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Friedrichsdorf / Wiesbaden (dpa / lhe) - After protests by farmers against stricter fertilizer rules, the protected areas affected will be significantly smaller than expected.
"According to the current status, the redesignation will reduce the areas polluted with nitrates from around 22 percent to around 12 percent of the agricultural area in Hesse," said a spokesman for the Environment Ministry in Wiesbaden.
The farmers still remain skeptical.
Since August 2019 there are so-called "endangered areas" in Hesse.
These protection zones are intended to prevent too much nitrogen from getting into the groundwater - this can happen through fertilizers such as manure, among other things.
An excess of nitrate in the water is considered to be harmful to health.
Due to a new nationwide fertilizer ordinance, stricter restrictions apply there.
Among other things, nitrogen fertilization should be a flat rate of 20 percent below the plant requirement.
According to the farmers, this means less yield, a poorer crop quality and storage problems for manure.
Parts of northern Hesse, large parts of the Rhine-Main area and southern Hesse were affected.
However, in the farmers' opinion, the designated areas were too large and the underlying measurements too imprecise.
Therefore, farmers ran against the regulation by storm - among other things with kilometers of tractor demos.
According to the Ministry of the Environment, the fact that the protection zones are now getting smaller is due to new rules for designating these areas that have been drawn up by the federal and state governments.
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The Fertilizer Ordinance should now become binding in Hessen by the end of the year.
"Then there will also be a map of the areas that can be viewed by the public," said the ministry spokesman.
"There is a reduction of 40 percent, which is to be welcomed," explains Thomas Kunz, Vice President of the Hessian Farmers' Association.
In other federal states such as Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg, the reduction is much greater.
"That amazes us."
The farmers criticize the condition of the water measuring points, which are used to determine the «endangered area».
"60 to 70 percent have significant deficiencies."
According to the farmers, the new division of the protection zones will lead to a regional shift: The Fulda region will be completely eliminated, Wetterau and Main-Kinzig-Kreis will be smaller, and in Waldeck-Frankenberg there will be an expansion of the protection areas.
Resistance there could be great: up to 100 farmers in northern Hesse wanted to sue.