Since today, farmers can check whether they are eligible for a peak load scheme. This is a voluntary buy-out scheme for farmers whose relatively large amounts of nitrogen settle in Natura2000 areas. Minister Christianne van der Wal for Nitrogen and Nature previously called this a ‘wildly attractive scheme’. Five questions about this scheme,
Peak loaders receive 120 percent of the value of their company. The standard for this is a nitrogen precipitation of 2500 mol per year on Natura2000 in a radius of 25 kilometers around the company. In general it can be said that if you are a farmer in a very large nature reserve, you are more likely to be a peak loader than if you are in a small Natura2000 area. Furthermore, if a farmer is located south-west of a nature reserve, it is more likely to be classified as a peak loader than if the farm is located on the north or south-east side of a Natura2000 area. That’s because the wind blows from the southwest 70 percent of the time.
The standard has been incorporated into the Aerius system, where farmers can check whether they qualify for the scheme. To do this, they must fill in how many animals they had in 2021, their location and the housing system they have.
“Farmers can participate in the peak tax scheme, move, extensify or innovate. But the bad thing is that only the cessation scheme is known and it remains to be seen how those other schemes work out,” says Drenthe regional director Arend Steenbergen of LTO Noord.
“Farmers therefore do not yet have the total picture and therefore cannot make a proper assessment. We have insisted that the other arrangements be worked out in the short term. We have been working on the nitrogen policy for some time now and it is an understatement to say that things are not going smoothly. Only if you are well over sixty and you have no successors then it could be a solution. We do think it is positive that the minister has indicated that the space that will be created will be used with priority for the PAS detectors.”
PAS reporters are farmers who did not need a nature permit at first, but suddenly did later due to the actions of the government.
The RIVM has calculated that there are 3,000 nationally; most peak loaders are located around the Veluwe. In Drenthe there are 189, which is 6.3 percent of the total. We don’t know who they are. Company data is protected.
In addition to LTO Noord, RTV Drenthe spoke with three farmers today. Two of them have already checked Aerius and already know that they are not peak loaders. But even if they were, they wouldn’t want to stop. Because one farmer is young and another farmer has a successor.
An older farmer who does want to stop is not eligible for the scheme. Minister Christianne van der Wal says she expects that a fifth of the farmers who qualify for the peak tax scheme will also make use of it.
No. Only peak loaders who already know for sure that they want to stop now have clarity. If they are still in doubt, they should first wait for other schemes for innovation, extensification (fewer cows on more land) or relocation to be worked out. And on 3 July, a general buy-out scheme will be opened, which is expected to qualify 10,000 farmers. The details of this are also not yet known.
And the PAS reporters still don’t know where they stand either.