Be Wary Of Dutch Moves! It Might Revive The Abandoned Cattle Dung Route To India

The ship that brought cow dung would be washed and loaded with drinking water. It would next dock in Saudi Arabia, offload the water and then reload it with fuel and carried all the way to Holland

The Netherlands has run into a messy crisis. And it revolves around a heap of dung that the Dutch farmers literally have gone under.

“Our backs are against the wall,” an agitated sheep farmer, Bart Kemp, had told the Financial Times in August 2022. But with the European Union (EU) deadline to cut down the livestock population by a third in the Netherlands by 2026, so as to bring down emissions from the farming sector by half by 2030, farmers are getting restive.

Dutch farmers are allowed to spread 230 to 250 kg of nitrogen per hectare on their crop fields. This is because the EU allows them to spread more manure on their farms than anywhere else in the 27-member block. But as a recent report says, “nitrogen levels having hit unacceptable levels, the Netherlands is seeing deterioration in water quality linked to manure output, prompting Brussels for a clampdown.”

As the country looks for opportunities to get rid of its mountains of dung heap, to ensure farmers are not left with a Hobson choice of cutting down the livestock population by 33 per cent, it will have to aggressively look (or perhaps is already doing it) to export the surplus dung outside the EU member countries.

And that is where India and other developing countries have to be extra watchful.

Not that India perhaps being the world’s biggest market for dung manure but for the simple reason that earlier the Netherlands had unsuccessfully tried to export livestock manure to India, a move that was eventually shelved after an unprecedented uproar across the country.

That was in 1995-96. Soon after the World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence on January 1, 1995, it was around that time when I had released my first book ‘Gatt and India: The Politics of Agriculture’ (Konark Publishers, New Delhi).

At the time of releasing the book, I disclosed how Holland was trying to export cow dung to India taking advantage of the opening up of the market. Next morning, as expected the news was flashed in the print media, and then began an angry public response. What angered people then was how a country with the largest population of cattle in the world could even think of allowing import of cow dung.

In the next few days, import of cow dung from Holland had occupied the media space. Beautiful cartoons had adorned the media.

I remember a particular cartoon that depicted a conversation between two cows. One cow said: “what is the problem with my dung that India has to import from Holland?”

Meanwhile, with the newspapers being flagged by irate members of the Opposition parties every now and then, proceedings in the Parliament were continuously disrupted. Outside, some NGOs had carried heaps of cow dung on bullock carts to be dumped in front of the Krishi Bhawan in New Delhi.

The news was first denied in Parliament with the then Commerce Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying that the government had no such information. Obviously, since the deal was between a private Dutch company and an Indian private company based in Chennai, the government was not in the loop.

My investigations showed that the Dutch had planned to export five million tonnes of cow dung in the first year, to be gradually doubled in the next five years. The cow dung trade was to be subsidised initially by EU, which had earlier incurred several million dollars on a study in India justifying the need for cow dung imports. The export to India was to be subsidised by the World Bank.

Since contamination of ground water had become a politically hot issue in the Netherlands, with a few politicians suffering rejection at the hand of voters in elections, the plan to export cow dung was worked out.

Accordingly, the manure (which is more in semi-liquid form unlike the manure in India) with excessive amounts of antibiotics, had percolated into the ground water. The plan was to take the manure by pipes to a port where biogas would be first generated, to be sold to private power companies for distribution, and the slurry put in cargo ship to be transported to India. The ship would dock in the Kutch region, where the slurry would be laid out in the sun. The Indian company would sprinkle some minerals to improve the nutrient composition, cut it into small pallets and sell the imported manure in the market.

The ship that brought cow dung from Holland, as per the documents in my possession, would be washed and after the cleaning operations were complete, would be loaded with drinking water. The ship on its return journey would dock in Saudi Arabia, offload the drinking water, and then re-load it with fuel that would be carried all the way back to Holland.

I don’t think even the silk route could have been as economically viable as the cow dung export was originally planned to. In just one stroke, it addressed the economic concerns of three countries across the globe – with animal manure, drinking water and oil supplies. Hats off to those who conceived the cow dung trade route.

Nevertheless, cow dung import had turned out to be a hot issue within the country. With more facts coming out, the then Commerce Minister finally announced in Parliament that animal manure would be brought under the negative list, which meant that it cannot be imported without government’s approval. But it doesn’t end here.

I recall when cow dung import issue was at its peak, a top functionary of the Dutch private company had visited me, and besides telling me how the move to stop manure import from Holland would be a loss for Indian farmers, had warned me, saying something like this: “Don’t worry. You can’t stop it for long. Once the WTO Agreement in agriculture becomes effective, we’ll be back.”

Given that Dutch farms emit 41 per cent of country’s emissions, the Netherlands has already set aside 24.3 billion Euros to bring down agricultural emissions, and that includes money for compensation to farmers who quit farming. While the Dutch Prime Minister says that even though he acknowledges farmers’ concerns, the country is left with little choice given that the EU plans to achieve the difficult target of net zero emission by 2050.

Drastic times call for drastic measures. And I wouldn’t be surprised therefore if an effort is made to renew the once abandoned cattle dung route to India.

(The author is a noted food policy analyst and an expert on issues related to the agriculture sector. He writes on food, agriculture and hunger)