Emergency research into nitrogen emissions in nature

Mesdag Dairy Fund is having an urgent study carried out into nitrogen deposition in nature reserves, under the supervision of the University of Amsterdam. According to the organization, nitrogen deposition is now only estimated with models that have never been calibrated with measurements.

With this study, the Mesdag Dairy Fund wants to prove that nitrogen emissions from livestock farms in the Netherlands mainly remain on the farmyard and farmland and are not spread further. “We want to prevent politicians from sacrificing agriculture on the basis of current models, which have great uncertainties, while measurements may well show that things are different in reality,” says Jan Cees Vogelaar, chairman of the Mesdag Dairy Fund. The measurement program is expected to start in January 2020. 

According to the Mesdag Dairy Fund, the models currently used have been criticized for years, because various studies show that they can be 30 to 100% wrong. The current models, of which the Remkes Committee also bases its advice on reducing nitrogen emissions, show that companies within a 10-kilometre shell around a nature reserve emit a relatively large amount of nitrogen into that nature reserve.

Measures effective
According to Mesdag, the national government continuously indicates that it does not want to calibrate the models, because it does not have a suitable and affordable measuring method in-house. "If you want measures against nitrogen to be effective, you have to know how much nitrogen it is and where it comes from. That is not known at the moment, because this has not been determined with measurements," says Vogelaar. The University of Amsterdam now has a measurement program ready.

The Mesdag Dairy Fund hopes that other organizations will also join in. "We would have preferred to set up this research in collaboration with other organizations in agriculture and the government, but there is currently no time for this," says Vogelaar. Mesdag Fund invites interested organizations and the government to join in with this research.

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