Towards a Relaxed Groningen

The Regional Executive Board invited Strootman Landschapsarchitecten and Jan Willem Erisman (University of Leiden, Institute of Environmental Sciences) to carry out a study of the challenges facing the countryside. Our report ‘Towards a relaxed Groningen’ contains an analysis of the challenges (climate, water, nature, nitrogen and others) including maps and charts. In the report we outline a vision for the agrarian sector for each zone. This broad analysis is in line with the ambition of the Groningen regional authority to take the lead in the field of sustainable agriculture.

‘Towards a relaxed Groningen’ describes the conditions that Groningen must satisfy. These are (inter)national obligations that the Netherlands must meet and that play a part in agreements with regional authorities in order to achieve the targets that have been set. The report indicates where those obligations play a part. In addition, the report includes charts on the risks that are envisaged as the result of climate change, subsidence and freshwater supply.

The challenges and risks present multi-layered challenges for agriculture in various areas in the field of nitrogen, climate and water, biodiversity and landscape and soil quality. On the basis of these, a first step has been taken towards a vision of a Relaxed Groningen in which all of the challenges can be faced, the most risks can be eliminated, and there is a prospect of a reasonable income for farmers. Part of this is a vision of how this could be achieved by changes in the agricultural economy and the deployment of (juridical) instruments, followed by what is needed in a successive stage to go further into the issues involved and to be able to implement a regionally targeted approach.

The study is one of the recommendations that will be used in drawing up the regional policy, such as the Environmental Vision and the regional plan within the framework of the Netherlands Plan Development Group NPG. It can be found on the site of the Groningen regional administration.