They see me rollin', they hatin' (Photo by Jeroen Meuwsen/Orange Pictures/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
“For many farmers it’s the end of their business and they will fight until the last. Sometimes these farms go back generations, they were built by hand, and people feel farmers heart and soul. This is all being taken away.”
Jan Brok, vice chairman of the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) party, understands why Netherlands farmers have spent the past month blockading food distribution centres, roads and ministers’ driveways. They are horrified by a new environmental policy that will mean a likely 30% reduction in livestock.
The Netherlands is a country of four million cattle, 13 million pigs, 104 million chickens, and just over 17 million people. It is Europe’s biggest meat exporter with a total area of just over 41,000 square kilometres, and a fifth of this is water. It is one of the world’s most densely populated countries, with the EU’s highest density of livestock.
But there is a significant cost to this abundance: the local environmental impact. Such intensive agriculture, and livestock farming in particular, creates harmful pollution. Manure and urine mix to produce ammonia, and together with run-off from nitrogen-rich fertiliser on fields ends up in lakes and streams, where it can promote excessive algae that smothers other life. Manure here is not a vital fertiliser but a problem waste product.
For decades, this success in trade and agriculture has been accompanied by high emissions of harmful nitrogen compounds, including nitrogen oxides emitted by industry and transport. Levels were dropping, and in 2015, the Dutch introduced a ‘trading scheme’ known as the Programmatische Aanpak Stikstof (PAS) to try to reduce the pollution.
But a Council of State court ruling in 2019 — on a case brought by two local environmental organisations against various farms — ruled that this offsetting scheme was invalid. Permission could not be granted for polluting projects or farm expansion in exchange for promised nitrogen-related reductions in the future: the reductions needed to come first.
The government panicked: national shutdowns were put in place, building projects were put on hold and traffic speeds reduced to 100 kph in the daytime on major roads; it was also obvious that farming was a problem — something needed to be done about all ammonia, nitrogen oxide and nitrous oxide emissions.
Then, in January, the conservative-liberal-Christian coalition pledged to halve nitrogen production by 2030, with a €25 billion budget to back it up. That money was the loud part. The quiet part included the possibility of expropriation, of the government forcibly purchasing farmland. Plans drawn up by civil servants include slashing livestock numbers by 30%. More than €500 million is being brought forward for regional government to buy out farmers this year and next.
Leading the charge among the coalition partners are the Democrats 66 (D66) party. They insisted on “real action for the climate” in their last manifesto. Tjeerd de Groot, the D66 nature and farming spokesman, pointed out that the Netherlands is Europe’s biggest nitrogen emitter, followed by Belgium and Germany. He told a current affairs programme last week: “It is absolutely essential — but also painful — that the plans go through.”
In June, the government published two documents. One: a map showing the areas that need to reduce emissions by between 12% and 95%. The second was a statement that aimed to help farmers — which De Groot admits failed spectacularly. Farmers saw ruin, not a pair of documents. They looked at the percentage reduction figures next to their farms, and began interpreting how many cattle they would need to cull. It was an enormous blow. Many of them had made huge, expensive investments in new equipment to reduce the environmental impact of their herds.
Hence the massive uprising. A huge rally in the central village of Stroe was followed by wildcat protests; ministers were challenged at their homes; police vehicles were attacked; roads and food deliveries were blocked. Supermarkets lost “tens of millions” according to food retailers group CBL. In one incident, a police officer shot at a 16-year-old farmer’s son, apparently misreading his intent to leave a rally. Last weekend, farmers replaced road signs, declaring a free state of boerenlanden (farmer land) in some villages.
“The [farming] sector is dumbfounded,” says Brok. His party has seen a huge increase in the polls and been signing up 300 members a day. “It has been pushed into a corner by a [Mark] Rutte government that has lost public support in all kinds of ways. Everything that is happening is about frustration, legal battles, people digging in their heels, it’s anger.”
