Dairy farmers aim phosphate arrows at senate

The Dutch Dairymen Board (DDB) and the Dutch Dairy Farmers' Union (NMV) say they are outraged by the decision of Minister Carola Schouten (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) to increase the creaming off of phosphate rights to 20%. That is why they are now turning to the Senate to block this decision.

The Lower House has last week approved the minister's plan to increase the creaming off to 20%. In short: when the Senate also gives the green light, the amendment to the law is a fact. The Dutch Dairymen Board and the Dutch Dairy Farmers' Union hope to convince the members of the Senate at the last minute to tuesday 4 june to vote against the proposal.

mock solution
Increasing the creaming off on phosphate rights to 20% is a bogus solution, according to the DDB and NMV. They expect that the number of allowances that will be skimmed off in 2019 will be too few to cover the number of rights to bring it back below the sector ceiling of 84,9 million kilos.

It also disturbs the interest groups that increasing the creaming off means that the bill is placed with the individual dairy farmers. This while they believe that the government is guilty of the fact that too many rights have been spent. In addition, the state aid decision does not stipulate that the number of allowances issued must be below the ceiling, as is the case for phosphate production.

Buy up phosphate rights 
The parties propose to bring the number of phosphate rights issued back below the sector ceiling for dairy farming by means of a purchase arrangement. The Dutch Dairymen Board and the Dutch Dairy Farmers' Union contradict that this is not possible from the point of view of state aid, as Schouten argues.

"Since this is a measure in favor of the environment, there are possibilities for this", claim the Dutch Dairymen Board and the Dutch Dairy Farmers' Union. They point to the pig sector, where the government has also bought rights from the market in the past.

Wouter Job

Wouter Baan is editor-in-chief of Boerenbusiness. He also focuses on dairy, pig and meat markets. He also follows (business) developments within agribusiness and interviews CEOs and policymakers.

w.baan@boerenbusiness. Nl

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