Radboud University has been involved in Living Lab Ooijpolder since 2021; this is a unique project that sees researchers, farmers, authorities and other organisations gather together to work towards restoring the biodiversity in the Gelderland region. The ultimate goal of the project is to put the lessons from this Living Lab to use in other areas in the Netherlands. The researchers themselves explain how this can offer a perspective on a more sustainable, future-proof agriculture in a nature-inclusive way.
Talk to each other, not about each other
Hans de Kroon, Professor of Plant Ecology: “It’s easy to understand why the farmers are so upset. The last few decades have given rise to a problem that has only become worse. In the meantime, there has been no open, honest and constructive discussion with the agricultural sector. The farmers have been discussed, but nobody’s entered into a discussion with them. The problem either belonged to them or it was trivialised. The farmers were mainly encouraged to continue on their current path and keep growing their farming operation. It now seems that they were travelling down a dead-end road. Demanding targets have been imposed, even though there is no tradition of equal dialogue between all of the parties. And that makes it quite difficult to figure out what needs to be done.”
“In the past, there were many research projects in which an approach was adopted straight from the drawing board so that it could then be implemented as policy. People who present complex information to farmers while leaving no room for argument and then claim that there simply is no room for argument don’t realise that that approach just doesn’t work. ‘I’ll explain it one more time’ was often the only thing that the farmers heard. There was also little assurance, because every few years a new plan was presented with its own new set of requirements. This created a certain reluctance among farmers, which is something that we also noticed when we started our research. ‘Not another project!’ exclaimed the farmers that we spoke to. ‘There has already been so much research.’
Huub Ploegmakers, Assistant Professor of Spatial Planning: “If we ask ourselves how we can make everything flourish again, this is only achievable by addressing the problem from the bottom up and by developing a better approach from one area to another. In the Living Lab, we mainly look at the smaller steps, with a view to eventually taking bigger ones. The Ooijpolder is a wonderful area that offers ample opportunity for such an approach. We also know that small things can have a great impact. We used a similar approach in the rivers in the Gelderse Poort area: we worked together with water safety organisations, clay dredgers and other organisations, which offered everyone something different. The number of species there have increased enormously, which is now having an effect on other natural habitats.
Sander Meijerink, Professor of Water Governance: “The great thing about the Living Lab is that we really try to address the problem by working together with other parties. This involves more than purely conducting research for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the problem. We’d like to work together with the farmers and change direction.”
De Kroon: “We ask a lot of questions, and we listen to the answers. When the farmers realised that we had a lot of open questions and that we were actually willing to listen to stories about their personal experiences, the situation slowly started to change. We take their problems seriously, and we continue to press for details. I call this the ‘peeling off’ approach, which involves digging ever deeper into the farmer’s personal experience. Farmers are primarily concerned with their own business operations, and that’s understandable. But we also ask them what they’re most proud of, where they see themselves heading in the future, and in which kind of environment they’d like to work. We organise field meetings, carry out measurements together and ask them what they’re using on their grass and how they’re using their land. And slowly but surely, they’ve started to open up to us. All of these steps take time, but they’ll pay off in the end. This means that we can work together to develop an agriculture that is better for the natural habitat, and ensure that it’s one that produces less nitrogen and carbon and still offers a future for farming in the Netherlands.”
Transition with perspective
Tonny Nijmeijer, Professor of Administrative Law (particularly Environmental Law): “Environmental law is about the rules that govern our living environment and addresses such issues as where you’re allowed to build, cases in which the natural habitat takes precedence, what a plot of land can be used for, that sort of thing. Environmental law is a container concept: it regulates all aspects of our physical living environment, such as water, air, soil, nature, cultural heritage, and much more. That’s why my legal expertise is such a good fit for everyone else’s research: what they believe is scientifically sound from an ecological point of view needs to be legally regulated so that it can be implemented properly.”
“We now need to embark on a radical transition in the rural areas of the Netherlands. And we need to do this because we not only want to restore the natural habitat, but also because the agriculture is too intensive in some areas. This is a development that’s been around for a while now: it’s partly related to the current nitrogen problem, and partly to the Green Deal that was recently launched by the European Union. The Green Deal calls for a reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy. This new policy will come into force in 2023. The European Union is aiming to move towards circular agriculture throughout the whole of Europe. This means that, among other things, raw materials will need to be handled differently and arable farming and grazing methods will require a different approach; to put it briefly, different agricultural choices will need to be made. Here in the Netherlands, these choices will need to be specified at the provincial level as soon as possible in area-specific plans that include the established legal frameworks for the next few decades.”
Meijerink: “It helps if you can come up with some specific examples. We tell the farmers that doing things differently can also pay off. Herb-rich grassland, for instance, has a much higher nutritional value than the grassland that is currently found in most of the farming regions.”