Wytse Sonnema, a spokesman for the farmers’ association the LTO says that their own grassroots proposals that would lead to a 40% reduction by 2030, had been completely ignored. “Famers in the Netherlands are deeply concerned and angry about nitrogen policy that was presented by the national government on June 10th”, he explains. He was angered by the map showing entire regions facing 70% reduction targets. “According to the government these should all add up to a country-level reduction of 50% in 2030, which is simply unfeasible, and will have disastrous effects on not just agriculture, but on the economic, social and cultural viability of rural Netherlands.”
While some see the farmers as denying a reality that has been approaching for the past 30 years, their protests have drawn on wider mistrust in politics. (The uprising comes after the previous government stepped down last year, after a childcare benefits scandal involving ethnic profiling by the tax office — they eventually returned to power and formed exactly the same coalition.) Across the country, people have been hanging Dutch flags upside down along roads and bridges in an expression of support for the farmers.
Jeroen van Maanen, an organic farmer with 130 cows, who helped organise the Stroe protest, said nitrogen has become more than a gas. It has overtaken every other agricultural problem. European law demands that farmers protect vulnerable natural areas, by improving ground water quality and soil quality, and through careful land management. “If you block all other solutions, there’s only one left: a reduction in farmed animals”, he says. “That’s their primary goal and they are using nitrogen as a reason to achieve it.
“Everyone in the world is born an omnivore, whether we like it or not. It’s a populist agenda… that’s purely about less livestock, fewer animals, more vegetable alternatives. I think it’s crazy. Plant-based food needs fertiliser, and where do you get it if you don’t have manure?”
One group of organic farmers has proposed its own 10-point plan for change, which has so far been ignored by government. There are also indications that some young farmers are open to downscaling — but as vulnerable freelance businesses, they need the cash and security to do it. Who is going to pay more, or take less profit along the supply chain, to make this happen? “I speak to many farmers who want to change: the question is how”, says Natasja Oerlemans, head of the food team at WWF Netherlands, stressing that they are not farmer bashing. “The how is not very clear in current government communication but I think there are multiple opportunities for farmers to transition.
“The fact that our food system in the Netherlands is broken is not new. The current situation is detrimental for biodiversity but also for farmers — many don’t have a successor, every day five farmers stop, and about half of their income is dependent on European income support subsidies.
“Our farmers still think we are feeding the world. But the whole process of intensification and scale enlargement has made farmers very low income, producing for a bulk market, exporting 70%, but with limited volume compared to Ukraine or the US. It’s not working for them, for the environment and for us as people, our air quality or water quality.”
Johan Remkes is the latest negotiator appointed by the government to diffuse the crisis. Remkes was an curious choice. He came to the position already an object of suspicion among farmers, because he chaired a commission on nitrogen that recommended drastic cuts. The anger and protests are likely to continue. Last week, a provincial government meeting was evacuated and 150 people sheltered in a cellar after a bomb threat. Police and politicians talk about a “hardening” of protest, threats and intimidation, while farmers talk about being both singled-out and ignored.
The world is beginning to take notice. Internationally, the farm protests have been cheered on by alternative Right-wing media, desperate to fit them into a larger story. On one side the localist farmers with their traditional occupations. On the other, the globalist ‘world elite’, pushing a green agenda developed by the World Economic forum in Davos.
Yet this is a deeply parochial issue. The wider resonances detected in some English-language reporting of the protests generally miss the point. Although legal rulings from cases brought by green activists have driven the agenda, a broad spectrum of political parties agrees change is needed in industry, transport and building to combat climate change. It’s not Klaus Schwab driving farmers to black roads — it’s a run-of-the-mill collection of Dutch politicians and activists. And it’s not just farmers who are getting edgy. Corporations are also starting to fume, or even move abroad, with the prospect of unclear future greening costs, and the pain of manoeuvring through the elephantine Dutch bureaucracy.
So a local issue — for now. A stone’s throw away in Belgium, Flanders is beginning to limit nitrogen emissions and ordering tens of farmers to stop their work. Like the air and water that flows over borders, environmental issues, and clumsy attempts to solve them, will come for us all.
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Subscribe“…a broad spectrum of political parties agrees change is needed in industry, transport and building to combat climate change.”
