Stagower wants to fight barn fires with custom work

Compartment to prevent barn fires is useless or ineffective for some livestock farms. This is evident from preliminary results from Wageningen University and research. So Agriculture Secretary Henk Staguer (ChristenUnie) wants to see if customization is possible in legislation to fight barn fires, such as fire detection and extinguishing systems.

The minister wrote this in response to parliamentary questions from the Animals Party about the lack of measures to protect animals from barn fires.

Wageningen University and Research has been commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality to conduct research in different barn systems and sectors into the impact of livestock farming on the mandatory zoning of the technical area with at least 60 minutes of fireproofing. In March last year, the Dutch Safety Board advised limiting barn fires.

Stagouwer predicts that the cabin is not feasible for all stables. Examples include cattle sheds where the technology is not limited to a separate area, but runs through the entire shed, or where the technical area is placed outside under a roof.

By looking into the allocation, the Secretary of Agriculture “never wants to diminish the purpose and effectiveness of the measure,” but “at the same time also prevents us from imposing measures without the desired result,” he said.

In order to tackle barn fires as closely as possible, Stagower also considers regulations for inspections, such as the mandatory annual visual inspection of an educational nature and the mandatory three- or five-year inspection of electric and solar installation.

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