Nutrient management regulations in The Netherlands

The application of nutrients affect the quality of the environment which justifies the consideration of regulations regarding their use in agriculture. In the early 1990s The Netherlands decided to use the indicator ‘nutrient surplus at farm level’ as the basis for a regulation which was called the mineral accounting system (MINAS). Exceedance of specified nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) surpluses (‘N and P loss standards’), resulted in a financial levy per kg exceedance. This NP surplus approach is a ‘goal-oriented regulation’ rather than a ‘means-oriented regulation’, giving farmers maximum freedom to stop nutrient leaks where they considered measures to be most effective in their specific situation. In 2003, however, the European Court of Justice ruled that The Netherlands Action Programme, of which MINAS was part, was in conflict with the EU Nitrates Directive. Important consideration here was that the legislation in The Netherlands contained as yet no specified application rates for N. The Netherlands was also reproached for implicitly allowing application rates of more than 170 kg N in the form of animal manure per ha per year without possessing formal permission by the European Commission to deviate from this threshold, a so-called ‘derogation’. A new, and meanwhile by the European Commission accepted Netherlands Action Programme defines the required N application rates, N fertilizer replacement values of various organic manure types, and periods in which the use of fertilizers and manures is forbidden. All these aspects will be sharpened in the years after 2006.