Dairy farm of Averbode Abbey has to close due to nitrogen decree | News

The Abbey of Averbode and the associated farm have been around for 900 years. “The farm is part of the abbey life. In addition, we produce products from the short chain and we focus on the social economy”, explains Abbot Fierens.

The abbey farm recently received a letter from the Flemish government stating that it must stop its activities by 2025 at the latest because of the new nitrogen decree, which was approved by the Flemish government in February.

That is a surprise, since the farm received a code orange for its PAS impact score in 2014. The companies were then informed about their score for the Programmatic Approach to Nitrogen (PAS). Anyone who had more than 50 percent received code red and had to close. “We were at 31 percent at the time, so we got code orange,” explains the abbot.

A year later, the dairy farm received an environmental permit after consultation with the various authorities. It then invested in the farm to reduce nitrogen emissions. “We even took extra measures that were not included in the environmental permit,” it sounds. This involved, for example, an eco-floor so that the manure would fall more quickly into a pit, a pasture where the cattle were outside for most of the day, good ventilation with misting, so that gases are spread less quickly. A special breed of Alpine cows were also purchased that are less damaging to the environment. All these measures were intended to reduce nitrogen emissions.

However, the nitrogen decree takes 2015 as the reference year and based on those figures, the abbey farm is now given a code red. The abbey denounces that it has asked the VLM for an explanation, but has not received an answer. According to the abbot, it is not clear on which numbers that code is based. An objection has therefore been submitted to the VLM.

ALSO READ. Nitrogen agreement public inquiry opens, but farmers remain furious: “Policy of madness”