What the heck is going on with the Netherlands?

[George Owen]

Its about nitrogen immissions not anything else. The building sector is under fire too yet we have no spare houses.

Yep, I get that. I remember back when I was living in NZ over 10 years ago, the meat/milk industry was under attack because they were destroying the environment, leaching and polluting the soil and underground water, etc. I don't remember they went out with their tractors though.

I guess Dutch "farmers" are more protective of their income (mostly from exports) and don't give a feck about the citizens of their own country.

They have two things working for them to make that noise: they traditionally have a very strong lobby in two of the bigger political parties (CDA and VVD), giving them an outsized voice in The Hague. Plus they've got their tractors and are happy to drive them anymore, meaning they can organize highly impactful and visible protests with relatively little effort.

They currently also have fairly strong popular support, that helps as well in terms of police being hesitant to stop their protests too soon and politicians getting too angry at things. They don't 'own' mass media or other big business though, the above is enough.

Well yeah, they don't need to own the media, when they have brothers in arms on it.

It's annoying how these elites can get popular support, when it's obvious these measures are for the greater good of the nation and all their citizens. "Farmers" are not gonna go hungry if they have to regulate and reduce their production a little bit.

 

[Stanley Road]

Yep, I get that. I remember back when I was living in NZ over 10 years ago, the meat/milk industry was under attack because they were destroying the environment, leaching and polluting the soil and underground water, etc. I don't remember they went out with their tractors though.

I guess Dutch "farmers" are more protective of their income (mostly from exports) and don't give a feck about the citizens of their own country.



Well yeah, they don't need to own the media, when they have brothers in arms on it.

It's annoying how these elites can get popular support, when it's obvious these measures are for the greater good of the nation and all their citizens. "Farmers" are not gonna go hungry if they have to regulate and reduce their production a little bit.

Well I always wonder where the experts were that didn't see this happening. Same way I don't see that top economists don't see a recession happening and know how to deal with it this shit should be simple for them.

 

[Green_Red]

Its very hard to take the Dutch govt or the EU seriously as I can see tons and tons of poisonous smoke billowing out from Tata Steel 24hrs a day.

There's a very big difference between lip service and action. Politicians know very little about action, that's why the end up in politics...

 

[George Owen]

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[VorZakone]

Of course Fox jumped on it. She used the word "communism" to describe Rutte's government.

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[KirkDuyt]

Small update on this. Farmers are now dumping garbage on the high ways and lighting it on fire. It's mostly a sort of radicalised smaller part of the farmers spurred on by fecking nazi provocateurs like Eva Vlaardingerbroek (seriously, feck that attention seeking piece of human garbage) on Twitter.

The populism behind these protests are a sad example of current society. Pools of tears are being cried over poor farmers who have been in their business for 20 generations and gently give all their goats and pigs a daily tug job and caress their cows until they fall asleep, while the actual problem is giant industrial sized farming companies who keep 16.000 pigs in a shoebox and produce stuff entirely to export it to other countries to make shiteloads of money all the while raking in millions of subsidies from the EU (they so desperately hate). Another dumb thing is the great conspiracy to make us dependant on other countries for our food even though we are already entirely dependant on other countries for our farmers since lifestock eat soy and it's quite hard to grow fecking soy in The Netherlands.

I'm not sure why this topic irks me so greatly. Maybe it's because I hate the rich and I read that 1 in every 5 Dutch millionaires is a farmer.

 

[Cheimoon]

Small update on this. Farmers are now dumping garbage on the high ways and lighting it on fire. It's mostly a sort of radicalised smaller part of the farmers spurred on by fecking nazi provocateurs like Eva Vlaardingerbroek (seriously, feck that attention seeking piece of human garbage) on Twitter.

The populism behind these protests are a sad example of current society. Pools of tears are being cried over poor farmers who have been in their business for 20 generations and gently give all their goats and pigs a daily tug job and caress their cows until they fall asleep, while the actual problem is giant industrial sized farming companies who keep 16.000 pigs in a shoebox and produce stuff entirely to export it to other countries to make shiteloads of money all the while raking in millions of subsidies from the EU (they so desperately hate). Another dumb thing is the great conspiracy to make us dependant on other countries for our food even though we are already entirely dependant on other countries for our farmers since lifestock eat soy and it's quite hard to grow fecking soy in The Netherlands.

I'm not sure why this topic irks me so greatly. Maybe it's because I hate the rich and I read that 1 in every 5 Dutch millionaires is a farmer.

For me at least, part of the irritation comes from the way the argumentation behind these actions, and the international support, is completely messed up. It's infinitely frustrating how conspiracy theorists are taken over public debate, creating controversy and public outrage out of nothing and completely distoring the situation and issues. It makes resolving the actual problems so much harder.

