The approximately 150 affected poultry farms, which are locked due to the use of fipronil, are paying extremely high prices to get rid of their manure. This is apparent from an inquiry with manure distributor Orgafert, who is responsible for the removal of the contaminated manure to the BMC manure incinerator in Moerdijk.
The poultry farmers who have been blocked by the NVWA do not have a manure contract with BMC and still want to get rid of their manure, pay €25 per tonne, excluding transport costs. In total, poultry farmers pay an average of €40 per ton, depending on the region and therefore the driving distance.
Additional costs will be charged
Orgafert and BMC have been appointed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs to arrange the disposal of the contaminated manure. They say they incur additional costs to remove and incinerate the fipronil manure as a priority. These costs are passed on to the poultry farmers who did not cooperate with BMC. Ad van Schijndel, director of Orgafert: "We had to use extra material to accomplish this task. We also had to arrange separate storage to store the regular manure."
Cooperative thought
Poultry farmers who already supplied their manure to BMC, on the other hand, pay €6,50 to €11,50 per tonne, including transport costs. This is comparable to the price of regular fertilizer. Ad van Schijndel, director of Orgafert, explains that the price difference has to do with the cooperative idea. "The costs of the poultry farmers who already collaborated with BMC are shared by the cooperative. They therefore do not have to bear all the costs themselves. This does apply to those poultry farmers who did not supply BMC."
25 of the affected companies already had agreements with BMC. The other 125 companies do not and therefore pay the full price.
80 loads per week
Van Schijndel does not yet know how much manure is involved. "We have now served 30 to 50 companies. That has been approximately 80 loads per week so far." One load consists of 30 tons of manure. In total, he expects that 1.500 to 2.000 tons of manure is contaminated with fipronil and will have to be transported to the incinerator in the coming weeks.
BMC says that it has burned approximately 2.500 tons of contaminated manure since last week.
Other sales channel
BMC reports that they have sufficient manure. Gert-Jan de Leeuw, manure and minerals manager at BMC: "Another sales channel now has to be found for some of the regular manure intended for incineration. Consider export permits that have to be arranged. We have also had to organize extra storage. The contaminated manure must also be sampled additionally. That costs money."
About 30% to 35% of the poultry manure produced in the Netherlands is burned by BMC in Moerdijk. BMC was founded by some of the Dutch poultry farmers, united in the Cooperative DEP, ZLTO and PZEM. BMC processes 1.250 tons of poultry manure per day in the summer months, thereby producing sustainable electricity for more than 70.000 households
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