Create a green land bank for a farmer's earning model

Politicians want circular agriculture. The consumer wants the cow in the meadow. But the farmer is still tied to the old system. That is why a different revenue model and policy are needed. Dairy farmer Chris van Bruggen proposes to introduce the French land bank in the Netherlands. This facilitates the feasibility of additional sustainability requirements and a lease price that rewards farmers.

Carola Schouten, the Minister of Agriculture, has finalized her policy maximum closed loop based. It is reshaping Dutch agriculture, which was originally based on the import of animal feed. Schouten wants to limit that import and emphasizes the use of residual flows and the regionally available food sources for livestock. The ratio between livestock and land must necessarily adapt to this. Fewer animals is the logical consequence.

Circular agriculture sounds great and will entail the limitation of agroproduction in the Netherlands, which policymakers want. But if you want to keep up the agriculture that we do want, then there must be revenue models for that. The market does not pay for more sustainable food and extensive farming is simply less profitable than intensive farming.

The Soil Reliance Committee stated that a land-based dairy farming is of crucial importance for social acceptance and is the basis for a healthy living environment. Various signals point in the direction of more extensive and nature-inclusive agriculture. But the revenue model is still lacking. Earlier on I explained on Foodlog that meadow bird management as an ecosystem service does not offer a revenue model.

I am convinced that agriculture needs to broaden and become ecosystem service inclusive. That means more than just food production. It bothers me that no serious alternatives to the current system are offered yet. This is unfortunate, but it also increases the social pressure on agriculture. Farmers want best sustainable, but need tools and policies that enable new revenue models. The French Land Bank possibly offers a revenue model and the desired sustainability.

The French Land Bank
A few years ago I did an internship at a dairy farm in France (near Angoulême). I first heard of the 'Société d'Aménagement Foncier et d'Établissement Rural' (SAFER), or the land bank. If a piece of agricultural land comes up for sale in France, SAFER has the first right to purchase it. In the case of a gift, a dowry, sale to heirs, transfer within a partnership and with a number of exceptions, the land bank cannot buy the land. If the land bank's commission owns land, it must be sold again within 5 years of purchase.

The SAFER determines who is a suitable buyer on the basis of a number of requirements. First, the agricultural entrepreneurs whose land has been expropriated or requisitioned are eligible. After all, their acreage has shrunk, which cuts into their profitability and thus their chances of survival on the market. The second group includes young farmers and the third group includes entrepreneurs who lost their business due to subdivision (company relocation).

The land bank as a solution
This French regulation of land buying and selling favors young farmers on viable farms. The price of land remains the same, because land is bought with the explicit intention of selling it on. The SAFER keeps the land in agricultural hands and indicates to which farmer the land suits best.

Such a land bank can also facilitate the Dutch agricultural entrepreneur to avoid the problem of high land prices. It has been known among farmers for some time that buying land is not financially viable: land in the Netherlands is too expensive for agriculture. In addition, there is no revenue model for sustainable agriculture. The ground bank offers the solution in this regard. I therefore have two goals in mind with a Dutch land bank: offering land at a reasonable farmer's price and making agriculture more sustainable.

How does it work?
The Dutch land bank is given the first right to purchase agricultural land. The commission appointed for this will offer a reasonable price and, if the buyer and seller agree, may purchase the land. The committee then leases the land for a number of years and then sells it to the farmer.

Additional requirements for the use of the land must result in a sustainable use of the land. On the other hand, the Committee argues that the lease and purchase price are in proportion to the additional requirements set. In practice, this results in a reduction of the land price. The land bank pays the difference.

Who is the first to lay claim to the agricultural land can be determined in a similar way as in France. First the young farmers (up to 35 years) and farmers where the land matches the house plot. In this way grazing can be facilitated. Then organic and extensive farms come into the picture. Preference may also be given to companies with a smaller size.

Additional requirements: sustainability
The Dutch committee is shaping the extra requirements in consultation with, for example, CLM or the meadow bird collectives. Various requirements can be set to suit the character of an area. You can imagine that the Achterhoek, the Flevopolder and the peat meadow areas each require a different approach. Those requirements must be simple and verifiable. My proposal from the land bank does not focus on sustainability in the margins, but on sustainability in general.

Limited use of fertilizer, limited fertilizer placement space, a limited number of animals per hectare, using only spot (not full-field) crop protection products and not using the outer 1,5 meters for biodiversity are some of the requirements I have in mind have got. More requirements can be added to this. I think it is important that the relationship between requirements and costs for the farmer is safeguarded. The lease price is therefore geared to how much money a farmer can earn with it, not to the price of the land itself. This is the only way to provide a sustainable revenue model.

Where spatial planning indicates the destination of the land, the land bank offers resistance to the ever-rising land prices that are unprofitable for farmers. The market does not have to pay for sustainable food and the farmer is not financially affected by the extra requirements. And yes, we have to pay for the depreciation that the land bank manages to achieve. This will have to be done with government funds that are intended to make agriculture more sustainable. For example, the green land bank can facilitate the sustainability of agriculture desired by the government.

Government, citizens and farmers happy?

This article is part of the content collaboration between Boerenbusiness en foodlog.

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