Samenvatting

Dairy cooperatives have been around in the Netherlands for more than 130 years (Bijman, 2018). A growing European economy and growing demand for dairy products offered opportunities for further growth (Bijman, 2018). As the technological development in dairy processing evolved, cooperatives continued to merge to be able to process large quantities of milk as efficiently as possible (Bijman, 2018). In 2015 the five remaining Dutch dairy cooperatives had a joint market share of 86% (Bijman, 2018). The dairy sector in the past years has been subject to drastic changes. The abolishment of the milk quotas, stricter regulations with regards to nitrogen and phosphate, a deteriorating relationshipbetween farmers and the cooperatives, and the farmer protests are all developments of the past years (DVHN, 2019; Van der Ploeg, 2020). Wageningen University conducted a study that explores the possible pathways for the Dutch dairy sector as 2030 approaches. This study modeled four scenarios, the Baseline scenario, the Encouraging Nature Inclusive Farm Management scenario, the Dedicated Free Market Scenario, and the Focus on Return on Investment and Social Demands scenario (Beldman, Reijs, Daatselaar & Doornewaard, 2020). This study shows the importance of collaboration between the different parties in the dairy sector in the Netherlands (Beldman, Reijs, Daatselaar & Doornewaard, 2020). Therefore, exploring the possible effects of these different scenarios can help dairy cooperatives understand the expectations the sector has of them and their role in the future. This resulted in the following main research question: “What opportunities lay ahead for dairy cooperatives in the Netherlands in different future scenarios?”. This main question was answered by assessing the effectsof each mentioned scenario.