Incomplete and hasty nitrogen legislation is tearing the rug out from under food production in Denmark and slowing down the work of local green tree parties. Added to this is a national spraying ban.
Denmark’s food producers gathered in a packed Odense Congress Center. More than 4,500 farmers, representatives from related industries and rural areas gathered to call out to Christiansborg. The frustration is primarily about the unfinished nitrogen regulation that politicians are about to adopt.
Søren Søndergaard, chairman of the Danish Food and Agriculture Association, sent a clear message to legislators.
– The government’s policy directly threatens Danish food production and our rural areas. The government is undermining the green tripartite and Danish food production. Agriculture has delivered, now the government is changing the rules of the game along the way with an unfinished nitrogen regulation and a national spraying ban, which should otherwise have been agreed locally. It threatens jobs, food production and development throughout Denmark. It sounds drastic, but unfortunately that is how the country is, says Søren Søndergaard.
The Danish Ministry of Agriculture and Food has long warned that the original agreements from the Green Tripartite have slipped significantly. This has led some tripartites to pause work.
– The original tripartite agreement was weighed on an atomic scale. Since then, a long series of new demands have come from political parties. What they have in common is that agriculture must deliver on everything, and then the balance and the framework within which we must work tip, says Søren Søndergaard.
Atomic weight has been forgotten and unfinished nitrogen legislation from Christiansborg is now hitting Denmark’s land hard.
– That is why we are now calling out. The political course has consequences for Denmark’s rural districts, for our large food companies and of course also for the thousands of farmers who right now cannot find out what they are allowed to sow on their fields and what nitrogen requirements they must meet, says Søren Søndergaard.
Strong agriculture can be linked to an improved marine environment. Søren Søndergaard does not accept the premise that the fight for strong food production is in conflict with a better aquatic environment.
– When someone shouts “oxygen depletion and dead fish”, it can be difficult to respond. Not least with words like retention maps, fallow fields, water catchments and local tree parts. But as a politician, you have a special responsibility to ensure that you do not downplay the seriousness of the situation or the actual circumstances. In Danish agriculture, we have been heavily regulated on our fields for more than 30 years. During the period that Minister of Nature Christian Rabjerg believes that the fish have been waiting, agriculture has halved our nitrogen emissions and reduced our phosphorus emissions even further, says Søren Søndergaard and continues.
– There are limits to how much you can charge for a profession. Especially a profession that creates jobs throughout Denmark and has actively participated in the work for a healthy green transition.
Representatives from banks, credit unions, trades, agricultural schools and farmers’ associations and a wide range of other related industries participated in the meeting, which was attended by around 4,500 participants.
