More than a week after the release of Johan Remkes’ long-awaited nitrogen report, the cabinet has today issued an official response. The question is whether she takes Remkes’ advice in full or still takes parts of it into account.

Many farmers are particularly curious about the government’s reaction to two radical proposals in the report: stopping 500 to 600 “peak trucks” within a year and dividing the Netherlands into four zones with different types of farming.

Members of the farmers’ interest group LTO Nederland made the most negative comments about these two plans this week. In a poll of nearly 2,500 members, farmers gave the top tax rate proposal an average score of 5.1. Dividing the Netherlands into four zones performed even worse: this plan was rated 4.6.

Red, orange, yellow and green zones

In his report, Remkes proposes dividing the Netherlands into red, orange, green and yellow areas, with the red zone being intended for the most intensive agriculture and the green zone containing mainly space for nature and at most very small-scale organic farming.

Farmers aren’t fans of this color spread, which LTO says feels like “the nitrogen map in another jacket.” This map, presented by the cabinet in June, shows in great detail how much nitrogen reduction needs to be achieved for each area.

The map caused a great deal of concern in agriculture, although Nitrogen Minister Van der Wal repeatedly emphasized that the map was not set in stone, using terms such as ‘coal sketch’ and ‘starting point’.

In his report, Remkes advises deleting the nitrogen map from the table, but in his opinion introducing less detailed “regional maps” in the short term.

Remkes does not say exactly what these look like and where the red, orange, yellow and green zones should be. “This is sensitive,” he writes in his recommendations and should therefore be decided in close consultation with the industry.

housing, agriculture and nature

The idea of ​​dividing the Netherlands into four areas – or “zoning” – in terms of agriculture is not new. Remkes himself says that he took this classification from a comprehensive paper by researchers at Wageningen University on the future of agriculture.

One of the authors of this essay, published last year, is professor of land use planning Martha Bakker. “We have a dilemma in this country,” she explains. “We are 17 million people who want to live here, we want agriculture and we want nature. That’s difficult to reconcile. Anyway, zoning is a way to do that and use the space as efficiently as possible.”

‘Subsidy’

Bakker expects that any zoning will affect about half of the agricultural sector. It affects farmers who are in a zone where only extensive farming will be allowed in the future. “They really need to radically change the way they produce,” says Bakker. “And that can also mean earning less at first.”

It is important to her that the state provides financial help in these cases, which Remkes also advises in his report. “You can call it a subsidy,” says Bakker, “but you can also say: we pay for all sorts of important services that we need as a society. Think of water storage, biodiversity and beautiful landscapes.”

Limburg dairy farmer Peter Venner and his son Mark have already decided to change course: they are converting their farm into a food forest. She visited Nieuwsuur:

According to Professor Bakker, there will still be plenty of room for farming in the Netherlands in the future, including the intensive variety. And that’s necessary, she thinks. “The Netherlands has built up an enormous amount of knowledge and know-how in the field of good and extensive production. It would be unwise to throw this know-how overboard completely.”

Nevertheless, a possible zoning remains a difficult puzzle. Today will show whether the cabinet is ready to put them down.