Farmers wrongly registered thousands of hectares of government land as private agricultural land. As a result, they may have wrongly received agricultural subsidies, according to research by the investigative journalism platform Investico. It was already known that this happened, but the extent to which it occurred was not yet known.

Farmers must register their agricultural land with the Dutch Enterprise Agency (RVO). The registered volume determines how much subsidy farmers can apply for and how much fertilizer they can spread. But this service does not standardly check whether the land really belongs to the farmer or whether the farmer is allowed to use it.

Journalists examined recordings in 36 municipalities, counties and water boards. Of the 749 agricultural lands registered by farmers, 192 of them were incorrect. This included roadsides, grasslands, ice skating rinks and in one case even a nature reserve. According to the researchers, this equates to about 24,000 hectares of illegally declared government land in the entire Netherlands, an area the size of Amsterdam.

Investico doubts that all the farmers who made these registrations are also fraudsters. For example, some farmers say they have already received verbal permission from officials or have been using a particular place for decades and don’t know any better.

The RVO said in its response that it always investigates reports of illegal use, but complete control is “not possible”. Earlier this month, the research platform wrote that the Ministry of Agriculture had hidden from Brussels for years that fraud in agricultural plots was widespread in the Netherlands.

The investigative journalists based their findings on internal emails obtained through the Open Government Act. Minister Adema said in response that these were “strong allegations” and that they were being investigated.