The Dutch Agricultural Youth Contact (NAJK) expects a major impact from the proposed measures in the manure letter that Minister of Agriculture Femke Wiersma sent to the House of Representatives on Friday. But the youth organization also sees points of contact to prevent generic reduction and to limit a cold restructuring as much as possible.
The aim of the manure approach presented by Wiersma is to provide relief on the manure market by bringing the placement space and manure production more into balance with each other. This will reduce manure disposal costs and make manure disposal easier for companies. In addition, the export possibilities will be further examined.
The approach is aimed at alleviating the manure market by increasing the placement space for animal manure. The aim is a structural solution from 2025. NAJK believes that the approach will provide relief, but certainly not a complete solution in the short term.
Points of light
However, the organization also sees bright spots. At the end of April, NAJK, together with LTO, Natuurweide and NZO, manure crisis plan outside. Ruben Klein Teeselink, portfolio holder dairy farming at NAJK, responds: ‘Good to see that all the measures mentioned in this plan have been included in the manure letter. We would like to discuss this further with Wiersma.
‘The measures mentioned have a big impact’, Klein Teeselink continues. ‘To prevent generic reduction and to limit a cold restructuring as much as possible, choices have to be made and actions taken. That is why we have to take action now.’
To reduce manure production, Wiersma proposes two concrete measures: a new broad termination scheme in addition to current schemes and skimming of phosphate and animal rights. NAJK advocates an early broad termination scheme to make more room for young farmers.
‘A stopper can make room for a permanent one. This can help young farmers in all sectors’, says Wendy Kicken, portfolio holder for poultry, pig and calf farming at NAJK. The skimming of phosphate and animal rights will certainly have an impact on the livestock farming sectors. For the dairy farming sector, a skimming of 30 percent will apply when transferring phosphate rights.
For poultry and pig farming, two different percentages are used. Pig farming is faced with a 25 percent reduction in animal rights and poultry farming with a 15 percent reduction.
Trade animal rights under pressure
In this way, the trade in animal rights is put under pressure, says NAJK. ‘In these sectors, many rights are traded and this skimming is absolutely undesirable. Young farmers are hit hard, because they have less financial capacity.’
NAJK is therefore sceptical about the non-proportionate distribution of the manure production ceilings. Kicken: ‘We need to solve the manure problem together, in which the pro-rata distribution of the task is an important part. We therefore advocate an annual recalibration of whether skimming can be reduced in the various sectors.’
