Free Trade in Agricultural Products and the Environment

This chapter will address the impact of a liberalized trade in agricultural products on the Dutch environment and describe the characteristics of the Dutch physical environment, biodiversity, and landscapes. The main consequences of free global trade for Dutch farming are discussed, such as an increase in diary farming, few changes in arable farming, and a decline in intensive livestock farming. Together with a significant intensifications and scale enlargement of dairy production, this will lead to a moderately positive change in the physical environment, reduced biodiversity, and changed landscapes. It is hard to assess casual relations between free trade, agricultural practices, and government policy, several effects on the Dutch environment, both positive and negative, can be identified. In order to reduce negative effects, government policies should focus on agri-environmental management, the creation of landscape features, diversification of agriculture, and spatial planning. The chapter concludes the government still has possibilities to conduct a domestic environmental policy under a free-trade regime.