Land-bound companies in trouble due to RVO

These are so-called tropical days for the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), but that does not alter the fact that mistakes have major consequences for entrepreneurs. For example, it appears that the transfer of land in the event of a company takeover is not properly communicated. The result is that companies are wrongly seen as not being land-bound, and this has major consequences for phosphate rights.  

On Wednesday, Henk Kamp, Minister of Economic Affairs (EZ) was already able to report that the RVO will no longer be able to to give a briefing on the state of affairs regarding phosphate rights on 22 February† RVO indicated that there are still matters that need to be arranged, but the collection of the data necessary to determine phosphate rights is still going wrong. Something that Jaco Geurts, CDA, because it could mean that dairy farmers will miss out on milk money after 1 March. 

Now the Dutch Agricultural Youth Contact (NAJK) announces that even more is going wrong. For example, it appears that in the event of a business transfer, the data from the land is not taken over, which in turn has major consequences for the degree of land-relatedness. Precisely what can help to reduce the pain of the generic discount because land-based companies are partly spared.

The NAJK must conclude from practice that things are not going well at RVO. 'Very worrying, because the consequences for dairy farmers, and especially young dairy farmers, can be significant. A non-land-bound company will have to deal with a generic creaming off when allocating phosphate rights in 2018', says Bart van der Hoog, who is responsible for dairy farming at NAJK.  

Specifically, it goes like this. In the event of a company takeover after 2 July 2015 and before 1 January 2018, the new owner takes over phosphate rights from the company. To do this, the reference, the number of animals on 2 July 2015, is adopted. For the soil-relatedness, the phosphate production in 2015 compared to the phosphate space is considered. The latter is determined on the basis of the amount of soil. The reference from the Dairy Cattle Act cannot be used here. It is purely and simply about placement space. 'If the data from land is not taken over, it is impossible to be regarded as land-related.'

For example, it goes wrong when a new number for the Chamber of Commerce is created, while the ground is still under the company. It is not clear why the transfer of the data is not going well. It is clear that this must be resolved quickly, because the sector plan for phosphate reduction also spares land-based companies as much as possible, which is expected to take effect on 1 March.

Will the RVO save this? At the time of the Dairy Product Board (PZ), such matters could be dealt with quickly and adequately, but now that is anything but certain. What still needs to be done? Dairy farmers' references about livestock and milk production still have to be corrected, errors in land-relatedness are regulated, work is being done on the ministerial regulation for the sector plan, determination of phosphate rights and payment of funds from the CAP. It doesn't stop there, but it does indicate that these are tropical days. 

© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.