Post by account_disabled on Feb 19, 2024 23:43:47 GMT -5
Despite months of farmer protests and an electoral rebuke, the Dutch government has pressed ahead with an attempt to make its agricultural system more ecologically sustainable.
But there are deep divisions in the Netherlands over how extensive the reforms should be and clashes over the role new technologies should play in them.
This summer, talks on a possible consensus position between the Dutch government and the national farmers' union collapsed.
The clash between the continent's environmental movement and its agricultural industry is gaining momentum, with the EU's flagship conservation law barely making it through parliament in June.
LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands — Amid a roar of mooing and the occasional sound of urine hitting the ground, Kees De Koning strolled through a row of pens containing about a dozen cows, their heads poking through the grates as they chewed the feed they they had on the ground. Until its manufacturer withdrew it a few weeks earlier, here was the “cow toilet.”
“It's a bit like a food dispenser, at the back there's a unit that closes,” he explained with the matter-of-fact tone of a polished guide. “And that unit has a pissoir , what is it called? A urinal. It clos C Level Executive List es from behind and we begin to tickle the cow's rump, just below the vulva. It is more or less a hormonal process and the cow starts to urinate.”
With an encyclopedic knowledge of dairy farming in the Netherlands, De Koning is the general director of the Wageningen University and Research Dairy Campus in Leeuwarden. Here, in a sprawling complex of industrial barns housing around 500 cows, the future of Dutch dairy farming is being perfected. The Dairy Campus is a center for academic research, but it is also an important location for the dairy industry. De Koning and his team design their experiments with input from farmers' organizations and share their findings with a wide group, including dairy companies and policymakers in The Hague.
The cow toilet, along with other new technologies being tested here, is part of an effort by the Dutch dairy industry to escape the nitrogen problem in the simplest way possible. By capturing urine before it mixes with the ubiquitous feces spread across the barn floor, the toilet's inventors hope to reduce ammonia emissions. It is not the only potential solution being developed. De Koning points to the barn roof, where industrial sprinklers will be part of an upcoming test of another system aimed at washing urine into containers under the floor.
With the industry facing pressure from the EU , technologies like these could allow farmers to sidestep the tougher approach some policymakers have in mind: big cuts to livestock numbers in the Netherlands. De Koning, who grew up on a small dairy farm, is optimistic.
“I have seen the industry develop into a success story. And I think it is still a success story,” he stated. “I think you can use the same mindset that we used in past decades to overcome those challenges.”
Not everyone is so sure. Most environmentalists are skeptical that there is a quick technological solution to solve the stikstofkrisis , or nitrogen crisis. They say ammonia emissions from livestock farming in the Netherlands have been at high levels for too long, and now the only way to save habitats from the brink is to reduce the country's herds of cows, pigs and chickens.
Some of De Koning's counterparts at Wageningen , one of the world's leading agricultural research universities, have suggested that a deeper transition away from livestock farming, along with meat and dairy consumption as a whole, is inevitable in the long term.
"I have some colleagues in the environmental sciences group who think the only future solution to saving nature is to get rid of all the cows... It's a pretty interesting way of thinking," he said. "I don't like".
Whether with cow toilets or cuts, the Netherlands has to drastically reduce its nitrogen emissions to continue pleasing the EU. And the questions raised in debates about how to get there are familiar to the environmental movement. Who pays for the transition to a more sustainable system? Should the private sector be regulated more severely? What happens to basic workers in polluting industries such as intensive livestock farming?
How these questions play out in the Netherlands and where its powerful €230 billion ($248 billion) agricultural industry goes from here will have profound consequences for Dutch nature and society. If the past four years are any guide to other countries facing their own ecological and climate problems, they would do well to prepare for a difficult journey as well.
But there are deep divisions in the Netherlands over how extensive the reforms should be and clashes over the role new technologies should play in them.
This summer, talks on a possible consensus position between the Dutch government and the national farmers' union collapsed.
The clash between the continent's environmental movement and its agricultural industry is gaining momentum, with the EU's flagship conservation law barely making it through parliament in June.
LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands — Amid a roar of mooing and the occasional sound of urine hitting the ground, Kees De Koning strolled through a row of pens containing about a dozen cows, their heads poking through the grates as they chewed the feed they they had on the ground. Until its manufacturer withdrew it a few weeks earlier, here was the “cow toilet.”
“It's a bit like a food dispenser, at the back there's a unit that closes,” he explained with the matter-of-fact tone of a polished guide. “And that unit has a pissoir , what is it called? A urinal. It clos C Level Executive List es from behind and we begin to tickle the cow's rump, just below the vulva. It is more or less a hormonal process and the cow starts to urinate.”
With an encyclopedic knowledge of dairy farming in the Netherlands, De Koning is the general director of the Wageningen University and Research Dairy Campus in Leeuwarden. Here, in a sprawling complex of industrial barns housing around 500 cows, the future of Dutch dairy farming is being perfected. The Dairy Campus is a center for academic research, but it is also an important location for the dairy industry. De Koning and his team design their experiments with input from farmers' organizations and share their findings with a wide group, including dairy companies and policymakers in The Hague.
The cow toilet, along with other new technologies being tested here, is part of an effort by the Dutch dairy industry to escape the nitrogen problem in the simplest way possible. By capturing urine before it mixes with the ubiquitous feces spread across the barn floor, the toilet's inventors hope to reduce ammonia emissions. It is not the only potential solution being developed. De Koning points to the barn roof, where industrial sprinklers will be part of an upcoming test of another system aimed at washing urine into containers under the floor.
With the industry facing pressure from the EU , technologies like these could allow farmers to sidestep the tougher approach some policymakers have in mind: big cuts to livestock numbers in the Netherlands. De Koning, who grew up on a small dairy farm, is optimistic.
“I have seen the industry develop into a success story. And I think it is still a success story,” he stated. “I think you can use the same mindset that we used in past decades to overcome those challenges.”
Not everyone is so sure. Most environmentalists are skeptical that there is a quick technological solution to solve the stikstofkrisis , or nitrogen crisis. They say ammonia emissions from livestock farming in the Netherlands have been at high levels for too long, and now the only way to save habitats from the brink is to reduce the country's herds of cows, pigs and chickens.
Some of De Koning's counterparts at Wageningen , one of the world's leading agricultural research universities, have suggested that a deeper transition away from livestock farming, along with meat and dairy consumption as a whole, is inevitable in the long term.
"I have some colleagues in the environmental sciences group who think the only future solution to saving nature is to get rid of all the cows... It's a pretty interesting way of thinking," he said. "I don't like".
Whether with cow toilets or cuts, the Netherlands has to drastically reduce its nitrogen emissions to continue pleasing the EU. And the questions raised in debates about how to get there are familiar to the environmental movement. Who pays for the transition to a more sustainable system? Should the private sector be regulated more severely? What happens to basic workers in polluting industries such as intensive livestock farming?
How these questions play out in the Netherlands and where its powerful €230 billion ($248 billion) agricultural industry goes from here will have profound consequences for Dutch nature and society. If the past four years are any guide to other countries facing their own ecological and climate problems, they would do well to prepare for a difficult journey as well.