Denmark’s parliament is expected to adopt the revised fertilizer law, L 5, on Thursday morning, activating targeted nitrogen regulation of individual farm fields.
According to Dagbladet Information, a majority in Folketinget plans to pass the updated gødskningslov, listed as L 5. The law defines how much nitrogen fertilizer may be used on each individual field.
The vote follows a week of farmer protests. Information reports that around 4,500 farmers attended a crisis meeting in Odense on Monday, and that farmers drove tractors and took buses to Christiansborg on Tuesday. Landbrug & Fødevarer chairman Søren Søndergaard told the Odense meeting that the consequences of the current political course are catastrophic.
In its own statement, Landbrug & Fødevarer said the government is directly threatening Danish food production. The group Bæredygtigt Landbrug wrote on Facebook that the law would force half of Danish farmers out of the profession.
The bill implements a model set out in the green tripartite agreements of 2024. Requirements are based on what local coastal waters and groundwater can tolerate. Under the new model, the calculation rests on how much nitrogen actually leaches from a field, not on how much fertilizer is applied.
Why the measure is being activated now
The green tripartite agreement signed on June 24, 2024, contained a tightened environmental guarantee. It stated that targeted regulation would be introduced if voluntary land conversion did not deliver the agreed nitrogen reduction for 2027, as measured in mid-2026. A broad political agreement in November 2024 implemented that guarantee.
Figures from the government’s MARS platform, cited by Information, show 30 tons of nitrogen reduction realized through completed land set-aside and afforestation projects. A further 701 tons has been committed, and preliminary study approvals cover 4,901 tons. That totals 5,633 tons against a reduction target of 12,776 tons in 2027.
Information notes that most of those projects have not yet been carried out. The paper’s commentary by Jørgen Steen Nielsen argues that Landbrug & Fødevarer has shifted position on targeted regulation for more than 15 years, at times demanding it and later calling for it to be rolled back. The organization signed the 2024 tripartite agreement that contained the environmental guarantee now being triggered by the fertilizer law.
The dispute has a long political history. Information recalls that a 2015 agriculture package backed by the blue bloc, with Eva Kjer Hansen as minister, allowed farmers in environmentally robust areas to use more nitrogen. In 2021, Venstre opposed the government’s nitrogen maps before joining a broad agreement that October.
