Denmark's upcoming March 24 parliamentary election campaign has seen polluted drinking water rise to a prominent political issue, featuring in televised debates and prompting discussions on pesticide-free buffer zones and the impact of intensive pig farming. This focus intensified after a mid-January Ministry of the Environment report revealed a significant failure to establish groundwater protection zones over the past three decades. Despite identifying 630,000 hectares for protection from nitrates and pesticides in 1998, only 1.5% has been preserved, highlighting the ineffectiveness of relying on voluntary agreements between farmers and municipalities, according to Lise Lotte Toft, director of the Association of Waterworks in Denmark.