The nitrogen policy would therefore have major consequences for 90 percent of the almost 32 thousand cattle, pig, poultry and goat farms. The nearly 17,000 sheep, horse and rabbit farmers do not (as yet) have to contribute to achieving the nitrogen targets, because their animals emit relatively little ammonia. The nitrogen measures therefore only affect the above-mentioned four types of livestock farms.
However, some comments must be made about this calculation result, because the effect of technical measures such as making livestock sheds more sustainable has not yet been included. The government believes that about 20 percent of the required nitrogen reduction in livestock farming can be achieved with technical innovation. Finance is working on a new calculation that does take this into account.
obsolete
The above calculation is also based on outdated figures from 2020 about the effects of climate policy. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) will provide an update in October. The government assumes that national nitrogen emissions have fallen more than was estimated two years ago. If that is indeed the case, the cabinet can lower the current reduction target for livestock farming. But new setbacks can also arise. In recent years, for example, purchase schemes for livestock farms invariably resulted in less nitrogen reduction than the cabinet had estimated.
Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag sent the calculation, which dates from May, to the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening. Some MPs had requested the figures in response to reports in NRC. At the end of June, that newspaper wrote about another calculation by the ministry, which was not yet public. This would show that the nitrogen problem can be solved by buying out far fewer farmers than the cabinet is now planning.
Less painful
Farmers’ organizations and their political sympathizers grabbed it NRCmessage to attack cabinet policy. They interpreted the report as a signal that the cabinet can also achieve the national nitrogen target with measures that are less painful for agriculture.
Now that Kaag has published the two calculations – including explanations – that hope seems vain. The calculation where it NRC on June 22, it is assumed that the government will only buy out the largest peak tax payers (forced). These are the livestock farms that deposit the most ammonia on protected nature reserves. Finance wanted to calculate how the cabinet can achieve its national nitrogen target as cheaply as possible, ie at the lowest possible cost to the treasury. After all, it is the job of the Ministry of Finance to keep an eye on the money.
The Finance calculators tell the cabinet that the targeted purchase of the most harmful livestock farms will save a lot of money. According to them, buying out the 10 percent largest polluters yields 24 times as much natural gain per euro as buying out the 10 percent least harmful livestock farms.
Theoretical calculation exercise
If the cabinet were to adopt this brutal method, the nitrogen target for 2030 (74 percent of protected nature below the critical limit value for nitrogen precipitation) could be achieved by buying out just 5,000 farmers. According to Kaag’s ministry, this will cost only 13 billion euros, while the cabinet has now reserved 24.3 billion euros for nitrogen policy. The major advantage of this most cost-efficient method is that the other 27,000 livestock farmers are then left untouched and can continue farming as usual. On the other hand, almost all livestock farms in the Gelderse Vallei, De Peel and Southeast Friesland will have to disappear.
This is therefore a purely theoretical calculation exercise, because fully committing to expropriation and compulsory buyout is politically completely unfeasible. The cabinet does not want this, the provinces do not like it and the farmers are adamantly against coercive measures. The cabinet and the provinces want to focus on as much voluntary cooperation as possible from livestock farmers. They want to facilitate farmers who are willing to stop themselves instead of forcibly buying out the biggest polluters.
But this friendlier approach is much more expensive for the Treasury. Because the government does not opt for efficiency and coercion, many more farmers have to reduce their nitrogen emissions. The chosen approach affects 28,800 or 90 percent of the 31,930 cattle, pig, poultry and goat farms, compared to five thousand in the cost-efficient scenario. The question is whether spreading the consequences over as many farmers as possible is really the least painful policy option.
tug of war
The Ministry of Finance mainly made the cost-effective calculation to show the government how much money the government can save by applying more targeted coercion. From the stack of documents that Kaag sent to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, it appears that last year a tug-of-war was going on between Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture (LNV). Finance officials are clearly afraid of major cost overruns in the nitrogen dossier. They are skeptical about the policy results as long as the policy relies heavily on voluntary cooperation from farmers.
The officials constantly warn their minister against unrealistic LNV cost estimates. According to Kaag’s calculators, the approach that the cabinet is now opting for cannot be implemented within the existing budget of 24.3 billion euros. Finance estimates that the ‘area-oriented approach’ of Minister Van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen) will cost 26 to 43 billion euros.