The Dutch dairy herd will have to be cut by 100,000 cows, or 8% of the total herd, for the country to meet European environmental limits on phosphate production. Since milk production quotas were abolished in 2015, Dutch milk supply has increased rapidly with the national dairy herd expanding to 1.6m head.

In 2015, Dutch milk supply surged almost 7% to a new record of 13.1bn litres, while in the first eight months of 2016 milk output from Dutch farms is running 11% ahead of last year. In the lead-up to the end of quotas, the Dutch government sought, and successfully won, a 30% higher derogation for phosphate production than the EU average at 176.3m kg.

New EU limits

However, despite the increased derogation, phosphate production in 2015 from Dutch farmers was 3.4m kg above the new limits set by the European Commission and is on course to be over the limit by even more this year.

To tackle this, the Dutch government was working on legislation to implement phosphate quotas in January 2017, based on the number of cows a farmer had in July 2015. However, that proposal has been shot down by the European Commission, insisting it does not comply with European law. The Dutch government has now postponed the introduction of the phosphate quota system until 2018 as it seeks to untangle the legal confusion but it is possible the system could be abandoned.

According to FrieslandCampina chief executive Roelof Joosten, the failure of the government to deliver decisive regulations has left dairy farmers in the Netherlands in limbo.