News Milk
SMK relaxes requirements for PlanetProof farmers again
The Stichting Milieukeur (SMK) is relaxing the requirements that dairy farmers must meet to qualify for the 'On the way to PlanetProof' quality mark for the third year in a row. This is due to extreme weather conditions in various regions of the country.
SMK has announced that† To determine whether dairy farmers fall within the criteria of the system, their performance in the previous year is examined annually. The main benchmarks are: the percentage of home-grown protein, the nitrogen surplus in the soil and the greenhouse gas emissions measured in grams of CO2 per kilo of milk.
The committee of experts of the SMK ruled that it was not possible to meet the requirements due to extreme drought and heat in various regions of the country. That is why the requirements are being relaxed for dairy farmers in these areas.
The SMK committee of experts is based on research by Wageningen University & Research (WUR). Based on an analysis of KNMI data on the weather of the past 40 years, it concluded that 2020 was again an extreme year in terms of drought (regional) and temperature. WUR also established that the criteria 'percentage of protein from our own land', 'permanent grassland', 'nitrogen soil surplus' and 'greenhouse gas emissions' are drought-sensitive. In addition, WUR has mapped out the effects on these criteria on the basis of representative Kringloopwijzer data from 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. The data for 2020 became available at the end of May 2021.
The annual adjustments to the PlanetProof criteria are not automatic. A first adjustment was necessary in 2019, which was then still called a one-off. Since then, adjustments have been made in subsequent years.
About 700 to 800 PlanetProof dairy farmers are members of FrieslandCampina. In addition, a small number of participants are members of Farmel and NoorderlandMelk.
Klaas van der Horst
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