So far the Agricultural Agreement, so far the polder. After months of negotiations, which were regularly accompanied by unadulterated threats to blow up the process, the Agricultural Agreement was finally broken this week. Farmers’ organization LTO Nederland, traditionally one of the government’s moderate and reliable partners in agricultural matters, has withdrawn from negotiations on sustainable agriculture and a new perspective for farmers. According to LTO foreman Sjaak van der Tak, farmers get “insufficient action perspective and income security”. A deal seems further away than ever, and that’s bad news for everyone.
What does not clarify the matter is that LTO has been refusing for months to clarify what it believes an Agricultural Agreement must meet. LTO may lay its cards on the table in the privacy of the negotiations, but towards the outside world Van der Tak cloaks itself in vague statements that make it impossible to assess the reasonableness – or unreasonableness – of the farmers’ point of view.
One week the cabinet is moving in the right direction, the other week, according to LTO, there is only “intentions and promises” from politicians, “and farmers cannot live on intentions”. Even after the agreement has been reached, it is not clear what exactly the substantive differences were about.
This raises the suspicion that Van der Tak did not want to agree in any way; a sound that can also be heard within the cabinet. No matter how far the cabinet and the other negotiators (supermarkets, banks, nature organizations, provinces) would have gone to meet him, it would never have been enough. Instead of reducing the polarization between the cabinet and farmers, LTO itself has contributed to widening the gap and distrust. A missed opportunity, as Agriculture Minister Piet Adema (Christian Union) also called it. Placing the blame for the broken trust on the cabinet, as LTO does, sounds inappropriate here.
In any case, the resignation of LTO seems to have lost the chance of a widely supported agreement. The other negotiating partners also see this and they are right. The fact is that in addition to the agreement – which was supposed to offer farmers prospects – the nitrogen dossier has also been considerably delayed. That is a pity, because the task facing the Netherlands in the coming years will remain as great as ever. And as long as emissions do not go down, the space for housing and road construction, among other things, will also remain limited.
LTO de facto locks the country for longer. Without LTO at the table, it is now up to politicians to quickly put concrete proposals on the table for the sector and nitrogen reduction. These will also have to apply to farmers, who are the biggest emitters of emissions. The fact that decisions are now being taken over their heads is due to their lobby organization. Anyone who no longer participates also loses his influence on the end result.
The big question is how coalition partner CDA will deal with the resignation of LTO. Traditionally, the farmers’ union and the Christian Democrats prefer to hold on tight to each other, and CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra has given little reason to think that this will be different now. The formation of the provincial authorities also complicates further necessary steps in the nitrogen dossier.
Postponing concrete nitrogen rules, however, is even more harmful. Don’t let politicians waste any more time now: it is clear what the task is. It’s encouraging that Adema finally realizes that after all these months. The voter has given this coalition a mandate to act in the national interest, also in this area. Enough time is wasted now. To work.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 22, 2023.