Cautious green light from the House of Representatives for Adema fertilizer plans

NOS News•today, 5:06 PM•Amended today, 8:15 PM

A majority in the House of Representatives gives Minister of Agriculture Adema the cautious green light to develop his measures against the manure problem. He wants to buy out farmers by the billions and reduce their livestock. The forming parties NSC and VVD also say that the minister must continue, because the manure problem is too big to do nothing.

However, they are cautious about how much money this may cost and want to take a critical look at Adema’s final plan. “For decades we have not fulfilled our agreements and at some point we have to pay the price for that,” says VVD MP Van Campen.

BBB, the third forming party, today announced its own plan against the manure problem. This was derided by some parties as being unrealistic.

For example, BBB wants to store excess manure in locations throughout the country. For example, in manure bags on farms, in empty manure cellars of retired farmers or in empty storage tanks in port areas.

“Empty storage tanks in port areas? Where are those storage tanks located?” asks GL-PvdA MP Bromet. BBB does not know that yet, it still needs to be found out. “They are indeed all band-aids,” admits BBB MP Pierik.

“How can BBB propose this as a party that has ‘Boer’ in its name? This seems like driving straight into a wall,” says D66 MP Podt. The Christian Union also notes that there is support for Adema’s plans, but not for those of BBB. “How does BBB want to make this happen,” says MP Grinwis.

Earlier in the debate, NSC MP Holman outlined how much manure is involved. “400,000 truckloads. That’s 15 billion liters of manure. If you want to store that, you need 15,000 silos of 1,000 cubic meters. And next year it will be even more.”

Too much manure pollutes ground and surface water. The Netherlands therefore does not comply with the EU agreement on water quality. Dutch farmers will therefore be allowed to spread less manure from this year onwards. They are now left with full manure cellars and pay high disposal costs. There are threats of sanctions and fines from the EU if the Netherlands does not take measures.

Adema wants less manure by reducing the livestock herd. For example, by allowing farmers to voluntarily stop with financial compensation. He is also considering introducing stricter rules for the number of cows per hectare. Farmers must also receive income compensation for this. Furthermore, the number of rights to emit phosphate through manure would be reduced, also for the pig and poultry sectors.

The BBB again asked Adema to go to Brussels to talk, but Adema firmly rejected this. “That makes no sense and I’m not going to do that.” Various factions think that it only makes sense to ask Brussels for understanding and more time for farmers once there is a strong package of measures in place and the Netherlands tackles the problem seriously after years. Adema agreed, and thinks that such a moment will not happen until next year. And even then there are “no guarantees”.

He now wants to get started on the plans as quickly as possible, but also realizes that as a caretaker minister he may only have a short time. He is now taking three weeks to talk to agricultural parties, but he is not going to “redo another round of agricultural agreements” because there is no more “time to lose”.

He therefore made an impassioned appeal to the entire House, including the forming parties, to all “put their shoulders to the wheel”. According to Adema, the Cabinet and House bear joint responsibility, and we must all “stand behind the farmers to prevent this catastrophe”.