Nijmeijer: “It is partly in view of the European perspective and especially because of the reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy that this is the time when integral, area-specific and, above all, sustainable considerations need to be made. And we’re not talking about a short-term policy. That’s why it’s understandable that many of those who are involved are currently making objections. Although it’s important to make plans, we must also remember to think about a realistic implementation.”
De Kroon: “Fortunately there are available funds; billions have been earmarked for the nitrogen measures. It’s imperative that the farmers’ efforts are taken seriously, and that their confidence is regained. This money can be used to provide the farmers with the perspective, space and time to really follow through. To work together to develop plans that they can then build on for at least 20 to 25 years. The farmers in the Ooijpolder originally entered into 30-year contracts for the maintenance of hedgerows and flower strips. This means that they have a greater share of ownership when it comes to what is happening now. We aim to encourage the experiments from the Living Lab research, and we hope that the farmers will be given the space to capitalise on this. It’s an upfront investment, but it means that time will be gained for organising a structural transformation of the system.”
Nijmeijer: “It’s often been said that there’s not enough perspective for farmers. But I believe that the new European Common Agricultural Policy offers a clear perspective. At the European level, the EU are working towards the extensification of agriculture, which involves less waste and more circular agriculture. European subsidies will be able to be used for this type of agriculture in the next few years. How can this be deemed a lack of perspective? It goes without saying that this perspective is going to require many of the players within the agricultural sector to have a serious ‘rethink’. Thanks to European subsidy schemes, the last 10 or 20 years has seen dairy farming in particular being pushed in the direction of more cows, more production per cow, bigger machines, more land and fewer small farms. These holdings have felt that the government has been pushing them in a certain direction: just try explaining to them that things will have to be done differently from now on.”
Encouraging experimentation and removing the obstacles
Nijmeijer: “What I do like about the new European agricultural policy is that it will give farmers more freedom of choice to implement environmental measures and that the introduction of a subsidy system will hopefully make it easier to integrate these measures into their operations. This will be achieved through the so-called eco-regulations, which offer farmers a kind of drop-down menu, and include various subsidised options that will entice the farmers to implement voluntary environmental measures. Examples of these include planting flower borders around the edge of a corn field, creating hedgerows and regularly allowing fields to lie fallow.”
De Kroon: “If we want to encourage experimentation, the farmers will also need to be offered some form of income security in return. And we’re not talking about another plan that will be replaced by something else in a few years’ time; that’s impertinent and has already created quite a lot of distrust. In fact, offering the farmers both resources and time will create a long-term perspective. They’ll be given the space to continue their work until they retire, or they pass their business on to the next generation. Be that as it may, such an approach will require courage, especially now with the radical farmers. There’s a very large group of farmers that has nothing to do with the radical followers, but these are people who are actually concerned and feel that they have no perspective. If we’re all receptive to this perspective and we all work together to create it, we won’t be that far from change.”
Nijmeijer: “Within the Living Lab, I’m involved in seeing how all of these changes are legally facilitated. But I also look at which legal obstacles may occasionally be encountered when it comes to doing things differently. In the Netherlands, manure is applied by means of manure injection. This means that the pastureland is intensively cleaved a few times a year. In other countries, they specifically choose to use other equipment because cleaving is harmful to soil life. In the Netherlands, however, you’re only allowed to spread liquid manure by means of manure injection. And there are more examples in our legal system that prevent farmers from working in a more environmentally friendly way. If we can identify these kinds of obstacles and remove them, it will make a huge difference.”
‘Farmers, you are needed!’
Meijerink: “There’s a wonderful complementarity in the research that we carry out. On the basis of our legal research, we can see whether the established goals are in accordance with the current legislation. And with an ecologist like Hans, we can analyse why a certain approach might not result in adequate recovery: is it because of the farmer, the environment, or is something else involved? This allows us to clearly identify which factors will lead to recovery, and which obstacles may exist that have not sufficiently been taken into account.”
Nijmeijer: “As a lawyer, I believe it’s not only important to understand the methodology and correlation between rules and regulations, but to also have an insight into what the rules are actually about. I don’t know how many houses can be built on a hectare and how these can best be arranged, but an urban planner does. That’s much the same as an ecologist having a much better understanding of the effects that certain rules may have on biodiversity. In an effort to really understand what’s at stake, the interaction between the legal system and ecology, for example, is of great importance.”
De Kroon: “The Healthy Landscape partnership at Radboud University works even broader than the research in the Living Labs. We’re working from a wide range of disciplines in order to find integrated solutions for a healthy landscape in all its facets. Up until now, the cultural-historical dimension of the Healthy Landscape has been a real eye-opener for me. I was born into a farming family. My father was a farmer and after making a decades-long detour via fundamental science, I’m now working with farmers again. It’s quite a unique world: the farms are often family businesses, while the farmers possess the knowledge and have a tradition as food producers, but they also see themselves as entrepreneurs. This means that you need to combine the two worlds of entrepreneurship and tradition. For this purpose, a sense of ownership is essential. That’s why my message is: ‘Farmers, you are needed’.”