The Mobilization for the Environment Foundation (MOB) wants the province of Brabant to enforce six PAS detectors in Brabant. An earlier enforcement request was rejected. The environmental organization objected to this on Monday at the hearing committee at the provincial government. Six PAS reporters listened to the story with visible emotion.
A four-man committee must advise the Provincial Executive again. To maintain or not? Valentijn Wösten, MOB lawyer, and a delegation of provincial officials faced each other on Monday to convince the committee. The audience included the owners of the six companies targeted by MOB.
Wösten started by saying that MOB is very aware of the unpleasant situation for everyone. “We are not aiming to close the companies of all PAS reporters,” he added. But the affected parties are not convinced of this.
Deep insecurity
Take the owners of a dairy farm in Ommel. They have been in deep uncertainty about the future of their company since 2019. Yet they try to meet all the wishes and obligations of the province and the government.
No fertilizer is used on the company, grassland rich in herbs has been sown, almost no pesticides are used, the field edges have been sown and real time measured exactly how much emissions there are.
What are PAS detectors?
PAS reporters are farmers who, through no fault of their own, do not have a suitable nature permit for their business.
During the Nitrogen Approach Program (PAS), they did not have to apply for a permit for activities that emit nitrogen, as long as emissions remained below a certain threshold.
In 2019, the Council of State canceled this arrangement, resulting in the farmers involved, through no fault of their own, ending up in an illegal situation.
But all that is to no avail. Because without an appropriate nature permit, the company is actually illegal. Whether or not you can do something about that as a farmer. And that is not going to change in the short term. Because there is simply no nitrogen space, so a permit seems far away.
‘Province does nothing’
MOB finds this painful, but is especially angry about the attitude of the province of Brabant. He takes the province of Overijssel as an example. “It was decided to ban fertilization on provincial land. As a kind of change. This way the province can buy time. But the province of Brabant does nothing at all.”
The province does not agree with this. “We were the first province to introduce a ban on external netting,” the province says. This means that farmers cannot use the nitrogen space of a neighboring neighbor for their own expansion. In addition, the province continues to point the finger at the national government. “The government promises a solution by mid-2025. We are waiting for that.”
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The province does not want to enforce anything at all, but MOB wants at least something to be done to protect nature. And then ‘every little bit helps’. “The province should not use an arithmetic trick to say that measures yield little. Many times little is still quite a bit,” says Wösten.
False PAS detectors
He also drops a bomb. Because in the eyes of MOB, the province makes no distinction between real and false PAS detectors. The real PAS reporters reported their intention to expand after July 2015. According to the rules in force at the time, they did not have to apply for a permit for this. False PAS detectors expanded before 2015, without a permit and only reported this later, in order to obtain a PAS status, namely no permit is required.
According to Wösten, the province is not looking at this. These false PAS reporters would not be entitled to a leniency arrangement at all, says MOB. They should have simply applied for a permit. It turns out that two of the six PAS detectors in the room fall into this category.
New advice
It is now up to the committee to once again issue advice to the Provincial Executive. To maintain or not. That advice should be available in a few weeks. A few more weeks of sleepless nights for the farming family in Ommel, who no longer know what they can do.
“This uncertainty is debilitating. Four farms have already closed down in our area, but we cannot use that nitrogen space. After all, external netting is not allowed. And with the latest ruling by the Council of State, it is only becoming more difficult.”
Because even if you still have room in your own permit and want to use it, you now need a permit to do so. For example, for installing a low-emission stable floor. You then emit less nitrogen, but you cannot recoup the investment by taking more cows. “That is no longer allowed. And you also need a permit for that stable system. And you guessed it: they are not being issued at the moment.”
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