Sixteen people are taking the Dutch state to court because of the smell generated by giant factory farms close to their homes, claiming the government is failing to protect them and therefore is in breach of the European treaty on human rights, the AD reported on Wednesday.

Most of the claimants live in Brabant and Limburg, both of which have a high concentration of giant livestock farms. In 2017 Noord-Brabant topped the list with 211, making the province home to a quarter of all mega farms in the country. Mega farm sheds typically hold at least 7,500 pigs, 120,000 chickens or 250 dairy cows.

The smell caused by the large number of animals – huge concentrations of ammonia resulting from the combination of manure and urine – both blights daily life and damages health, the claimants say.

A smaller number of animals and better ways of preventing the smell from entering the environment should make things better, lawyer for the group Nout Verbeek said.

‘It’s nor realistic to ask farmers to foot the bill. They are acting within the law. But the state has been negligent in protecting local people. They should never have given licences for more giant sheds in the first place,’ Verbeek told the paper.

Verbeek thinks the Urgenda case, in which citizens successfully forced the state to limit CO2 emissions on the same grounds – a duty to protect citizens – could be a precedent.

Difficult to measure

In a reaction pork producers organisation POV chairwoman Linda Janssen told the paper she is sorry the issue will come to court case. ‘We as pig farmers are doing all we can. Farmers don’t like to cause a nuisance. Smell is a tricky issue, it is difficult to measure.’

The ministry of agriculture admitted last year that the nuisance caused by the smell was excessive in some places and that new measures would be taken.

No date has yet been set for the court case.