The Dutch agriculture is in danger due to climate change: ‘No measures’
In the Netherlands, agriculture is practiced where it is actually no longer suitable. Lands that are susceptible to salinization and higher sandy soils are rarely suitable for growing crops, says Jan Jaap de Graeff, chairman of the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure (Rli). And in the long term, the freshwater supply will falter, and we really need to stay ahead of that. ‘It is a bit of a creeping process.’
Insufficient climate action: ‘Degradation of agricultural land is a creeping process’
The Netherlands must prepare now and consider the consequences of climate change in spatial planning. The government is dragging its feet too much, which only threatens to exacerbate the problems and increase costs significantly, concludes the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure in a new report. ‘We also notice this in the entire housing program: with Hugo de Jonge’s one million homes, we need to look in time where it gets wet and how we can protect ourselves.’
It is also the message that the government should send to homebuyers and investing companies, according to De Graeff. At the moment, a lot is said with words, but concrete measures are largely absent. There is already a spatial test to assess government spatial plans for soil moisture. ‘It doesn’t actually lead to different location choices yet. That’s why the government should inform people when the certainties that are still there disappear.’
There is also a clean task for provinces and municipalities, emphasizes De Graeff. Often decisions are only made at the municipal level, ‘and by then, the die is largely cast’. That is why the province and the government should look much earlier at the effects of climate change and to what extent they should take that into account when exercising spatial control. This also includes society itself, such as citizens, builders, project developers, banks, and insurers.
Now it is still too often the case that investors assume that the government will solve it if something goes wrong. ‘And at some point, that is of course no longer possible.’ The chairman also already invites himself to the new cabinet. ‘Will we also have a cup of coffee with the new minister if they survive the hearing in the House of Representatives? If we are welcome, we will gladly do that, for sure!’
In the Netherlands, agriculture is practiced where it is actually no longer suitable. Lands that are susceptible to salinization and higher sandy soils are rarely suitable for growing crops, says Jan Jaap de Graeff (ANP / Robin Utrecht)