Today’s big topic: Understanding the battle over the fertilizer law
With the fertilizer law, Denmark is setting stricter limits on how much manure or synthetic fertilizer a farmer may spread on their fields.
What’s happening?
The sector that was once Denmark’s largest industry is in revolt over a fertilizer law that will change the way it uses its land from top to bottom.
Farmers are frustrated. They sow their crops but have no idea what will happen in 2027, when the plants begin to sprout. Others cast doubt on the science behind tighter nitrogen requirements. Now they have mobilized across the country.
Under the green tripartite agreement, agriculture can look forward to a carrot: 40 billion kroner in taxpayer money to help finance a transition. But there is also a stick built into the deal. That is what they are running into now.
The aim of the fertilizer law is to bring life back to the fjords, streams and coastal waters, where algal slime and oxygen depletion are wreaking havoc and many fish species are disappearing.
The parties are negotiating the law on Tuesday, and on Thursday it will go to third reading and a vote.
Why it matters!
With the fertilizer law, Denmark is setting stricter limits on how much manure or synthetic fertilizer a farmer may spread on fields. That will significantly reduce nitrogen runoff from agriculture and improve the aquatic environment, which cannot tolerate that much nitrogen.
Denmark’s aquatic environment has suffered for a very long time, most recently evident in oxygen depletion across large parts of the inner waters. The public has begun to insist that politicians do something about it.
Denmark must also comply with the E.U.’s Water Framework Directive by 2027 at the latest, ensuring good ecological and chemical status in all water bodies. We will not make that deadline: Only 3 percent of waterways, no lakes and only a few coastal areas are in good condition. But with the fertilizer law, Denmark will at least get started in 2027.
It has always been part of the green tripartite agreement that in the summer of 2026, Denmark would take another look at agriculture’s nitrogen emissions. If a lot of land had been taken out of production, it could have meant a large drop. But so far, projects have been carried out that cut just 30 of the 12,776 tons that the aquatic environment needs us to remove (at a minimum).
In other news
– The Danish armed forces are making a major bet on A.I.
The Danish armed forces are officially entering a new era in military history, the age of data warfare. Their new AI center is being built out with its own staff, a project section, and a dedicated AI lab that will hatch and roll out digital tools directly to soldiers in the field. For that work, the center will have access to the Denmark-based supercomputer Gefion, one of the most powerful of its kind in the world.
Read the full article here.
– The young may drink hard, but boomer men are in a league of their own
According to themselves, every tenth Dane drinks too much. That is the finding of a new report from the Danish Cancer Society. It’s 18- to 29-year-olds and the 60-to-74 age group who drink too much. Young people’s drinking culture looms large in the public conversation, while people over 60 slip a bit under the radar. And among older people, it’s mostly the men who drinks heavily. According to the report Alcohol habits in Denmark 2025, young people’s drinking habits are tied to social pressure. The most surprising thing in the Danish Cancer Society report is that only 7 percent of Danes know what the Danish Health Authority recommends. The limit is a maximum of 10 drinks a week, and no more than 4 drinks in a single evening.
Read the full story here.
– Fraud-accused Danish vaccine researcher reaches settlement in U.S. court
The Danish researcher Poul Thorsen, who is currently being held in pretrial detention in the United States, where he is accused of misusing research funds, entered into a so-called plea agreement at a court hearing today. Although the researcher has consistently pleaded not guilty, the prosecutor, Nathan Kitchens, said ahead of the hearing that he expected a confession. Above all, the confession is expected to lead to a reduced sentence.
Talk of town: Just there, my soul almost got left behind in the basement of DR Byen
Syrian-American Bedouine performs at DR Studio 3
Politiken’s Alexander Vesterlund spent Tuesday evening at the concert with Syrian-American Bedouin in DR Byens Studio 3. In his review, he writes:
If the entire Bedouine concert had been as powerful as the opening number, ’On My Own’, I’m afraid my soul would have been left behind in the basement of DR Byen.
Right then, everything clicked – sun, moon, and stars. The green light in Studio 3, which only faintly illuminated the room, did, however, match her eye shadow.
Maybe it was also that moment when the day went from an utterly ordinary, hectic Tuesday to being hit by a dark, honey-warm alto voice with a distinctive, understated (and fingerpicked) kind of authority. And a bunch of stories to tell.
Slowly, I came back to myself, mostly because I was now in sync with the songs.
Songs I took home with me instead.
Bedouin embraces the sentimental, but I don’t find her songs sentimental at all. They have Joni Mitchell’s melodic elegance, Carole King’s warmth and directness, and the young Leonard Cohen’s restrained melancholy and storytelling style.
Read the full review of the concert here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.