'Modernisation of dairy supervision full of surprises'

Wim van der Sande, director of the Quality Affairs Control Body (COKZ), is pleased with the results. "They did say: you don't check that much either." That is why the COKZ is slightly increasing the number of employees. Also to be able to pay extra attention to the control of protected dairy of origin, in particular the origin of the animal feed for it.

Method of guarantee is free
"The European inspection committee has meanwhile said nothing about the type of assurance system that is used in the Netherlands. The fact that the majority of dairies use KoeMonitor is not an issue for the European Commission, nor for the COKZ. Van der Sande: " For supervision, it is important that the business community has its affairs in order, that it supplies a product that can meet the requirements. You can use KoeMonitor for this, but also PBB+, which was developed by Qlip. There must also be an independent veterinary check. If this is arranged, and we can express our confidence in that, then it is good."

It took a number of years and many vigorous discussions before an improved control system was established that was acceptable to everyone. Why did it take so long, and why was it such a complicated process?
"Improving the supervision of the farm phase of milk production was a lengthy process, in which things sometimes went wrong, with things being arranged at the Ministry of Health, for example, which the group around KoeMonitor did not know about and where people also did not know. All the players in the dairy sector had an equally clear picture. And then there were sometimes administrators working on something, while farmers did not feel involved. That created tension on the line and caused clumsy communication."

And the COKZ was sometimes also a co-player in this big game, not just a supervisor.
"We also had an interest, because inspections had to be carried out on about 17.000 companies. We do not have the people for that ourselves. Moreover, the agreement is that the business community itself ensures proper supervision. annual samples of about 120 companies. You must not forget that we have a very different control and supervision system than most other countries in the EU. There is much more direct government supervision there, which is also much more expensive. is that the Netherlands is an export country. A lot of dairy is exported across the border. That product must be properly secured."

So you wanted to contribute to a practical solution, something that the business community could work with?
"The COKZ has no preference for a particular type of surveillance system. If the business community develops something itself and that is sufficient, then we believe it can be used."

And you are not a competition authority, which also checks whether a certain system is monopolistic or not.
"I think it is good that PBB+ has been added. That is the old Periodic Company Visit with a number of extra control modules for, for example, attention animals. This arose because Eko-Holland did not start working with KoeMonitor."

There are now at least three companies that allow PBB+: Leerdammer, Rouveen and Arla.
"How that proceeds is a matter for processors and farmers. It is quite possible that one system can be more expensive than the other, but that is a choice for the entrepreneur himself."

The immediate reason to improve and modernize farm supervision was an earlier instruction from Brussels, sometime in 2015, about strengthening the supervision of so-called 'attention animals'. A broad working group has been set up from the dairy sector to improve this. That working group built a system that would later be called KoeMonitor. That system was gradually expanded, with perhaps the idea that one could kill two or three birds with one stone with such a new tool. Did you think it would be such a complicated file?
"I only got into it when I joined the COKZ and I have little to do with the extra additions to KoeMonitor. For the COKZ, meeting the EU hygiene requirements is important. Apart from that, I did not expect that it would be such a complex file, with so many twists and turns and surprises."

Do you have an idea why farmers are so opposed to KoeMonitor in particular?
"Partly, I think, it was clumsy communication. Also, drivers do not always seem to have kept a sense of what was going on in their supporters and perhaps too little was explained what the system encompasses. There was also a certain mistrust of data, in the sense that there was a lack of clarity about what happened to their company data."

Some dairy farmers have often given the impression that KoeMonitor is an official legal system. Where does that come from?
"KoeMonitor is, again, a private system. That first. What we as COKZ sometimes suffer from is our history. We were once a private/public organization, and we were intertwined with Qlip. There was a bit of the feeling that we were from the dairy industry. That is no longer the case. We are a public supervisor and are therefore separate from the business community. Incidentally, there is sometimes something of the opposite feeling with regard to Qlip. That organization has been privatized and is separate from us, but there is sometimes the image of co-government, but that is not the case either."