Seven arable farmers from Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe took part in a trial for sustainable farming for three years. They discussed their experiences at the Groningen provincial house. ‘A system change is needed, but should the farmer pay for it alone?’
Agriculture is being pulled from all sides. Farmers must pay more attention to nature, blow less nitrogen and methane into the air and pay attention to the wishes of society. He wants, among other things, a more natural landscape, with more birds, insects and plants. Can you farm more sustainably with less impact on nature?
Various parties joined forces and decided on a three-year practical test. Seven arable farmers in the Northern Netherlands teamed up with researchers from Groningen University and colleagues from Wageningen. Former deputy Henk Staghouwer gave the go-ahead in 2019.
“We really wanted to see: what can you do at the level of a farmer? And what effect do you get with those measures? What are the challenges, such as a different crop,” says project leader Jan Kiers.
Not all farmers were interested
He noticed that not everyone in the sector was waiting for the test. “There was not always interest from fellow arable farmers. They said: who is this for now? How realistic is it, is it a hobby?” says Kiers. He sees the farmers who eventually did participate as front runners who want to stick their necks out a bit further.
Peter Harry Mulder from Muntendam has been trying for years to farm with an eye for nature and the landscape. “I think this is the future we are working on. But it is really pioneering, it can cost a lot of money. And you don’t know what it will bring.”
Mulder sees that grain cultivation yields little, while it does the most for the flora and fauna. ,,So it is knocked out and replaced by potatoes, beets and onions. For which you need much more plant protection products. We now only have a small area of grain in Groningen and that is disastrous, both for the soil and for the landscape. But as a farmer we are forced to opt for the most intensive construction plan in order to still have an income.”
He has stopped plowing. “Then you have soil cover in the winter and all kinds of critters can survive that way and that helps with pest control.”
Farming differently entails costs
Thanks to his working method, he managed to keep the increasingly rare partridge as a breeding bird. “I farm differently from colleagues and that entails extra costs. Farmers cannot do it alone. I would like to see municipalities and the province do more in the countryside.”
His colleague Gert Noordhoff from Bellingwolde also makes room for nature in his building plan. Among other things, he is experimenting with strip cultivation and looking for good crop combinations, so that fewer pesticides are needed. “Which crops do you put next to each other? For example, fennel appears to be an excellent combination next to pointed cabbage and white cabbage. In the past you produced as cheaply and as much as possible. Now there are many more questions about the taste and nutritional value of crops.”
Arable farmer Otto Willem Eleveld, the last farmer in Hooghalen, also works with nature as much as possible. “We don’t do teams anymore. It turned out that we disturbed the soil life. At the agricultural college, not a word was spoken about soil life, only about the nematodes. But now I know how important that is.”
“Ecology must be given economic value. We need to reconnect agriculture with nature. But that must be supported in one way or another”, says Eleveld.
Who pays for the costs?
The question is who will pay for the systemic change in agriculture. ,,Do farmers only pay for that?” Mulder wonders.
Raymond Klaassen of the RUG says that many are pointing an accusing finger at agriculture. “It is seen as responsible, there is a frame of green deserts and dead fields. But none of that is true. The decrease in insects is definitely there, there is a problem. But what about agriculture? That turns out to be a lot more nuanced.”
Klaassen’s students conducted extensive research in grain and sugar beet plots belonging to farmers who participated in the experiment. There turned out to be an enormous amount of life scurrying between the harvest. The traps were soon clogged with large numbers of beetles. “It is not only about numbers, but also about the composition of species. At sustainable farmers, very common species, say nettle beetles, are replaced by more natural species. The composition of ground beetle species is a thermometer for the naturalness of a system.”