STEP UP partners interview: Country Perspective on Livestock Production
Welcome to our blog series on Country Perspective on Livestock Production within STEP UP, an ambitious Horizon Europe project running from January 2024 to December 2027. Our mission is to transform livestock production across Europe, making it more sustainable by blending traditional farming methods with cutting-edge innovations. Through this project, we aim to seamlessly integrate European Livestock Production Systems (ELPS) with Innovative Livestock Production Systems (ILPS) to secure a more sustainable future for animal husbandry.
Meet the STEP UP Team
The STEP UP initiative is powered by a diverse team of 16 partners from 10 different countries. In this blog series, we’ll introduce you to these key contributors, explore the state of animal husbandry in their respective countries, and share their insights on the project.
We’ll dive into their perspectives on the current challenges they face, their views on how STEP UP can make a difference, and their visions for enhancing livestock production.
The first country in this series is the Netherlands, and our partner from Wageningen Economic Research, Coen van Wagenberg.
Questions:
1. In the beginning, can you tell us Something about yourself and your institution (expertise and background) and how it fits into the overall livestock landscape?
I am Coen van Wagenberg, a senior scientist in food quality economics at Wageningen Economic Research in the Netherlands. I have a university degree in operations research from Tilburg University and a PhD in food safety economics from Wageningen University. My research focuses on economic analysis of food quality at the farm and supply chain level, mostly in livestock sectors. My research topics include the social and economic sustainability of livestock production, incentives to improve sustainability, cost-effectiveness analyses of sustainability measures, and true and fair pricing.
My institute Wageningen Economic Research is one of the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation, part of Wageningen University & Research. Wageningen Economic Research is an internationally leading socio-economic applied research institute that, based on its unique databases, analysis models, and expert knowledge, offers governments and companies (socio)economic insights and integral advice for sound policies and better decision-making in an innovative way.
2. Why did you choose to be a part of the STEP UP project?
The mission of Wageningen Economic Research is to foster socioeconomic transitions in the agri-food domain by designing effective incentives and policies. Currently, livestock production in the Netherlands and in the EU is in a socioeconomic transition to become more sustainable. By joining the STEP UP project, we can help the livestock sector in this transition with our unique knowledge and expertise, while at the same time developing our own knowledge and expertise about such transitions. In STEP UP, Wageningen Economic Research is responsible for the social impact of livestock production through social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) and contributes to the economic impact through true cost accounting (TCA).
3. How do you see livestock production status in your country?
Historically, the Netherlands has been a country with a large livestock sector given its area. Dutch agriculture, in general, and livestock production, in particular, expanded and intensified considerably because of agricultural policies that focused mainly on food security and affordability and fully utilized our favourable geographical, historical, and cultural circumstances. After the founding of the European Economic Community in 1957, this was further enhanced by the Common Agricultural Policy and the large internal European market.
This resulted in the innovative, highly developed, highly productive sector we have today. It provides high quality, nutritional animal products to a substantial amount of people in the Netherlands and across the world, through our substantial export of dairy, meat, and egg products.However, the Dutch livestock sector’s success has also come with adverse effects with it running into or crossing environmental, social, and economic limits.
Environmental challenges include eutrophication due to the leaching of excess phosphate in applied manure and biodiversity issues in nature areas due to excess nitrogen deposition from nitrogen in applied manure. Social challenges include animal welfare issues due to too high productivity levels and during animal transport, odour nuisance from livestock farms, and an increasing disconnect between the livestock sector and society. Economic challenges include farmers being unable to recover costs for extra sustainability measures from the market. It is clear that the Dutch livestock sector cannot continue as it is today. It has to change to become more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. Currently, the Dutch livestock sector is in a complex transition to becoming more sustainable.
4. What are the biggest issues and challenges for livestock production in your country?
5. Why it is important to have sustainable livestock production in your country?
The livestock sector has been an important sector in the Netherlands for a long time. It provides high-quality animal products to a substantial amount of people. Livestock production generates jobs and income for many people, not only in farming, but also in the supply of farm inputs, processing of farm outputs, advice and extension, and research and development.
The livestock sector is also an important player in the spatial planning of rural areas. In many parts of the Netherlands, such as the peat regions, only grassland with ruminant farming is practically possible, arable farming is not possible. However, the current Dutch livestock sector is also running into or crossing environmental, social, and economic limits. Sustainable livestock production is essential in the Netherlands to preserve the social and economic contributions to Dutch and global society, while at the same time mitigating the negative environmental, social, and economic impacts the current sector has.
