VERA is an international organisation for testing and verifying environmental technologies within the agricultural sector. VERA is an abbreviation for verification of environmental technologies for agricultural production and was initiated by the national Danish, German and Dutch environmental and agricultural authorities in 2008. At the end of 2022, VERA was supposed to integrate with EU-ETV. However, following an internal assessment, the European Commission has decided to discontinue its work on the ETV programme. This means that the programme will no longer be run nor supported by the European Commission as of November 2022.
VERA has developed several protocols to measure odour impact on livestock activities. Just a year ago, Lars Broer from LUFA North-West reported during the last VDI conference in odour management the results of Odour emission measurements on freely ventilated pig houses that were carried out following the VERA protocol (VDI Reports No. 2383, 2021). Now, this organisation will cease its activities.
The International acceptance of a VERA Verification Statement is founded on the VERA test protocols. The protocols are developed by international experts and give a thorough description of regulations and recommendations for implementing tests and reporting the results. In the past, when technology was tested according to the relevant test protocol, a VERA Verification Statement was obtained based on its environmental efficiency and operational stability. The test protocols provided reliable and comparable information about the performance of new technologies to farmers, authorities and other stakeholders.
Regarding the running applications and verification statements, the VERA Board is working on finding a solution. All stakeholders have been informed through e-mail. The VERA website will remain available until the end of 2023.
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