The cabinet is adopting the recommendations of nitrogen discussion leader Johan Remkes, agriculture minister Piet Adema and nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal report. They are meeting farmers and want to record agreements with farmers and other parties in an agricultural agreement in the first quarter of next year. In the short term, the focus will also be on ‘notifiers’, companies that do not have the correct nitrogen permit through no fault of their own.
Remkes had advised putting an end to the emissions of the five to six hundred most polluting nitrogen emitters within a year. The ministers hint that the deadline is not decisive: “The one-year time frame mentioned by Remkes is ambitious,” say Adema and Van der Wal. The cabinet says it is opting for a “phased approach”, and wants to come up with a scheme as soon as possible.
For the time being, the cabinet is also sticking to halving nitrogen emissions by 2030. Political unrest had arisen about this, because Deputy Prime Minister and CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra called this goal “not sacred”. As Remkes recommended, there will be benchmarks in 2025 and 2028.
“I want farmers to feel valued again,” says Adema, who has been Minister of Agriculture since the beginning of this month. “As a government, we have a lot of work to do to restore confidence. Farmers ensure a vital countryside and, in addition to the food supply, they also take care of nature.”
“It is completely wrong,” says Mark van den Oever, chairman of Farmers Defense Force (FDF), in response to the cabinet’s plan to adopt Remkes’ nitrogen advice. The farmers will “give the old-fashioned gas again, count on that”, he says in a vlog entitled ‘It pours oan’. That there are indeed actions, is confirmed by Sieta van Keimpema of FDF. But when and what kind of actions, that is still unclear.
The farmers have not been listened to, says Van den Oever. He says the farmers don’t want to be patronized. The plans on how the land should be classified (‘zoning’) are particularly unpopular. According to these plans, provinces must make regional maps that indicate where certain branches of agriculture are more suitable. Companies would then eventually have to be relocated. “This is the red line for us,” says Van Keimpema.
Environmental organizations Greenpeace and Mobilization for the Environment (MOB) are also dissatisfied with the government’s plans, according to a joint response to the nitrogen plans. According to them, it is ‘completely unclear’ whether the most vulnerable nature will be saved on the basis of the plans. They believe that the plan lacks an ecological basis for the short-term measures.
Greenpeace and MOB call the ‘phased approach’ that the government wants to work with as a ‘watered down, voluntary approach’, and the parties doubt whether it will yield any results. A number of nature organizations are pleased that ‘the cabinet is embracing Remkes’ ambitious nitrogen plan’. Natuurmonumenten, Natuur & Milieu, Bird Conservation, the Nature and Environmental Federations, Landscapes NL and Species NL write that ‘we can now get to work quickly’. “The will is now to continue side by side: farmers, nature organisations, politics and all other parties involved. Everyone realizes that we cannot do this without farmers.”