Decrease in fertilizer use: sector does what it promised

Freek 12 February 2020

This is in response to it Boerenbusiness article:
[url=http://www.boerenbusiness.nl/column/10885849/daling-kunstmestspreis-sector- doen-what-promised-is]Decrease in fertilizer use: sector does what has been promised[/url]

Nice advertising talk again from Herre for his own toko.

Drent 12 February 2020

pffff nonsense, in 2018 it was especially very dry and so no fertilizer was applied after May, except for the irrigated plots. without rain it does not resolve and nothing fell all summer and autumn, hence less use.

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Leo 12 February 2020

Think we will spread more, less manure will be available through remediation of livestock farming. I am not familiar with the writer's innovations, here everyone has a fertilizer spreader, slurry tank and the contractor has a drag hose.

shoemakers 1 12 February 2020

we can easily do without fertilizer, BUT THEN THE GOVERNMENT DOES GIVE US SPACE FOR THIS, it can be that easy, fewer rules, and everything will be fine. We only want to do well, the officials only think in problems, never in solutions

??? !!! 12 February 2020

HB away with it

Robert 12 February 2020

First of all, a big careless mistake. If 10% less N is used every year, after 10 years you will of course still be at 35% and not at 0. Over the past 9 years, the decrease was on average 5% according to the CBS figures, only in the dry year 2018 was it 10%. You can wish for something, but then the numbers have to be right.
And nitrogen produced by green manures washes out more easily than fertilizer nitrogen, because the timing of release is limited to control of the former. The leaching and volatilization of nitrogen from organic manure is also always more than that from artificial manure. Or is nitrogen from manure less harmful to the environment?

But otherwise, the largest item in circular agriculture is forgotten here, the port of Rotterdam. Circular agriculture cannot come from one side. If arable farming is forced by regulations to include the manure from pigs and cows in the cycle, then they can expect all producers of that manure to buy their feed in the Netherlands again. Then the gap in Rotterdam can be closed.

Of course we always leak minerals. Partly due to unavoidable leaching, the capture of ox or the export of, for example, seed potatoes or cheese, but mainly due to the consumer who supplies their excrement to the water purification system so polluted that these minerals cannot be reused. This must be supplemented.
This can be done by cutting down rainforests and fertilizing them with fertilizer. Export the crop to the Netherlands and then feed it to the pigs. We can then export the meat and the manure can be used for arable farming. Or we use the fertilizer ourselves for arable farming and can apply it at the place and time that best suits our crop. I choose the latter.

Arable farming should produce good food and starting material for the Netherlands and the world. Arable farming does not serve as a drain for intensive livestock farming. And arable farming certainly does not serve as greenwashing for the same livestock farming.

Education on the correct use of manure and fertilizers is helpful. There is always something to learn. But pushing organic manure at the expense of fertilizer does not do justice to the professional arable farmer and is also bad for the environment.

until here and no further 12 February 2020

Dear Robert, I'm not saying that you should receive the manure from livestock farming in the Netherlands, I am saying, let us choose which fertilizers we use, if you want fertilizer, your choice, I could just get 500 to keep my field well to fertilize, if I could use it all as animal manure I would be right

Narcos 12 February 2020

until here and no further wrote:

Dear Robert, I'm not saying that you should receive the manure from livestock farming in the Netherlands, I am saying, let us choose which fertilizers we use, if you want fertilizer, your choice, I could just get 500 to keep my field well to fertilize, if I could use it all as animal manure I would be right

Just like organic farming, higher supply standards, lower production.
So less use and therefore washout???

Robert 12 February 2020

Dear Thenv,
I also use quite a bit of animal manure on my farm and the fact that it generates money is only included. I may have written it too sharply.
It strikes me that HB plays with numbers and then acts as if we can do without fertilizer in the Netherlands. And he does sit at the table at the ministry.
I do not always want to and cannot always use animal manure on clay. For example for my sugar beets, but also for the over-fertilization in seed potatoes or onions. If the ministry thinks that arable farming can also do without fertilizer (and that that is better for the environment), the next step is a heavy levy on fertilizer or even a ban.
A ban on fertilizers will tilt the current fertilizer market and before you know it you'll be paying a lot of money for fertilizer. Then we as arable farmers are suddenly dependent on the hole in Rotterdam. And manure will never work as precisely and predictably as fertilizer.

And further what Narcos says. Utilization and leaching are always in favor with fertilizer. Arable farming should not be forced to solve the manure problem.

Herre Bartlema 13 February 2020

Thanks again for all the responses. It is of course an arithmetic series, Robert, with reason the amount of the decrease in 2018, then you are at zero in 10 steps. That takes much longer with a geometric series with reason 0,9 and you never get to zero, but you do get very close.

I would like to clear up a misunderstanding about the indispensability of fertilizer, also in this way: there is a wide range of concentrated fertilizers from the circular economy that work just like fertilizer, see Appendix Aa of the Fertilizers Act.

