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Farmers on frontline as Dutch divided by war on
nitrogen pollution
Government’s buyout scheme is meeting fierce
resistance from farmers in Netherlands
Senay
Boztas in Barneveld
Sun 25 Jun
2023 10.21 BST
Veal farmer
Wim Brouwer sits on his terrace, an “emergency” red flag flying outside and his
laptop open on a page revealing he is one of the Netherlands’ peak polluters,
due to the nitrogen excreted each year by his 1,360 calves.
His
business sits in one of the most intensively farmed parts of Europe’s most
intensively farmed country, a huge exporter with more than 110 million
livestock, including cattle, chickens and pigs.
Nitrogen
compound emissions are a big matter in this small, packed country, becoming the
dominant political issue over the course of a four-year crisis. Among other
impacts, the crisis has hampered crucial housebuilding, because builders need
nitrogen permits from a limited supply to cover construction emissions. The
crisis has polarised social opinion, spurring the rise of a new rural populist
movement and mobilising environmentalists who are desperately concerned about
the state of wild habitats.
Several
kilometres from Barneveld lie the EU-protected nature reserves of the Veluwe,
where biodiversity is threatened. Brouwer’s emissions are nine times the
threshold cited in a Dutch policy, green-lighted by the EU, to offer about
3,000 “peak polluter” livestock farmers voluntary buy-outs from a €975m (£835m)
pot.
“This
morning I did the calculation for ‘120% of my farm’s value’, what the nature
minister called a wildly attractive ruling,” Brouwer said. “There’s nothing
wildly attractive for me. You couldn’t even rebuild the farm for this amount.
But when a business fills out the form and finds out it is a peak polluter,
it’s a death sentence.”
Brouwer
says his farm is carbon neutral, but he fears being a peak polluter means
credit lines drying up. As chairman of the local LTO farmers’ union branch, he
feels strongly for others. “Every 14 days, a farmer in the Netherlands brings
an end to their life. If a healthy career lasts for 40 years, we’ve spent 10%
of ours living in uncertainty.”
A series of
supreme court rulings in cases brought by environmentalists have brought the
Netherlands to a standstill over pollution. Nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen
dioxide (NO2) from transport, and ammonia from farming, are negatively
affecting EU-protected nature reserves, in breach of EU law. Speeds are limited
on motorways and desperately needed housebuilding is on pause. A 2020
commission recommended reducing nitrogen-based pollution by 50% by 2030 and a
follow-up report proposed asking 500 to 600 peak polluters – mostly livestock
farmers – to shut within a year.
“This has
been a problem for more than 50 years – that’s the real problem,” said Wim de
Vries, professor of environmental systems analysis at Wageningen University.
“It’s a
disturbance of the whole nutrient balance: too much nitrogen, soil
acidification, a lack of calcium, magnesium, potassium. Because of that, you
get an impact on soil microorganisms and earthworms. Certain plants outcompete
the others so diversity decreases. Insects and butterflies that live on those
plants are reduced, and then birds.
“Why are we
so strict in Belgium and in the Netherlands? Because we are already exceeding
the critical loads.”
After
months of protests from farmers, the first closures will be voluntary,
Christianne van der Wal, the nature minister, said earlier this month. “The
government is fully committed to this voluntary approach and hopes that many of
the businesses that qualify will participate …the government wants to prevent
mandatory measures.”
Forced
buyouts are happening already in Belgium but they are proving to be politically
unpalatable in the Netherlands. The Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB), a new
centre-right party surfing a wave of rural anger at environmental policies,
recently won key regional elections while parties in the governing coalition
have lost support. Public trust in politics is low.
Farmers’
union the LTO has said it is withdrawing from negotiations for an agriculture
agreement on future environmental obligations and governmental support. It said
there was not enough clarity about nitrogen-based emissions or how farmers will
compete with foreign products without the same pollution requirements. This
landbouwakkoord is intended to run in parallel with the buyouts to offer
“perspective” to Dutch farmers, but agreement is proving difficult.
Environmentalists
have welcomed the scheme, which opens on 3 July and will also offer
smaller-scale farmers funds from a €500m pot to stop or reduce their impact.
“The start of the scheme provides the first step necessary for nature recovery
by halting nitrogen reduction, while at the same time providing farmers the
opportunity to end their activities in a sound and dignified manner,” Eveline
Meltzer, spokesperson for WWF Netherlands, said.
“When
enough farmers feel this choice is fit for them, because for instance they
don’t have a successor, this puts less pressure on remaining farms.”
Louise
Manning, professor of sustainable agri-food systems at Lincoln University said
that as international agreements affect farms, businesses and rural communities
globally, governments should not lose sight of “social contracts such as food
security, resilient societies and a just transition”.
De Vries
advocates building a sustainable farming sector, adding that while ammonia may
have more local impact than NO2 , nobody is talking about driving less or
banning cars.
Metres from
Brouwer’s farm are woods and a small waterway clogged with algae – a sign, say
environmentalists, of excess nitrogen or phosphate. Two foresters, standing by
their van nearby, believe farmers are not the only malefactors. “Who’s to say,”
said one, “that it isn’t the road?”
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