Team:Wageningen UR/Background/N timeline

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Dutch Nitrogen Crisis

The bursting of the Dutch nitrogen crisis (DNC) catched the attention of the 2021 iGEM team of Wageningen University and Research (WUR). We made the decision of tackling the DNC and the associated societal and environmental crisis by developing a technology with the help of synthetic biology. This page complements the project Background page by providing a timeline of the measures that were put into place to prevent the environmental damage caused by nitrogen excess. The new policies had consequences on the society, especially on certain groups, such as cattle farmers. This explains why farmers were the ones mostly expressing their discontent through protests. With the project called Cattlelyst, the WUR iGEM team 2021 aims at providing technological support to the farmers, facilitating the process of complying with the regulations and helping them in reducing the environmental impact of their job without losing profit.

Timeline

First rules 1980s

Awareness on the environmental damages caused by acid deposition led to new policies already back it 1980, but these were only effective for reducing sulphur oxide levels. The emissions of this gas have been reduced by 80% in the past 40 years, but the emissions of nitrogen compounds have only halved since 1990 and ammonia emissions have increased in recent years [1, 2].

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PASmore_vert

The Programma Aanpak Stikstof (PAS, literally “Nitrogen Action Program”) started in 2015 with the aim of reducing the deposition of nitrogen in Dutch natural sites. Here you find the link to the Dutch PAS webside

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More information on PAS

The goal of the program was to reduce these nitrogen emissions below a critical point. However, in May 2019 the Council of State ruled that the programme was inadequate. It was considered to consist of guidelines that were too general and lax. This allowed for parties to obtain permits and continue with nitrogen-emitting activities with no consideration of environmental consequences [3, 4].

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Spetember 2019more_vert

In September 2019. the Dutch government presented new short-term recommendations to reduce the emissions of nitrogen in the Netherlands, which were fittingly called “niet alles kan" (literally “not everything is possible”) [5].

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New measures of 2019

The most important new measures were:

• lowering of the maximum speed on highways from 130 to 100 km /h
• suspended construction projects
• reducing the amount of livestock of 50%
• reducing the emissions from transport
• plans to repair the damage done to Europen protected natural areas [6]

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October protests

Image from BBC news article at this link

The new measures have caused friction between the government and farmers. This was the last straw for many farmers that on the 1st of October gathered in a massive protest on the ‘Malieveld’ in Den Haag. Thousands of farmers went to the Dutch political capital in their tractors clogging the highways and many other strikes followed [7, 8].

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New 2020 regulationsmore_vert

In April 2020, the cabinet allocated €5 billion to new measures to solve the nitrogen crisis. The money was mostly meant for restoration of nature and to fund solutions to lower emissions at the source. A new long-term plan to lower nitrogen emissions was proposed in June 2020, which contained several more detailed recommendations. With this plan in place, a reduction of 26% of nitrogen emissions in 2030 would be achieved.

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New measures of 2020

Among the measures of the long-term plan was the proposal to lower the amount of protein in cattle feed, as this would also reduce the amount of nitrogen emissions [8]. Farmers protested against it, because this would result in a less healthy diet for the cows and would decrease animal welfare. This position was supported by animal vets [9, 10]. This led to a recalculation and the measure was indefinitely postponed [11 - 13]. Furthermore, this plan was judged as insufficient by an advisory council, that claimed that a reduction of 50% as a minimum was needed, especially from the side of the livestock industry [5].

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Protests July 2021more_vert

Image from our team members! Follow this link to read an article on the topic from Resource (Wageningen University and Research magazine). The sign in the picture sais: "Whoever leaves the farmers under this burden will soon have nothing to eat."

Recently, on the 7th of July 2021, farmers organized a protest in several cities all over the Netherlands: The Hague, Zwolle, Assen, Arnhem and Den Bosch. The campaign had “ruimte voor de boer" (literally “room for the farmers”) as a message.

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Farmer's protests July 2021

After the protest, the group of people that gathered in Arnhem moved with their tractors to the campus of Wageningen University and Research (WUR). There they targeted directly the leading university in agriculture: “Are you with or against us?” asked the leaders of Farmers Defense Force. They asked for a more transparent communication, wondering which suggestions are given by WUR experts to the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture. WUR representant replied that the university research is publicly available and the institution itself is not directly involved in policy making. Nonetheless, the institution invited the activists of the Farmers Defense Force for a later discussion [14, 15].

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