Precision fertilization with circular fertilizers provides the grower with higher yields at lower costs, thanks to a highly innovative contracting sector and the availability of affordable precision fertilizers in combination with a wide range of affordable fertilizers, because the plant nutrition market is a displacement market, it is no different in a circular economy. Growers and society can benefit greatly from all this. I express this to farmers and policymakers, I cannot do otherwise with the knowledge of today.

arable farmer 13 February 2020

By now I was wondering which affordable Fertilizers from Herre are.

Robert 13 February 2020

These affordable fertilizers are mostly waste products from intensive livestock farming. Such as blowdown water from air scrubbers. A strong acid containing 4 to 6% nitrogen. So for a 1st dose in wheat or for the basic fertilization in your beets you just need 2,5m3 per ha. And this with equipment that is resistant to the acid. Or mineral concentrate, manure without the organic matter, but with low contents, so also a lot of water transport. Many waste products from the processing industry are also on that list.

Yes, there is still a wide range at attractive prices. But the laws of economics tell us that those prices can rise. If the alternative is taxed or banned, these affordable fertilizers will automatically become scarce and the price will rise. The same laws of economics also tell me that if affordable fertilizers are not used enough now, they are apparently still too expensive. Under the guise of a circular economy, an attempt is made to force arable farming to purchase these waste materials. This can also be done by making it more financially attractive, but a ban on fertilizers is cheaper for the producers of the residual flows.

And as for the 10% drop. I understand how HB calculates that, but it's just misleading. Fertilizer use has decreased by 10% on average over the past 5 years. Every year the step is smaller in absolute numbers, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to save. Now we have had 1 extreme year in which 10% less is used and the line is immediately extended to 0 in 10 years. There are lies, big lies and graphs they say.

??? !!! 13 February 2020

Don't respond to nonsense.
HB away with it

Herre Bartlema 14 February 2020

The law of supply and demand states that in full competition the market price tends towards the cost price of the lowest supplier. In the plant nutrition market in the Netherlands these are the suppliers of organic fertilizer and nitrogen from air scrubbers within and outside the agricultural sector. Don't worry Robert, plenty of supply, as said it is a displacement market and will remain so for a while. For affordable machines : www.smartfertilization.org under : videos .

bblogic 14 February 2020

Manure from animals that have eaten imported feed originates from crops grown with fertilizers. So, left or right, fertilizer enters the system. It is therefore pointless to give up fertilizer in favor of animal manure as long as the feed is not locally produced. To make this local feed production possible, the Netherlands will have to be approximately 3 times as large, in other words this is unfeasible.

Herre Bartlema 15 February 2020

bblogic is right, we now get a lot of minerals from outside the Netherlands via the concentrates to our livestock farms. Fortunately, the consumption of concentrates is also decreasing, as shown by the Mineral Balance of the Netherlands 2018. The circular economy also offers sufficient alternatives for concentrates.

arable farmer 15 February 2020

If, for example, you mean a cheap light machine for winter wheat and spoked wheel injector.

Then you are a long way from the practice, applying all those m3 per ha on heavy clay with a tank. He won't.

First make sure that you get the concentration up so that it can be applied with a sprayer.

If this doesn't work, stop wasting subsidy Herre.

Herre Bartlema 15 February 2020

You are absolutely right, a farmer, that is an expensive machine, you have to fertilize many hectares with it to earn back the investment. It's good that there are contractors who can serve the wheat growers for a very competitive rate by bringing the plant food to the right place.

arable farmer 15 February 2020

Don't wait to drive all those cubic meters across the country with a spoked wheel injector.

Robert 16 February 2020

Bblogic and arable farmer, thank you for the support.

HB, you live for your business and that's nice. Unfortunately you believe in that so much that you are blind to the other side of things.
The logistical operation to drive all those cubic meters of water over our fields in a short period of time should not be underestimated. I just noticed that winter barley is starting to need nitrogen. Maybe next week it will be possible to fertilize it with the sprayer. That spoked wheel injector has nothing to do in the country in the coming weeks.

But worse, the lessons of the economy.
The price is not determined at all by the cost price of the cheapest provider. Only if suppliers can produce more than the demand would the price theoretically reach the cost price of the second supplier.
But if there is a lot of demand, the cheapest providers will be sold out quickly and the equilibrium price will reach the level where there is just as much supply as demand. Due to a ban on fertilizers (which I can detect between the lines), the demand is high (and inelastic because the crop simply needs minerals) and the supply is limited (and also inelastic, because the livestock does not grow). A small shortage of minerals will make the price so high that arable farmers can no longer fertilize their low-yielding crops. And those low-yielding crops now have to compete with the hole in Rotterdam.

No, let arable farmers make their own choice. If the suppliers of alternative forms of fertilization are so eager, then it is not difficult. Make your product logistically and financially attractive. Don't lobby for a fertilizer ban under the motto that an environmentally friendly alternative is available (see bblogic), that's just misleading.

Herre Bartlema 26 February 2020

Full competition means a wide range Robert, so you agree with me.

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