It may be a broad spectrum, but it is a very shallow one. A classic case of a Twitter Bubble Government pursuing a policy that is designed to reduce the living standards of ordinary folk. When the plebs notice what is being done to them they turn quite nasty.
PS: Just to clarify. I am invariably on the side of the plebs.
Hm. Collect the nitrogen for fertilizer?
Meanwhile, the cities and land are remarkably livable in Holland. Tap water is drinkable.
Stop farming and…Germany will have no eggs, no pork and no tomatoes. Really.
I suppose they can eat bugs…if they import them. Currently there are not enough bugs in the Netherlands or Germany. Yet I suppose one farm family can be saved by growing all the meal worms? One family surely has government connections, and can provide kickbacks to the right people?
Oh well, as long as Bill Gates, the Clooneys, Kylie Jenner, and everyone else using a private jet, can continue to get farm raised steaks and tomatoes, I guess I am fine with the New World Order/ Great Reset.
I believe Bill Gates has switched to lab-grown recycled tumour protein as an alternatiove to actual meat… 🙂
This is likely to be the future of meat production, but it will be more because that process eventually becomes cheaper and more efficient so that traditional meat is actually more expensive. The free market works. Learn to use it and not fight it environmentalists.
In most countries Green parties are rejected at the ballot box and don’t get to hold positions of authority, yet the Green lobby, via NGOs and foundation-funded academics, also seems to be behind tons of un-mandated legislation and regulation that voters have no say over and that they didn’t vote for, with cruddy solutions that turn out to be ill-thought out nonsense somewhere down the line.
“cruddy solutions that turn out to be ill-thought out nonsense somewhere down the line” that is a fairly accurate description of almost any human activity where it attempts to improve on nature.
Green parties and eco movements are big in democratic multi party countries that have specialised in the industrial torture, maiming and killing of animals.F.i. Denmark, Netherlands, Germany. Much less so two party dictatorships like the USA or UK.
“Greenwall”, I’m thinking.
Farmers are denying reality?
I think not. The government, under EU orders, is seriously suggesting tackling weather change by implementing Marxist policies of land confiscation, central planning and a strategy which may well result in a new Holidomor.
No. This is a free society, and the givernment has no authority for these bizarre plans they are implementing.
This problem is widespread among governments across the EU.
The people are simply reminding them that governments exist to serve people, not the other way around.
And yet, as mentioned in this article, this government was ousted, elections were held, and as a result nearly the exact same government was formed.
Torturing, maiming and killing billions of animals on a yearly basis for pleasure and profit, the human race gets what it deserves.
If you have any complaints, blame your parents. After WW1 and WW2, they knew the score. They put you here.
The sheep are bleating.
My scepticism about the seemingly balanced nature of this article was alerted when I got to the bit about “alternative Right-wing media”. That would be “conservative” would it?
I don’t suppose it has occurred to those setting the “targets” that it is as much in the interests of the farmers to farm sustainably to conserve the land and the waterways as it is in everyone else’s, and probably more so.
Why don’t politicians stop setting these silly “targets” and just let everyone get on with living their lives?
It’s not politicians setting targets. Those are being set by the far better funded NGO sector,by now endemic in western society. Largely made up of cranks,angry people and billionaires.
The Dutch ‘Government’ should recall what happened to the de Witt brothers on the 20th August, 1672.
If they have forgotten, the Rijksmusem holds an excellent contemporary painting of the ‘event’ by Jan de Baen.
