At the moment, Dutch milk producers, like all their colleagues, are having to cope with a milk price that is far too low to cover production costs. Furthermore, Dutch milk producers worry about the measures that have been announced with respect to the manure policy that will affect them all financially.
Phosphate ceiling
In 2006 the Dutch government agreed with Brussels on a phosphate ceiling of 172.9 million kilograms per year – the Dutch phosphate production of 2002. While the quota system was in place, there was never a threat of exceeding this ceiling. But since the abolition of the milk quota system, the Netherlands has exceeded this ceiling at a rapid pace, endangering extension of the derogation. No derogation means that the Netherlands will have to shrink its livestock by a third. The announced introduction of so called ‘phosphate rights’ with a general restriction for all dairy farms has created great turmoil and endangers the future of all dairy farms, including the extensive farms that are mostly run by families and the farms that have not exceed their livestock limits.
Dutch government
It is unacceptable for the Dutch Dairymen Board (DDB) and the Nederlandse Melkveehouders Vakbond (NMV: Dutch Milk Producers Union) that the Dutch government, which concluded the agreements with Brussels and was also the only party to know how much space was available as compensation areas in the Netherlands for extending the dairy livestock, failed to take this knowledge into account when making its decisions to abolish the milk quota or to license farmers who wanted to expand their farms and livestock. The Regulatory Authority has knowingly issued permits for which, at some point, compensation areas were no longer available. It also failed to proceed against permit applications which would cause dairy farming to exceed the phosphate ceiling. The Dutch government is therefore the cause of the problems that all milk producers are now expected to pay for.
DDB and NMV
DDB and NMV are of the opinion that there can be no general reduction in existing and licensed areas; all the damage done through improper management by the Dutch government has to be reimbursed to the victims by the government and not by milk producers who have no part in exceeding the phosphate production limits, like many family farms or farmers with an extensive dairy farm. The reduction strategy will suddenly turn all milk producers into a ‘hardship case’ and threaten their survival. “The polluter pays” motto is often used by the Dutch government. Now that the Dutch government is proved to be the polluter, it should also be the starting point for solving the phosphate problems!
DDB and NMV had a meeting with the Nitrates Committee in Brussels on 22nd September about the conditions and possibilities involved in fulfilling the Nitrates Directive.
For DDB and NMV, Sieta van Keimpema, President Dutch Dairymen Board
