Beef farmers and other non-dairy farms will not have to remove any animals this year. This is apparent from a newly announced amendment proposal for the phosphate reduction scheme that was announced by outgoing State Secretary Martijn van Dam on Wednesday, 12 April.
The new bill shows that beef farmers and other non-supplying cattle farms will be completely excluded from the scheme. They are therefore not obliged to remove animals this year.
Rollback measure
Initially, the phosphate reduction plan did not apply to non-dairy farms. There was therefore a fear that the success of the phosphate reduction plan could be jeopardized if this category of companies were not caught. This arose after signals from the sector that non-dairy farms could be 'used' to house livestock, so that they would be excluded from the scheme. To close this gap in the scheme, Van Dam announced in February that beef farmers, like dairy farmers, will be fined if the number of female animals in 2017 exceeds the number of I&R registered animals on December 15, 2017. Van Dam is now running this measure again. back.
Wish beef farmers
With the amendment to the law, Van Dam is giving in to the wishes of beef farmers. They became in February surprised by the phosphate reduction plan that suddenly turned out to apply to them as well. The beef farmers are on this went to court† They believe that they have not contributed any amounts to the exceeding of the phosphate ceiling.
Unclear
The ink of the agreements that have been put on paper about the mixed companies is still wet. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the LTO department of veal calves have recently made agreements on how to deal with mixed companies that keep veal calves and dairy cattle. It is not yet clear what the amendment will mean for these agreements.
The details of the change will be announced before May 1, according to the ministry.
Read also Hole in phosphate plan seems difficult to close
Read here the letter from Martijn van Dam of Wednesday 12 April
Want to follow more news and developments about dairy farming? Then take out a Milk & Feed Pro subscription.
© 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.
This is a response to this article:
[url=http://www.boerenbusiness.nl/melk-voer/ artikel/10874109/Phosphate reduction scheme-opnieuw-adapted]Phosphate reduction scheme adjusted again[/url]