We warned the Dutch government – Green gas must not become a lifeline for industrial livestock farming

On September 7th, the Dutch government will debate the requirement of adding more green gas to the gas supply. This may sound sustainable, but it is not. More than a third of that green gas must come from manure. As a consequence, this climate measure threatens to become an investment in intensive livestock farming. On behalf of a coalition of sixteen nature, farmers’, and animal welfare organisations, we warn the government against wasting public funds on unsustainable food production.

Biogas is produced through manure fermentation. The Dutch government believes this is a solution for the transition to green gas. We agree that we should stop depending on fossil gases and we know that biogas can play a role in this. But large-scale manure fermentation is not the solution. If we start using biogas as a serious energy source, we will lock-in the industrial livestock industry. We’ll keep depending on manure as an energy source, whereas for years, climate scientists have been saying that livestock numbers must shrink if we want to reduce emissions.

Public money can only be spent once. Every euro spent on manure infrastructure is one that does not go to solar and wind, to insulation, to green gas from truly renewable sources such as sewege sludge – or to the farmers who want to make the swith to land-based agriculture.

Read the letter here, in Dutch.