Regulations deserve your special attention. Notifiable under the Manure Decree?

You need an agricultural number if you want to add or remove manure, or if you want to enter into a management agreement with the Flemish Land Agency, for example for the maintenance of hedges and hedgerows around your farm buildings.

Farmer versus horticulturist

The declaration requirement depends, among other things, on the number of hectares of farmland you have in use, the number of hectares of permanently covered farmland, the number of hectares of growing medium, the amount of phosphate produced from livestock manure and the amount of phosphorus stored from livestock manure.

For horticulturists or plant breeders, the number of hectares of agricultural land, the number of hectares of permanently covered agricultural land and the number of hectares of growing medium will rather be decisive. Declaration requirements apply from two acres of agricultural land, or at least 50 acres of growing medium, or at least 50 acres of permanently covered agricultural land in use.

How is the area of growth medium calculated?

For this calculation, you take the entire area of the premises in which cultivation is on growing medium. When growing in multiple layers you add this extra surface area. Only the central aisle can be deducted. As a horticulturist, you declare how much feed water and spray power you have produced in the past year. In addition, you must also provide a certain storage capacity for spray power, since no spray power may be fed to agricultural land in the period from September 1 to February 15.

Less farmland and still require declaration

A person who, as a plant breeder, falls below the limit of the number of hectares of agricultural land but owns a number of horses or sheep, may still be subject to declaration, due to the production or storage of phosphate from animal manure exceeding the limit of 300 kilograms. You calculate this according to the established excretion figures for these animal species. This means that you are not required to declare up to and including fourteen horses (between 200 and 600 kilograms) or 72 sheep older than one year. If you fall above the 300 kilogram phosphorus limit, you also need the required NERs for this animal species. NER stands for "nutrient emission rights," and these determine how many animals you can keep on your farm.

Manure bank declaration deadline

The current manure bank declaration must be filed by March 15 of the year following the production year. On top of the declaration, you must also submit a collection application to the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries. This is an overview of all the plots you have in use. The deadline for this declaration is April 30.

Kunstmestregister

Since last year, as a declarant farmer or horticulturist, you are required to register your purchase and use of fertilizer. In 2021, that may become a digital fertilizer register. The decree governing digital fertilizer registration in 2021 through the Mestbankloket was adopted by the Flemish Government in October 2020, but has not yet been finally approved and published in the Belgian Official Gazette. In other words, you have to keep track of your fertilizer use on paper, but you are not required at today to enter your fertilizer through the Mestbankloket.

The fertilizer register for a notifiable farmer consists of a trade register and a use register. In the trade register you register all the fertilizer you receive, transfer to third parties or use on land outside Flanders. In the usage register you record the use of fertilizer on your parcels in Flanders. Here you have to give the data of the fertilizer, the date of use of the fertilizer and the identification of the plot.

As a horticulturist with crops on growing medium, you are exempt from the use register, but not the marketing register. For permanently canopied agricultural land, however, both registers must be completed.

No later than the seventh day after the registerable facts should be completed. We can therefore conclude that several things must be declared via the manure bank declaration. So check in time whether you are liable to declare or not.

Permit requirement for other fertilizers

Since Oct. 1, 2019, the notification and permit requirement of fertilizers and organic soil improvers has been expanded. Before Oct. 1, 2019, this was limited to animal manure. From October 1, 2019, the storage of soil improvers and other fertilizers must also be included in your environmental permit.

The following products are subject to licensing as of Oct. 1, 2019:

- fertilizer or soil conditioners, which are not considered animal manure or fertilizer.

- Products appearing on the list in Annex 2.2 of the Vlarema (materials authorized for use as fertilizers soil improvers). As well as products that do not appear on this list, but have a raw material declaration for use as fertilizer or
soil improvement agent.

These substances must always meet Vlarema standards for fertilizers or soil conditioners.

It is therefore important to check whether your storage meets these requirements. When planning a new storage facility, ideally a review of whether the planned storage meets all the requirements is done as early as the design stage.

Are you unsure whether or not you are required to file a tax return? Contact our DLV advisors.