The Limburg agricultural lobby is looking at whether the new irrigation policy around the Peel can be tackled legally.
That says board member Peter van Dijk of the Limburg agricultural and horticultural association LLTB on radio program L1 Today.
stunned
“You can safely say that we are completely baffled,” he says about the decision to require a permit from farmers who want to irrigate their fields. That decision by the provinces of Limburg and North Brabant was announced on Wednesday. This makes the importance of nature in the Peel more important than the interests of the farmers in that region for the first time.
Also read: Drought: nature is now more important than agriculture
‘Overdone’
The raised moor in the De Peel nature reserve is in danger of drying out. That problem is exacerbated when farmers in the area pump up the groundwater. But according to Van Dijk, that is grossly exaggerated. “The amount of groundwater that is pumped up by agriculture is nothing compared to the water that leaks from the nature reserve every day,” says Van Dijk. “The province must do something to prevent that leakage, not tackle agriculture.”
Rumbling in the margin
In the coming two years there will be a transitional arrangement in which farmers can, for example, switch to less thirsty crops, but the LLTB director has little confidence in that either. “Whatever crop you sow, they all need water. This measure is a fringe for nature, but it is a game changer for farmers and their families.” He further calls it ‘pertinent nonsense’ that the functions of nature and agriculture cannot coexist. “You are destroying the economic prospects of an entire region.”
For the block
The agricultural spokesperson also feels that the provincial government has put a stop to it. “We have been in this process with the province for two years, and then this is suddenly the end result. The consequences of this are incalculable.”