“Government’s Nitrogen Approach Criticized: Update on Netherlands’ 24.3 Billion Euro Fund for Agriculture and Nature”

Read the report Large-scale relocation of farms seems unrealistic

Next week, the House will continue the debate on the fund of 24.3 billion euros for nature and agriculture, the vote will probably follow the following week. This debate was suspended in the evening of April, because there were more than a hundred questions and 25 amendments for nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal (VVD) – who, like the House, still had to have dinner.

The ‘Transition Fund for Rural Areas and Nature’ should, among other things, help to halve nitrogen emissions. The coalition is only divided on whether the target year remains 2030 or 2035. The CDA wants to negotiate about this sometime in the coming months. The statutory term of the fund is in any case until 2035, so the cabinet can use it in all directions.

More progress

It almost sounds like the nitrogen approach is at a tipping point – and more progress may be coming from the summer.

But it remains a guess how many farmers and factories want to cooperate in the peak tax scheme, or whether the government will become entangled in lengthy expropriation procedures. There are no Agricultural Agreements yet, no signatures and no content to judge. The House of Representatives will probably approve the bill for the billion-dollar fund, but this must also be passed by the Senate, where a majority is not self-evident.

If the fund is delayed, this does not mean that the government cannot do anything now. The money for the buy-out schemes of peak taxers and other livestock farmers (1.47 billion), for example, is arranged via the Spring Memorandum and is already parked in an account. The Spring Memorandum also still has to be passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

An important question that Minister Van der Wal – sole manager of the fund of 24.3 billion euros – will have to answer in the House on Wednesday is: how should that mountain of tax money solve the problems in nature and agriculture?

The objectives of the fund are well known: nitrogen precipitation in nature must be reduced, so must greenhouse gas emissions, water quality must improve, as must biodiversity, and agriculture must become more sustainable. But how these goals are to be achieved is unclear.

The coalition agreement only included a provisional expenditure picture until 2035. The largest item, almost 7.5 billion euros, would be intended for buying up livestock farms. About 7 billion is cover for the write-down of dairy farmers’ land: for example, if that land is converted into a nature reserve. For innovative housing systems and other farm management: one billion.

Both the Court of Audit, the Council of State and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) warn against a ‘money-seeking-project’ approach, VVD member Van Campen warned about the billion-dollar fund. Bromet of GroenLinks was more adamant: the cabinet has “no vision at all” on making agriculture more sustainable, she said in the debate.

The House of Representatives wonders how it can monitor until 2035 whether all those billions are actually spent. The specter is that we are twelve years later, the money has run out, and the problems have not been solved.

Left-wing parties in particular are concerned that the cabinet will only focus on nitrogen. Fixation on nitrogen, the PBL has been saying for years, is not the way to restore Natura 2000 areas. More is needed to maintain animal and plant species: cleaner water, higher groundwater levels to prevent desiccation, less fragmented nature areas and more habitat.