The phenomenon of 'manure fraud' has occupied the agricultural sector for a long time. Although farmers and intermediaries are closely monitored, manure remains a fraud sensitive subject. Minister Carola Schouten (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) wants to get a grip on the situation with a series of new measures. What do those plans look like?
Schouten sent the Enhanced Manure Enforcement Strategy to the House of Representatives. This strategy should combat fertilizer fraud and improve regulatory compliance. The strategy is a result of the commotion about fraud in the fertilizer sector, following an in the NRC Handelsblad almost 1 year ago. The sector has since been working on tackling manure fraud. This approach is separate from the ministry's strategy.
Manure: a major expense item
A total of 2017 million manure transports took place in 1. Last year, the Netherlands produced approximately 169 million kilos of phosphate; This is offset by a placement space of 135 million kilos. About 60% of agricultural companies have no manure surplus. Wageningen University calculated that the average manure disposal costs for pig farms amount to €52.000. For poultry farms this is €10.200 and for dairy farms the average is €6.000.
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency indicates that manure disposal costs are an important cost item for livestock farming. In addition, it is an important source of income for entrepreneurs in arable farming and horticulture.
Enforcement
The enforcement of the manure policy consists of cooperation between the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl). The risks of non-compliance with the rules are estimated and combined with data analysis. As a result, the risk of being caught is high, the report states. The investigations at the selected companies more often lead to an administrative sanction than with a random approach. The ministry hereby places the table below.
year | Fines | Imposed LOD | Warnings | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | 1.122 | 185 | 837 | 2.144 |
2016 | 1.165 | 615 | 650 | 2.430 |
2017 | 765 | 208 | 975 | 1.948 |
Large-scale fraud?
According to the ministry, 50.000 companies are active in the fertilizer market. In 2017, the NVWA carried out 4.117 inspections. This led to 731 fines (in the table above these fall under column 1), 63 reports and 53 administrative punishment orders. The violations range from administrative deficiencies to major fraud. If there is no coincidence between the fines, reports and criminal orders, this concerns 20% of the companies.
There is probably such a coincidence. The percentage will then be lower. The ministry also indicates in this report that it has no insight into the extent of the fraud. Even though the chance of being caught is higher, the number of fines is decreasing. Almost 1 year ago, the NRC published a series on manure fraud, which concerns: approximately 40% of the companies. However, this is not evident from these figures. It must be said that the figures for 2017 are probably not yet final; some of the checks take place afterwards.
Enhanced enforcement strategy
The ministry's strengthened enforcement strategy involves an area-specific approach that is linked to water quality. Four parameters are used to determine the risk: available agricultural area per drainage unit, area of loess and sandy soil, area of corn and amount of manure surplus. In addition, maize and manure surplus weigh 4 times as much as the other parameters.
In concrete terms, this means that when the amount of agricultural land in a drainage unit is limited (and a lot of corn grows), farmers and fertilizer intermediaries quickly come under intensive control. The reasoning is that corn can tolerate a lot of manure and is therefore a popular crop for spreading illegal manure. The same applies to grass and grains; if these are included, a different risk profile will arise. Yet the ministry does not opt for this.
The surface area of sandy and loess soil seems to be a somewhat strange parameter for fraud, because this says something about susceptibility to leaching. With this parameter, the ministry bridges the gap between water quality and the sixth Nitrate Directive action programme. The amount of agricultural land in a drainage unit is also questionable as a parameter: after all, it says nothing about the amount of land owned by farmers in that area.
From practice
A manure intermediary who would like to remain anonymous is more interested in two other measures announced by the ministry: real-time tracking of the transporters and weighing the vehicles. The big problem lies in the lack of insight into volumes, he indicates. "We work with phosphate and nitrogen, they are all calculation exercises and it is necessary to know how much manure is actually moved. Then you get a grip on fraud."
The ministry understands that there is a big difference between the export of manure and import abroad from the Netherlands. Yet the ministry does not seem to be able to trace this back to the correct intermediaries. There is still something to be gained there.
Farmer-farmer transport
From 2019, the ministry intends to impose an obligation to have all manure trucks used for farmer-farmer transport weighed. This concerns companies with a manure surplus of up to 25%. These companies often have a small manure tank themselves, with which the manure is then delivered to nearby farmers. These are transports with little manure, which means that the farmer has to drive up and down relatively often.
This probably means that farmers will have to make extra trips to the weighbridge. That is not a problem if there is a measuring bridge nearby, but this is not the case everywhere. This will lead to many extra kilometers, and therefore also to extra costs: in time, in fuel and the costs of weighing. Major gains in preventing fraud are unlikely to be achieved on these transports.
New BV
He tells the intermediary that the Dutch legal system ensures that fraudsters can continue for years. "Fines can be challenged up to the Council of State, in the meantime you can continue with the business." Fraudsters cause one BV to go bankrupt and then set up another. This is a thorn in the side of the intermediary. He is much more in favor of a professional ban.
The quality mark He thinks what the sector is working on is a good thing. The good companies have no problems with quality marks or more rules, he says. He already has a real-time view of his manure truck, just like most transporters do.