Politician Eline Vedder sees the family farm in Drenthe going under: ‘It is a crooked agricultural policy’

In the House of Representatives, Eline Vedder (45) told how she and her husband Alben held each other for a moment when they took the cows outside for the first time this spring. “It’s always such a cheerful moment of the year. But we also realized that we probably won’t do this as often again.”

For four hundred years, successive generations of Vedder had a farm in Drenthe. This is now in danger of coming to an end. “We have no prospect of a successor because it is not sustainable from a business perspective,” she explains. “You have to invest on all fronts. You cannot recoup the costs with a company like ours, which is not very large.”

At its peak, their company had 95 cows, but now there are only 65. Some of the cubicles are empty because they anticipate that they will not be able to get rid of the manure and will have to pay a high price for it. “The choice is: get rid of cows or pay high costs.”

Nitrogen, manure, climate and also the wolf

In recent years, farmer protests against tackling high nitrogen emissions in nature have been particularly heated. Now the manure surplus is also becoming acute. Dutch farmers spread too much manure, causing our water to become polluted. That’s not all. Climate problems are also on the horizon: the consequences of livestock farming for CO2 emissions and methane.

And there’s also a problem with the wolf, but that’s actually peanuts compared to the rest. Farmers are more or less obliged to fence their land with wolf fences if they want compensation for livestock killed. “It has long been denied that wolves also take horses and cows, but thirty or forty have already been killed in Drenthe. What farmer has time to walk past his fences for hours every day? In fact, we are asked to do the impossible,” says Vedder.

In the week before the May holidays, the manure surplus threatened to lead to a harsh political confrontation. Minister Piet Adema proposes a buyout scheme to shrink the livestock herd and rules to reduce harmful substances in the manure through better feed. This should prevent heavy-handed intervention by the European Commission.

The minister ultimately received majority support to further develop his plans. But this had been preceded by some difficult conversations in the back rooms. Things could get exciting again in the coming weeks.

‘If we don’t do anything, Brussels will intervene’

Even though the European manure rules for the Netherlands are no good, according to Vedder, we still have little choice in her opinion. “If the minister does nothing, Brussels will intervene harshly.”

According to European guidelines, too many harmful substances from the manure wash into the water of ditches and lakes. But according to Dutch researchers, who like to quote the agricultural organizations, this guideline is incorrect, because in practice less flows into the water from Dutch grassland.

The BBB and farmers’ action groups such as Farmers Defense Force and Agractie believe that the Netherlands should therefore fight for an exception in Brussels again. But that has been the case for years, which is why the Netherlands received the so-called derogation, and according to Adema, that will absolutely not work again this time. He has talked about it so many times with the European Commissioner and has always received no response.

The middle parties in the House of Representatives and the large agricultural organizations such as LTO therefore opt for their money’s worth. “The BBB and FDF and Agractie say that there is no problem, that nitrogen in nature does no harm and the whole climate issue is a myth,” Vedder summarizes briefly. “But in doing so they also block schemes for farmers who do want to stop or reduce their livestock. We say: if you know that farmers want to leave voluntarily, why wouldn’t you cooperate? It would give space to farmers who want to move on.”

Cubicles are already empty

In addition, it is not a fear of the distant future. The manure surplus is already forcing farmers to make painful choices, such as the Vedders’ company. “We now have all those cubicles empty because we can calculate that we would otherwise not be able to get rid of our manure at the end of the year.”

It took some diplomacy for the manure debate in Parliament to get a majority behind Adema’s plans. Those plans did not go far enough for parties on the left such as D66, GL-PvdA and the Dieren. And parties that are now forming with Wilders absolutely did not want to commit to high amounts of money to buy out the farmers. That would easily cost 4 billion euros. The compromise was not to mention numbers and amounts just yet.

If Adema’s plans go ahead, the Vedders’ farm could ultimately participate in the buyout. Because manure is not the only issue.

The farm is also one of the three thousand PAS detectors in the Netherlands. “We are just too far away from a nature reserve,” Vedder tries to explain the strange situation. “We applied for a permit from the province to emit nitrogen. But it turned out that we were emitting too little nitrogen into nature. That is why we were put on the list of PAS reporters.”

These are usually quite small companies that release little nitrogen into nature and were therefore initially granted an exception to the rules, the so-called Nitrogen Approach Program (PAS). The judge banned the PAS approach, which in fact made all PAS reporters illegal. Politicians have promised that these PAS reporters will not be tackled for the time being. And if farmers who emit a lot of nitrogen are bought out, the released ‘nitrogen space’ would go to the PAS detectors, so that they are no longer illegal.

‘BBB can say that everything is stupid’

But yes, the provinces that have to implement the nitrogen policy do not gain anything from it. Certainly not the province of Drenthe. The BBB and farmers’ action groups also hope to change the minds of Brussels or The Hague or the courts in this area. And BBB is by far the largest in the province of Drenthe.

For a company like the Vedders, everything is at a standstill. “The BBB can say that everything is stupid, and of course it is stupid, but I am in politics to work on solutions,” Vedder sighs. “Young farmers in particular should be able to make plans for the future. That’s impossible now.”