Ammonia mitigation innovations in The Netherlands

Date published: 6 May 2025

The College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) recently led a Farm Innovation Visit (FIV) to The Netherlands.

The purpose was to learn about innovations being implemented on farms to reduce ammonia emissions and to innovatively mitigate those produced. An action within the recently published Environmental Improvement Plan is to develop an Ammonia Strategy to deliver reductions in ammonia emissions from agriculture.

This FIV represented an ideal opportunity to learn about cutting edge research on ammonia reduction, the adoption of these technologies on farm in the Netherlands and facilitate knowledge transfer on the topic to 20 Northern Ireland farmers.

The first day included a visit to Wageningen Dairy Research Centre at Leeuwarden looking at continuing research being carried out on ammonia emissions, the measurement of ammonia emissions and the direction of future research.

Later that day the group visited Marijin Van Art, a farmer within the Dutch ‘Network of Practical Farms’ who is monitoring the impact of emissions, based on changes in farm management. The Network of Practical Farms is part of the programmatic approach of the the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality’s Climate Policy.

Frank Verhoeven, Director of Boerenverstand, an independent consultancy firm for regenerative farming, addressed the group on the evening of the first day. He discussed the role of data and how by using a Nutrient Cycling Assessment tool called the Kringloopwizzer they can measure sustainability across a wide range of metrics in assessing farm emissions.

On the second day the group got to see around the integral parts of the two Lely factories at Lely Headquarters Maassluis.  Here discussions were facilitated around how technology has developed over the years and where the future of technology and innovation lies in meeting sustainability targets.

The final visit was hosted by Farm Nescio, who were the first farm to have a milking robot installed in 1992 and have further retrofitted technology to advance their sustainable enterprise. This was an ideal farm to look at how retrofitting innovative technology has improved production efficiency and met the Dutch legislative targets for emissions.

For further information on reducing the ammonia emissions from your enterprise speak to your local CAFRE Adviser. Topics such as this will be delivered as part of the new Business Sustainability Groups Scheme which is currently open for applications through the CAFRE website.