Brabant claims unused space PAS

During the meeting of the Provincial Council of North Brabant on the adjustment of the Nature Conservation policy measure (also called PAS), it emerged that the Environment Agency is checking for unfilled development space within the PAS.

The licensed space must be filled within 2 years; If a livestock farmer has fewer animals than licensed after 2 years, the difference in PAS space can be withdrawn. North Brabant will now move into this development space. "The letters are already ready," policy officer Brechje Biemans said during the meeting.

Justified reasons
Various agricultural organizations have previously indicated that this could permanently close down companies. This concerns companies whose plans were hampered by the introduction of phosphate legislation. In 2017, the PAS partners developed a joint approach on how to deal with the 2-year term.

This approach includes 'justified reasons' for granting a postponement for the realization, according to Saskia van Dinther, PAS advisor at the province of North Brabant. "The phosphate scheme has been explicitly mentioned and can therefore be a reason to grant an extra realization period to a company."

In practice, in the absence of 'justified reasons', the permit will be adjusted to the number of animals realized within the 2-year period. The development space will be withdrawn up to that level. Only time will tell what exactly the justified reasons entail. Provinces can give their own interpretation to this.

Neck blow
Bergs Advies from Leveroy in Limburg says that it has not yet had any customers, where development space has already actually been taken. Customers have been approached by the Environment Agency about this subject. Some kind of warning letter has been sent. Henk Antonissen of Innovatief from de Knel indicates that a number of his members are experiencing serious problems due to moving into the space. He thinks it concerns 20 members of Innovatief uit de Knel and 800 dairy farmers at a national level.

The withdrawal of space will probably be the final blow for these companies. The companies are often still involved in legal proceedings regarding phosphate reduction and phosphate rights. It is likely that this could be a reason to gain additional space for realization. At the same time, this is yet another procedure that will end up on the plate of these farmers.

Antonissen indicates that he advised his customers at the time not to wait for the introduction of the PAS. He is not the only advisor who advised that. ZLTO, on the other hand, advised its members to wait for the introduction, so that a notification would suffice instead of a permit application. Farmers who have taken that advice to heart are now in for a rude awakening.

From 3 to 2 moles
Erik van Merrienboer (who replaced Johan van den Hout, the representative responsible for the PAS, during the meeting) announced that the policy rule includes an adjustment to the maximum number of moles per hectare: in the past, permission was granted for a maximum of 3 mole per hectare, but that will now be 2 moles.

Above 3 mol, a company will therefore have no development space anyway. The VVD wondered why they are not waiting for the ruling of the Court of Justice on November 7, 2018. This ruling may lead to an adjustment of the policy rule. It became clear that the Board is determined and ambitious.

The Board will present an action plan on October 24. The new policy rule already states that industrial companies are obliged to take energy-saving measures with a payback period of a maximum of 6 years if they want to gain development space. Previously this was 5 years, so this also concerns a tightening of the rules.