Tijdschrift voor Agrarisch Recht - Volume 85, Issue 7/8, 2025

This article discusses the Nature Restoration Act (NRA) and its consequences for the Netherlands. This EU regulation sets restoration targets and deadlines for Member States, but does not impose direct obligations on individuals or companies. The NRA requires Member States to establish a national restoration plan including measures to restore designated ecosystems. The main obligation is to improve biodiversity. For agricultural ecosystems these measures will focus on reducing pesticide use and creating diverse landscape features. So-called deterioration prohibitions apply to terrestrial, coastal, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Although these are best-effort obligations, they are not meaningless. Member States must take effective measures to prevent further deterioration of these ecosystems. If the habitats are not in good condition, plans or projects of overriding public interest for which no less damaging alternative solutions are available may only be permitted after a case by case assessment. For other activities (i.e. not plans or projects of overriding public interest), some form of assessment will also be required, but a permit system is not required under the Nature Restoration Regulation. In view of the EU prevention and precautionary principles, which also underpin the Nature Restoration Regulation, it is likely that a prior risk assessment will be required. This risk assessment could, however, be embedded in a programme with a programmatic approach so that the Netherlands does not become gridlocked any further.

The civil judgment HR 21 March 2025, ECLI:NL:HR:2025:437 in which there was talk of entering into a VOF at a later age gives cause to elaborate on some tax aspects of the case. In particular, the tax consequences of (prior) leasing and entering into the (private) cooperation agreement, taking over by will or pursuant to the cooperation agreement are further explained for the levying of income tax and transfer tax. The article concludes with a conclusion and some points of interest for practice.

Report of the annual meeting of the Association for Agricultural Law in 2025 is “Farmers in 2025: change, move or quit?”. Due to various developments, both social and legal, the average farmer today will ask himself the question whether his business can be continued in the future in the same way and/or at the same location. If this question must be answered in the negative, a farmer basically has three options: change, relocate or quit. The theme is approached from different angles such as administrative law, tenancy law, civil law and tax law. The four preliminary opinions have been published in TvAR 2025/5.