Reporters at Follow the Money (FTM), which describes itself as “a platform for radically independent investigative journalism”, accuse Dutch farmers of requesting subsidies for land they do not own.
The Dutch Government is said to have registered “hundreds” of irregularities.
Because of this, FTM alleges, farmers in the Netherlands have been receiving millions of euros in European Union agricultural subsidies for land they do not actually operate or own.
Staatsbosbeheer, the Dutch Government organisation for forestry and the management of nature reserves and the largest landowner in the country, discovered that farmers had allegedly added thousands of hectares of the organisation’s land to their own farms in 2017.
Since 2017, Dutch authorities have detected 231 companies wrongly claiming land for subsidies. Other landowners, such as national water-facilities operator Rijkswaterstaat and nature-conservation organisation Natuurmonumenten, also confirmed experiencing similar practices.
The problem has reportedly become extensive because it is easy to check online whether land has been claimed for subsidies by the rightful owners. If unclaimed, wrongdoers can falsely make the claims with little risk of being found out.
The European Court of Auditors warned about leakage from EU agricultural subsidies in 2022, with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) identifying instances in France and Slovakia. In 2018, investigative journalist Ján Kuciak was murdered because of his research into the scandal, according to the justice ministry in Slovakia.
The allocation of agricultural subsidies by the Dutch Government has also come in for criticism. The system’s complexity makes it challenging to control from a fraud perspective; the government agency responsible does not conduct standard checks to determine the rightful recipients of subsidies for the land.
An owner listed with the land registry may not always be the actual beneficiary. Many farmers lease agricultural land and these leases are not centrally registered. Additionally, subsidies can also be claimed based on “oral-lease agreements” or so-called “usage permissions”.
In response to Follow the Money‘s findings, the Ministry of Agriculture has called on landowners to officially claim their properties to prevent unauthorised individuals from doing so and thus exploiting agricultural subsidies. The ministry also plans to discuss ways to prevent the misuse of agricultural subsidies within the sector.
Agricultural subsidies constitute the largest expense in the EU budget, with substantial amounts distributed to European farmers including €904 million to those in the Netherlands in 2021.
The European Commission said it will forward the information provided by Follow the Money to OLAF and request explanations from the Netherlands regarding any illegitimate claims.
To be officially eligible for European agricultural subsidies, a Member State must prove that at least 98 per cent of the funds are allocated correctly.
