News nitrogen
Boer forces publication of phosphate allocation
The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality must publish all more than 30.000 decisions on the allocation of phosphate rights in 2018, without anonymisation. This has been decided by the District Court of Overijssel in proceedings initiated by a livestock farmer.
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The pronounciation is not a direct order for disclosure, but the judge believes that the ministry must reconsider its previous decision - of refusal - in such a way that it amounts to that.
The request is not the same as the request for disclosure of animal numbers, to which LTO Netherlands, among others, objects. This was requested from a different angle, with a different approach.
Fairer allocation
The aim of the livestock farmer is not disclosure itself. He says he wants to be able to challenge all individual decisions. He gives the reason for this that, in his opinion, the rights have been incorrectly allocated in many cases. Therefore, this award should be made again and more fairly and on the correct legal basis.
The ministry had previously tried to satisfy the livestock farmer with a sample of the decisions, but the court is also of the opinion that this is insufficient. The court agrees with the livestock farmer's opinion that all files must be made public by name and surname, so that the livestock farmer can challenge the decisions individually.