those blasted Dutchies deserved everything they got, especially that Johan de Witt
A warning to environmentalists. When environmental directives clash with human needs, the latter will win ten times out of ten. The lions, tigers, and bears of the world don’t care that the food they eat might be a living creature or serve some greater environmental purpose, they just eat it because they are hungry. Only our relative abundance allows us to imagine we are better than they. Take away that abundance, and we will not be much different. Take that lesson to heart. The ONLY, and I mean ONLY way to “save the planet” from humanity (accepting the arguable premise that it even needs saving) is through innovation and technology that maintains production of things like food and energy. If environmental policies result in widespread economic hardship, it will lead to political changes that put other concerns back in charge, resulting in compromise that falls far short of what most ‘environmentalists’ believe is needed. If environmentalists wanted to be more productive, they’d all get out of politics and use their considerable intellects and resources towards finding actual solutions to these problems. People collectively are neither slaves to nature nor its master. They are, rather, a force of nature, and as any other, they can be harnessed, managed, and understood, but can never be fully controlled. Here’s an analogy for environmental types. Having government force changes like this is rather like trying to stop a volcano by filling it with concrete, putting an artificial stop on a natural source of pressure. It might seem to work for a while, but the later explosion will be all the more devastating. There may be a problem with nitrogen pollution, but this solution has all the elegance of a mob boss kneecapping a storeowner who fails to pay protection money. The alt-right media the author mentions, while greatly oversimplifying an issue to fit into their narrative, have at least identified a larger pattern of wealthy overlords believing they can herd humanity like sheep to achieve macro level outcomes by dictating micro level actions without eventually reaping the consequences, but there are consequences. This is why populist movements are thriving all over the world.
“It’s not Klaus Schwab driving farmers to black roads — it’s a run-of-the-mill collection of Dutch politicians and activists.”
Oh, I think you will find that if you look behind the curtain, at the man pulling the levers and booming out instructions to not look at zat man behind ze curtin, you will, in fact, find Klaus.
Nope, this is a good statement of facts: — it’s a run-of-the-mill collection of Dutch politicians and activists.”
The problem in most of Western Europa (plus US/Canada) is the run-of-the-mill collection of group thinkers, who insist there is a Climate crisis and are willing to destroy western civlization to save the planet from the climate crisis, a crisis which is invented by media, according to the IPCC.
This reminds me of the Canadian trucker protest. People who do not do the manual work of running an economy dictating rules that impact those that do.
I wonder when the Dutch farmers will be considered domestic climate denying terrorists and have their banking accounts frozen.
Is this another example of Government through the courts? One thing that bothers me about the UK’s legal commitment to net zero is that it gives green and environmental groups a hammer to attack through the courts almost any development such as new roads or new airport runways.
Greenwall.
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/299414/REP_Absolute_Zero_V3_20200505.pdf?sequence=9&isAllowed=y
Paragraphs 4 & 5 of the summary make interesting reading – a commitment to net zero by 2050 means closing most airports, ending new building (no cement) and stopping farming/consumption of beef and lamb. What’s happening in the Netherlands is only the beginning of the roll-out of this agenda. And it IS an agenda! This is not accidental stupidity and no amount of journalistic soul-searching or hand-wringing can change that – only cover it up.
Familiar story: government over-reacting to doomsday scenarios.
The main scenario appears to be a return to year zero,a la Pol Pot.
I will not eat bugs.
I will eat bugs when Schwab, Soros, John Kerry and Leonardo DiCaprio eat bugs.
Manure is most certain ly a vital fertiliser. Your point, I think, was that when app,lied to create run-off it is also a problem.
Please can we have less political campaignng and more informaton and clear analysis.
It’s not Klaus Schwab driving farmers to black roads…..
What does ‘to black roads’ mean?
They mean ‘block’.
On face value it seems ludicrous that a country like the Netherlands is a massive agricultural exporter.
Like every country that gradually builds a powerful lobby, bringing about change can be extremely difficult.
“Plant-based food needs fertiliser, and where do you get it if you don’t have manure?” Livestock eats plant-based food. You would have thought that a farmer would know that first you have to feed an animal before it produces manure. So the food cycle doesn’t start with manure, it ends with manure. It starts with fertiliser. Even if you used all the manure produced by animals, you would lose nutrients because those contained in the flesh that people eat are flushed down the toilet.
…are flushed down the toilet… and recycled to the environment. It’s a closed system apart from energy.
We recently found a text book from the University of Delft for the study year 1979/80. It mentioned the problems of the intensification of farming, leading to job loses and environmental damage. That was more than 40 years ago and yet the farm lobby tried to continue with business as usual. They were storing up problems for the future. Now that the future has arrived, they want more time to cope with this surprise development.
