Dutch Dairy Association supports the commitment of the Dutch Federation of Agriculture and Horticulture for allotment of EU dairy farming support programme

European commissioner Phil Hogan submitted a support programme of € 500 million euro to the European Ministers of Agriculture on Monday 18 July. A national budget envelope of € 23 million is available to the Netherlands. The Dutch Dairy Association assumes that this amount will be earmarked for the dairy farming sector. The Dutch government can double this € 23 million by means of a national contribution.

Apart from this, there will also be a European arrangement in support of the voluntary production reduction in the dairy sector. At this moment it is still unclear what the various arrangement will actually entail. The Dutch Dairy Association supports the commitment of the Dutch Federation of Agriculture and Horticulture to use the means available for the Dutch dairy farming sector in order to reduce the production of phosphates in the short term. The latter is important to Dutch dairy farmers in order to retain the derogation by Brussels of the Nitrates Directive and to secure a new derogation as from the year 2018.