No giant factory farms have been ‘initiated’ abroad using Dutch development aid money, but cash has gone to supporting ‘large-scale’ intensive farms in modernising and training staff, junior economic affairs minister Henk Bleker told MPs on Wednesday.

In addition, the export of Dutch farming expertise, which is funded by aid money, is a central part of government policy, Bleker said in his briefing.
Bleker was responding to a report by animal rights organisation Wakker Dier which said companies had received hundreds of thousands of euros to set up factory farms abroad.
Pigs
The report states one company in Russia, part-owned by Dutch animal feed giant Nutreco, won a €750,000 grant to expand production at the plant from 250,000 to 500,000 pigs a year.
The grants came from a government fund named the Private Sector Investeeringsprogramma which is supposed to help small and medium-sized firms invest in developing countries with the aim of creating jobs, ensuring sustainable development and helping the environment, the organisation said.
Wakker Dier also uncovered another €700,000 subsidy which helped one of the Netherlands’ biggest pig farmers to build a giant pig farm in Bosnia. The grant was given even though the owner has convictions for feeding his animals contaminated pig feed.
This is the only project mentioned by Wakker Dier that was funded by aid money, Bleker said. However, the project had been fully vetted and did meet development aid criteria, the minister told MPs.
In total, €38.7m has been spent by the Dutch government on helping factory farms abroad between 1990 and 2008, the minister said.