The 1979/80 text book (I notice not actual research) was written by the same academic irrationalists who pushed the legislation the Dutch farmers are protesting about. To know any problem existed in 1979/80 and has since got worse requires evidence which you don’t present.
The farmers don’t want more ‘time to cope with this surprise development’. They want these people to stop persecuting them and trying to remove their livelihood.
The author can be a vegan if he wishes but the farmers need to be free to cater to those of us who aren’t.
the sheep are bleating…
On ethical, as well as ecological grounds, the ‘farming’ of sentient animals ought to cease. If our agricultural colleges were prepared to teach veganic farming in the mainstream curriculum and if farmers (there are some exceptions) and their ‘representatives’ (eg., the NFU in the UK) were open to fundamental change, the human species, sentient nonhuman animals, and the planet would be in a better place.
There are veganic growers out there and they are showing the way, and they will be more than happy, I am certain, to help other farmers to make the transition.
Do you also find it unethical that animals eat each other?
Animals do not breed, torture maim and kill their food for pleasure and profit.
More than 5% animal proteine in human diet is a health risk.The human body has a limited capacity for breaking down animal proteine. Cancer cells, which have a “skin” resembling animal proteine, can thus no longer be unmasked and killed by the immune system, and set up shop in the body.
But, cancer is an extremely profitable illness. The average patient brings in half a million dollars , at half a million diagnoses per year in the USA alone. Follow the money.
You are making things up to suit your agenda
My agenda is the search for Truth.
T. Colin Campbell. The China Study. Compiled all available Chinese studies and data before and after the chinese opened up to western diet.
Cancer erupted when they adopted the consumption of meat as a status symbol.
7th day adventists, vegans in general, much less cancer.
Born and raised on a US dairy farm, Campbell was a staunch supporter and researcher into increasing animal proteine in diet. Until he started thinking for himself. Dangerous hobby, thinking for yourself. Dont try it..you might learn something.
Animals do torture, maim and kill for pleasure.
Dogs do this. So do cats. As do foxes and many other predatory animals.
Your argument sounds cutesy, but it is hopelessly flawed.
It is your body, your health, not my problem.
Lets say your argument, (pretty weak coming with domesticated species as an example) is acceptable, they do not BREED their FOOD.
Such playful behaviour is to maintain skills for survival. Though not pretty from a “human” standpoint,one could argue the fact that domesticated animals need to do this is because they get food on a platter everyday…
As for wild predators…does it legitimise our mass torture, maiming and killing of animals? What skills do we need to maintain exactly?
There are superfit sporters who do not eat any animal proteine.
T. Colin Campbell experimented with mice, he injected them with a carcinogen, and could turn cancer on and off like a lightswitch, with 100% consistency, just by adding or withdrawing animal proteine in their diet.
T. Colin Campbell’s experiments are often taken out of context by those who have an agenda.
Veganism may be a good idea, but like many ‘noble’ causes, its most ardent supporters are most often its worst form of advertising.
A vegan diet is unhealthy ( can only be sustained by supplements) and the ecological argument is at best weak.
Parrots usually speak without any personal experience or research. They hear something that sounds good to their ears and repeat it.
The only supplement needed is B12, a bacteria found in soil and natural water, costs around 9 euro for a years supply. It is injected into farm factory animals, because the soil and water they live on no longer has it…
All other proteines etc. can be gotten from plants. Lewis Hamilton, 7 times F1 racing world champion, the Williams sisters…spring to mind, Novak Djokovic…world N0 1 tennis player
yeah…very very unhealthy.
You are free to choose “Veganic” and offer tips to other farmers who voluntarily choose to do so.
You don’t have the right to dictate to others what they should do.
And if you are so concerned about the environment, make private jets illegal, impose a 100% tax in EVs that cost more than 20k to subsidise those too poor to afford them, limit air travel holidays to once every three years or so, put a cap on the size of houses and gardens…
And see how quickly the upper class elites preaching about the planet change their tune.
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