King’s Commissioner Jetta Klijnsma advises drawing up a list of dangerous crop protection products in bulb and lily cultivation and asking the Ministry of Agriculture and Nature (LNV) to ban these products as a priority. But her own Board of Provincial Executive (GS) does not immediately accept that advice.
In recent years, Jetta Klijnsma has spoken to local residents, growers and organizations involved in floriculture. Klijnsma was deployed to talk to everyone after the ‘Outspoken’ report (2019), which showed that local residents and growers were diametrically opposed to each other and could not move forward together. It was the government’s turn to solve the problem, the researchers concluded.
After many discussions with everyone involved, Klijnsma has come up with a number of recommendations. The most concrete and far-reaching? ‘Draw up a list of crop protection products that demonstrably leave the field through evaporation, drift and leaching. Then urge the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality to ban these substances as a priority.’
But this recommendation is not embraced by its own GS council. However, GS will organize a meeting together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality at which the Board for the Authorization of Plant Protection Products and Biocides (Ctgb) will provide an explanation about the authorization of plant protection products.
As far as Deputy Jisse Otter (BBB) is concerned, interest groups such as Measuring = Knowing can then join in. But it is highly questionable whether this meeting will also lead to a list of prohibited substances. Because the agricultural poison that bulb and lily growers are allowed to use as prescribed has been tested and approved by the Ctgb. According to local residents, this says nothing about whether the products also end up outside the fields, nor about ‘piling of substances’ that are sprayed together or close to each other.
Klijnsma also advises drawing up a list of crop protection products for bulb cultivation that are not permitted, but that are demonstrably less harmful to the environment. ‘Then urge the ministry to accelerate the admission of these low-risk drugs,’ is her advice. But GS does not adopt that one by one either.
Deputy Otter has focused his hopes on the Sustainable Bulb Cultivation project and the invention and application of environmentally friendly crop protection products that are not harmful to people, animals or nature. “Minister Piet Adema has said that he wants these types of new resources to be tested and approved as a priority.” At the same time, GS itself does not seem to want to go much faster, because it points out that the initiative lies with the sector itself to propose alternative crop protection products for approval. GS only want to encourage it.
According to Otter, Klijnsma’s advice to think about places in Drenthe where bulbs and lilies may and may not be grown will only be embraced by GS if there is support for it in agriculture itself. And that floriculture has prospects for how it can develop. It can be included in the agricultural vision, the Drenthe Rural Area Plan or the new environmental vision. But as far as Otter is concerned, there can only be ‘there and not there’ on the basis of voluntariness.
The BBB does not want additional provincial rules for agriculture on top of the rules from The Hague or those of the EU. The party also received this in the council agreement.
It is also important for GS that there are “developments” that could potentially influence Klijnsma’s advice as chairman of the bubble table. For example, there is a new council of GS, a new council agreement, the cabinet is outgoing and it is expected that it will suspend decision-making on crop protection and bulb cultivation. And then there is also the court ruling on the use of crop protection products in Boterveen, according to GS.
According to Klijnsma, the solution must be found together with all those involved, otherwise the problem of resource use in bulb and lily cultivation will never be solved.