Dutch livestock farmers are buying more land to get rid of surplus manure, causing prices to skyrocket, figures from the Dutch real estate agents’ association have shown.

The Netherlands’ exemption from EU limits on manure is due to end in 2026, meaning farmers will be allowed to spread far less animal waste on their own fields.

The Dutch intensive farming sector is struggling to deal with reductions in the amount of manure farmers are allowed to spread on their fields, because of the risk of nitrates leaching into the waterways and the high concentration of nitrogen.

Farmers are now being forced to pay high fees to have the manure disposed of in other ways.

Others are buying more fields. The cost of a hectare of land is currently an average €85,000, 25% up on four years ago, the figures show.

Policy makers were hoping the effect of the new manure rules would be a reduction in the number of livestock. At the end of last year, the total number of pigs and cattle in the Netherlands was slightly down compared to 2023, according to figures from national statistics agency CBS, but the manure problem kept growing.

At the same time, the trend in the Dutch livestock industry is to have fewer farms with more animals, the CBS found.

Potential buyers now have to register to buy a piece of land, agricultural real estate agent Jos Ebbers said. “There are often several candidates and that is a relatively new phenomenon,” he told broadcaster NOS.

Most of the buyers are rich farmers with big farms.” Young farmers who are just starting out don’t have the money or won’t get a mortgage,” Ebbers said.

People buying up land for other purposes, such as restoring biodiversity, have also been hit by the higher land prices. Fike van der Burght of cooperative Land van Ons, said it is becoming harder to purchase land.

“We have to register to buy more often. That means we are bidding blind. We don’t know what the asking price is and who the competition is. That makes it difficult,” she said. The cooperative has now been overbid eight times. “We have been buying land for five years now but we have never seen anything like these prices,” she said.