5% |
| Friesland | 76,2% | 73,4% | -2,8% |
| Drenthe | 73,0% | 69,3% | -3,7% |
| Overijssel | 72,6% | 69,9% | -2,7% |
| Flevoland | 70,8% | 67,0% | -3,8% |
| Noord-Brabant | 63,9% | 60,3% | -3,6% |
| Limburg | 62,1% | 58,4% | -3,7% |
| Utrecht | 61,9% | 58,0% | -3,9% |
| Gelderland | 61,5% | 58,8% | -2,7% |
| Noord-Holland | 58,2% | 54,4% | -3,8% |
| Zuid-Holland | 55,7% | 50,3% | -5,4% |
Anne-Jan Doorn
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