Additional charges up to €10.000
Another 750 cattle farms unblocked
Minister Carola Schouten (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) reports that 750 companies have again been unblocked. For another 100 companies, this point is getting closer. It means that about 1.250 are still blocked, involving 5.000 cows. The fines appear to rise to more than €10.000. Schouten announced this in a letter to the House of Representatives.
In addition, Schouten announces that the capacity at the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl) will be expanded for matters such as the reassessment of the recovery reports and the unblocking of companies.
As a result of the work done, Schouten can announce that another 750 companies have been unblocked. At 100 other companies, a number of additional steps have to be taken before the company can be released. The blocked farms are not allowed to bring in or remove livestock.
Herd size
In the letter, Schouten also provides more clarity about the number of cows that are involved in the incorrect registration in the Identification and Registration System (I&R). "It is expected that this concerns 5.000 cows, or 5.000 animals that were incorrectly registered as heifers instead of lactating cows." If this number is calculated based on the size of the herd of dairy cows older than 2 years, this amounts to 0,3% of the herd.
10
businesses
At how many farms are animals blocked? On approximately 1.500 farms (1.800 animals), 1 to 2 heifers are blocked. On 500 other farms (in total 2.300 animals) 1 to 5 Large Livestock Units (LU) are blocked. There are still 50 companies with about 10 blocked animals and 10 companies with more than 10 blocked LU.
Fraud or mistake?
A recurring question is whether a distinction should be made between companies that deliberately commit fraud and those that have made a mistake in the administration. "In many cases I only have the results from the administrative checks and I have to act on them. So I have no insight into the background of an irregularity. So I don't know why a farmer has implemented the registration in a certain way," says Schouten . "We can't determine what is intentional error and what is not."
Additional Taxes
Although Schouten emphasizes that it is not possible to split the companies between the companies, the additional assessments for the phosphate reduction plan do provide insight into the benefit gained. By far the largest group (1.000 companies) will have to deal with an additional assessment of €50. "For these companies, the financial advantage could be termed 'limited'", says Schouten.
This is followed by a group of 770 companies, with additional assessments ranging between €500 and €10.000. For example, there are 300 companies with an additional assessment of up to €1.000, 400 companies with an additional assessment of between €1.000 and €5.000, 50 companies with an additional assessment of up to €10.000 and a group of 10 companies where the additional assessment is above €10.000.
Finally, Schouten reports that she is aware that this case has caused a lot of unrest. She refers to the image of the sector as a whole, but also to the consequences for a company. At the same time, she indicates that putting the I&R system in order can still take a lot of time, given the fact that further research needs to be done.
Have a look here the entire letter to parliament.
Herman van den Pol
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