Dutch Farms Emit Nearly Three Times the EU Average of Ammonia per Hectare

A pollutant that comes almost entirely from farming

Ammonia is released when nitrogen in manure and fertiliser volatilises. Agriculture accounts for the overwhelming majority of it in the European Union, which makes this one of the few emissions series that is effectively a measure of one sector.

It matters because ammonia in the air forms fine particulates, which are the air pollutant most closely linked to mortality, and because deposited nitrogen damages sensitive habitats.

Measured per hectare of agricultural land, EU agriculture emitted 19.2 kg in 2023.

Intensity, not volume

Malta records 115.6 kg per hectare, six times the EU figure. Cyprus records 56.1 kg and the Netherlands 55.9 kg. Belgium follows at 43.2 kg.

The common factor is a large livestock population on a small agricultural area. Malta has very little farmland and a concentrated livestock sector; the Netherlands has the Union's most intensive agriculture, producing 7.3% of EU agricultural output on about a twelfth of France's land.

Expressing emissions per hectare is what makes that visible. The same indicator in tonnes ranks the countries with the most farmland first: France emits 547,220 tonnes, Spain 425,930 and Germany 422,610. Per hectare all three are unremarkable — France at 19.1 kg sits just below the EU figure and Spain at 17.1 kg below that.

Neither presentation is more correct. They answer different questions: absolute totals describe a country's contribution to the European burden, and per-hectare figures describe how hard each hectare is being worked.

The Dutch problem in one number

The Netherlands at 55.9 kg per hectare is the case with the most direct policy consequence. Dutch nitrogen deposition has been the subject of court rulings requiring reductions in livestock numbers, and this indicator is a reasonable proxy for what those rulings are about.

It also sits with what this site records about the Netherlands elsewhere — the Union's highest circular material use rate, at 32.7%, on top of that agricultural output. Intensity produces both, and the same efficiency that generates the output generates the emissions.

On this indicator, though, the Netherlands is third and not first. Malta at 115.6 kg and Cyprus at 56.1 kg are higher, and both are islands with very little farmland: Malta emits 1,181 tonnes in total against the Dutch 100,705. A per-hectare ranking puts a small livestock sector on a tiny area above a large one on a large area, which is worth knowing before reading the top of this table as a ranking of agricultural pressure.

The low end

Latvia records 6.3 kg per hectare, Estonia 8.9 kg, Bulgaria 9.7 kg and Lithuania 10.1 kg.

The Baltic states have extensive agriculture on large land areas with comparatively small livestock populations, which is the mirror image of the Dutch position; Bulgaria sits among them on the same measure. Their organic shares are also among the Union's highest — Estonia at 22.4% and Latvia at 14.8% in 2020 — and the two facts describe the same farming system from different angles.

What the indicator does not settle

A low figure per hectare can mean careful management or simply extensive farming on a lot of land. This series does not distinguish them, and the Baltic figures are consistent with both.

Nor does it capture where the ammonia ends up. Deposition depends on wind, terrain and the location of sensitive habitats, so the environmental damage from a kilogram emitted is not the same everywhere.