Is Schouten derailing on the feed track?

There may be a narrow majority in the House of Representatives against the feed-rail approach of Agriculture Minister Schouten, with which she already wants to reduce nitrogen emissions this year. If all MPs of the CDA and the entire VVD follow the line of CDA Member of Parliament Von Martels.

With the SGP, the PVV and the FvD, all seats added together, there is a narrow majority against Schouten's proposal. The big question is what the CDA and the VVD will do. The House of Representatives has asked written questions. If the minister has responded to this, the House may decide to hold an oral debate.

Growing group of self-mixers
It will be clear from next week whether it will be a parliamentary debate when the circuit in The Hague will run normally again. Outside the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, no animal feed expert can be found who agrees with the Minister in her intention to ban the use of simple protein-rich raw materials, such as soya and rapeseed meal, while the use of these products in compound feed remains permitted.

Moreover, the group that is bothering Schouten with her approach has grown strongly in recent years. Particularly on larger dairy farms with a feed mixer, it has become a trend to enter the market for single protein-rich raw materials themselves and to purchase competitively. Dairy farmers can keep part of the margin that the compound feed industry can charge for making compound feed in their own pocket.

Weighting WLR makes you think
In addition to the lack of support in the animal feed world, it was announced this week that scientist Gerard Migchels, an important ministerial advisor to Wageningen Livestock Research in the field of ammonia reduction, is advising against the minister's approach. He thinks the trend to reduce the protein content in animal feed to improve utilization is logical. But not the effect of the minister.

Migchels advocates the use of the Kringloopwijzer, so that the farmer can make the right company-specific choice. After all, it is not self-evident that a farm with a milk production of 11.000 liters per cow with a milk protein content of 3,70%, for which protein-rich single raw materials are needed, by definition emits more nitrogen than a farm with a milk production of 8000 liters. with a very high proportion of fresh grass in the ration.

Pasture grass can vary greatly in protein content and protein utilization due to the varying weather conditions. In contrast to Schouten's approach, the Kringloopwijzer does take these farm-specific circumstances into account, such as ration composition and milk production level.

Temporary measure
A spokesperson for Minister Schouten points out that the presented feed track is only a temporary measure that will be supplemented this year by a much broader covenant in which other nitrogen-reducing measures are also described. That covenant should then come into effect in 2021 and replace the current feed rail approach. The temporary feed rail measure is unavoidable because the construction industry and road traffic should not come to a standstill due to the nitrogen crisis if the corona crisis fades into the background.

All in all, it is striking that the minister has not opted for the introduction of the Recycling Guide as a legal instrument. After all, more than 90% of dairy farmers are already obliged by FrieslandCampina to keep up to date with the Recycling Guide. This does not guarantee a significant reduction in nitrogen emissions, says WUR scientist Migchels. Creative accounting is possible. For that reason, the Kringloopwijzer was also dismissed as a legal instrument a few years ago by the Ministry of Agriculture. Partly due to fierce resistance from dairy farming, it has not been taken off the stable by the ministry since then.

Stack of headache files
The current approach to the feed track also does not guarantee that nitrogen emissions will decrease at sector level. If simple protein-rich raw materials are replaced by protein-rich concentrates, there is no guarantee that nitrogen emissions will decrease. In addition, according to CDA Member of Parliament Von Martels, Schouten's feed-track approach also falters legally too much.

Until now, Minister Schouten has shown himself to be a successful go-getter in a pile of headache files. But if she does not decide to back down with her feed track approach and pick up the Kringloopwijzer, or to take the Agriculture Collective's choice model to heart, she will derail on the feed track.

© 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.