Minister Adema is working on a new stopper scheme for livestock farmers. ‘Bizarre’, says Van der Plas

Sources around the cabinet confirmed this after reports from The Telegraph. Adema is working on emergency measures to avert an acute crisis in livestock farming. This crisis is the result of the phasing out of the manure advantage that the Netherlands has enjoyed in the European Union since 2006.

Over the past eighteen years, Dutch livestock farmers were allowed to spread up to 47 percent more animal manure per hectare of agricultural land than farmers in many other EU member states. This manure advantage (‘derogation’) is crucial for Dutch livestock farming, because the Netherlands has a very large number of farm animals per hectare, and therefore also produces a relatively large amount of manure per hectare.

Because the Netherlands – despite numerous warnings from Brussels – systematically violates European environmental rules, the European Commission put an end to the derogation last year. The fertilizer benefit will now be phased out over three years from this year. To the misfortune of Dutch livestock farmers, the manure benefit rule will expire at the same time as a few other European environmental measures come into effect, which ensure that farmers are allowed to spread even less manure.

‘Cold remediation’

Agricultural organizations, led by LTO Netherlands, are screaming bloody murder because a large number of livestock farmers cannot bear the financial blow. The liquid manure that they are not allowed to spread over their land must be removed at high costs.

According to LTO, there is a threat of a ‘cold restructuring’ in livestock farming, with hundreds, if not thousands, of farmers being forced to stop in the short term and approximately half a million cows having to be sent to slaughter. In response to the sectoral cries for emergency, the House of Representatives has instructed Adema to come up with a crisis response plan as quickly as possible.

A House of Representatives debate on manure policy is scheduled for April 25. The Minister of Agriculture wants to send a letter with policy proposals to the House for that debate. According to insiders, an important part of that crisis response plan is a generic, voluntary buyout scheme for livestock farmers. All livestock farmers can probably register for this.

In that respect, this stopper scheme differs from the existing ones, which focus on specific sectors (pig farmers, veal farmers) or livestock farms with high nitrogen emissions (the buyout schemes of nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal). Another difference with previous purchase schemes is that Adema reportedly does not want to provide ‘its’ scheme with a final registration period. Farmers who want to close their business can then register at several times each year.

‘Soft landing’

Adema’s purchase scheme will probably cost billions of euros and will have to be financed from the 24.3 billion euros that the outgoing cabinet has set aside for nitrogen policy. It is not entirely clear in advance what benefit the government will gain from this expenditure of billions of taxpayers’ money. The livestock farmers that the government is buying out with the Adema scheme would otherwise have stopped because they cannot pay the increased manure disposal costs.

Without additional conditions, the scheme could turn into a charity campaign at taxpayer expense, with the government financing a ‘soft landing’ for farmers who would otherwise go bankrupt.

For that reason, Adema would also like to include a number of painful measures in its crisis package. One of these is the introduction of a ‘grassland standard’, a maximum number of cows per hectare of grassland. This government proposal was also on the table during the failed negotiations on the Agriculture Agreement, but was then rejected by LTO.

A grassland standard of 2.8 cows per hectare of grassland (according to last year’s proposal) is no problem for 73 percent of dairy farmers (they already comply with this), but dairy farms in East Brabant and Limburg in particular will then come into the pinch. On average, they have too little pasture per cow and would therefore have to reduce their livestock or purchase additional pasture.

‘Unacceptable’

Other measures that Adema would consider are stricter animal feed regulations and skimming the production rights (the right to keep a certain number of cows, pigs or chickens) from livestock farmers who sell their farm to another farmer.

The BBB faction leader, Caroline van der Plas, was quick to express her disgust at Adema’s alleged proposal on Wednesday. Van der Plas called the plan for a new buyout scheme to the ANP ‘bizarre’ and ‘unacceptable’. BBB believes that the government should offer livestock farmers prospects for the future instead of guiding them to the exit.