News Manure policy
Intensive livestock farmers lose their way in Schouten manure plan
Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten wants to drastically change manure policy in our country, because the current state of affairs is complex and prone to fraud. The minister wants to move towards a two-track manure policy. A livestock farm is land-bound. If not, all manure must be processed.
The latter has far-reaching consequences for many intensive livestock farmers. A new manure policy requires 'drastic choices', she wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives.
Schouten concludes that the Netherlands will have a manure surplus in 2020 and wants to change that. The groundwater quality has improved in recent decades, but leaching on the sand and loess soils still occurs. As a result, the targets for nitrogen and phosphate are not yet achieved everywhere.
Manure flows susceptible to fraud
Schouten also mentions the fertilizer standards in relation to the various crops, which are often complex. She knows that administrative red tape is also a thing for many farmers. In addition, the manure flows are susceptible to fraud, because removing manure is expensive.
In short, what it comes down to is that Schouten wants to move towards a land-based agriculture in which cycles are closed. This should come as no surprise, given her earlier vision of circular agriculture. In the new policy there must be room for manure processing products, so that this becomes more profitable. The minister indicated that a new policy requires radical choices. She calls the exceptional positions and the legal safeguarding of the system as challenges.
Two track policy
There must be a two-track policy for land-based and non-land-based companies. The first group deposits the manure on their own land. The second group is obliged to have the manure removed and processed. According to her, this creates transparent manure flows. Now it is often the case that dairy farms remove part of the manure. That will soon no longer be possible. This creates an incentive for dairy farming to become land-bound.
"In the future I envision a fully land-based dairy and beef cattle farming," says Schouten. This thought of Schouten is not new in itself, although she sharply sets out her way of thinking in the letter to parliament. Schouten is thinking of regulations that link the number of cows to the number of hectares a dairy farmer owns. Schouten thinks that pig, poultry and veal farmers opt for mandatory manure processing. This sector therefore needs to be further professionalised. The minister emphasizes in the letter that the plans are being further elaborated.
Click here to read the letter to parliament.
Wouter Job
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