MPs have backed agriculture minister Femke Wiersma’s plans to cut livestock numbers in order to keep pollution from manure spreading within EU limits.

Farmers will have to reduce the number of animals they keep when they sell their business by 30% for dairy cows, 22% for pigs and 13% for poultry. The rule does not apply to farms that are passed on through the family.

Wiersma said the reform was needed to meet EU standards after 2026, when the Netherlands loses its exemption from EU restrictions on manure.

But she faced stiff resistance from within her own BBB party, particularly the poultry sector, which ran a campaign calling for chicken and turkey farmers to be exempted from the buyout plan.

The EU rules are designed to protect ground water from being polluted from manure running off fields, 84% of which comes from cattle farming. Most chicken manure is sent to a biomass plant in Moerdijk.

The BBB agreed to back the plans after Wiersma compromised by reducing the percentages for pig and poultry farmers.

Party leader Caroline van der Plas warned that the EU could impose more severe restrictions if the Dutch government failed to come up with its own plans to cut pollution.

“The threat of Brussels imposing a generic cut and forcing cuts to the whole livestock herd is too great,” Van der Plas said. “I wouldn’t want to have that on my conscience.”