 

[do.ob]

What are the authorities doing about it at the moment? If you let one group take public infrastructure hostage others will take note.

 

[4bars]

Though I agree that the nitrogen situation is a problem (In spain had been forever due to intensive pig farming) and should be tackled. I see several posters saying to take farming licenses, that they can find other jobs, etc...

No, farming is a way of life, that goes through generations. My family comes from a farm that is 900 years old. It goes through my uncles side now. You can't tell them stop what you are doing when it is what they did all their life and it has to do with the place also.

At the same time, farmers are being shafted here and there with the prices of what they produce, vegetable or animal, for food corporations.

Another reason, and that is not a conspiracy, there are big corporations that owns a very big percentage of the the cattle and pigs. They use any crisis to shut particular farmers and buy them on the cheap and get that portion of the market. That happened in Spain not that long ago. Then, when they have a massive portion of the market, enforce rules or pay up ridiculous fines because they can afford it

Also, farms are necessary for a variety of reasons. IF food is produced by big coorporations, when there is a food crisis, they feck ok or reduce the production to have benefits. Real farmers stay, ensuring food even on the lose waiting better times. This ensures that in a war you have food supplies. Farmers also take care of the woods to avoid forest fires that will happen more and more

Summarizing, Is not as easy to blame farmers, taking licenses and tell them to find a job. Is a different animal than any other profession. they are necessary and they usually feck them over an over

There is a problem? yes. As many said, they represent a tiny portion. Then propose them alternative to help them transition to another type of farming involving animals or not. But definitely they are not the problem.

We all like cheap veggies and cheap meat. That means intensive mass production. Are you all willing to pay 100% or more for meat? because this could solve the problem as they could go to an extensive production. Subsidizing, protecting them, etc... but it has to be a holistic solution

 

[KirkDuyt]

Though I agree that the nitrogen situation is a problem (In spain had been forever due to intensive pig farming) and should be tackled. I see several posters saying to take farming licenses, that they can find other jobs, etc...

No, farming is a way of life, that goes through generations. My family comes from a farm that is 900 years old. It goes through my uncles side now. You can't tell them stop what you are doing when it is what they did all their life and it has to do with the place also.

At the same time, farmers are being shafted here and there with the prices of what they produce, vegetable or animal, for food corporations.

Another reason, and that is not a conspiracy, there are big corporations that owns a very big percentage of the the cattle and pigs. They use any crisis to shut particular farmers and buy them on the cheap and get that portion of the market. That happened in Spain not that long ago. Then, when they have a massive portion of the market, enforce rules or pay up ridiculous fines because they can afford it

Also, farms are necessary for a variety of reasons. IF food is produced by big coorporations, when there is a food crisis, they feck ok or reduce the production to have benefits. Real farmers stay, ensuring food even on the lose waiting better times. This ensures that in a war you have food supplies. Farmers also take care of the woods to avoid forest fires that will happen more and more

Summarizing, Is not as easy to blame farmers, taking licenses and tell them to find a job. Is a different animal than any other profession. they are necessary and they usually feck them over an over

There is a problem? yes. As many said, they represent a tiny portion. Then propose them alternative to help them transition to another type of farming involving animals or not. But definitely they are not the problem.

We all like cheap veggies and cheap meat. That means intensive mass production. Are you all willing to pay 100% or more for meat? because this could solve the problem as they could go to an extensive production. Subsidizing, protecting them, etc... but it has to be a holistic solution

The poor farmer that has personally tended his cattle since the dawn of time is not the problem. The giant bio industry that is solely build for making insane amounts of money through export is. The Netherlands is the second exporter of agriculture in the world. And that's not relatively the 2nd, they produce and export the most being only 2nd to The United states. It's obviously the fault of our government and the endless expansion of the Dutch bio industry as a matter of national pride, but it's not sustainable anymore.

The nitrogen crisis is real so even if some farmers get shafted, it's simply a necessity to cut back on it.

What are the authorities doing about it at the moment? If you let one group take public infrastructure hostage others will take note.

Only condemning it so far. As @Cheimoon said, populists are very effective at skewing public opinion in favor of farmers with nonsense reasoning like "no farmers, no food" or the fact we will become dependant on import if a percentage of our farmers goes away which is all rubbish. 90% of what we produce is exported and 70% of the stuff in the stores here is imported. They do it for the money, and the protests are being fuelled by billion dollar companies. Much like right wing nutters claim is the case with the vaccines or climate change or anything they don't like, but now, suddenly, is not a problem. So if the government crack down too hard all the nutters will go wild.

 

[Cheimoon]

Also, @4bar - it's not simply about taking licenses away. Most farmers will be able to continue, as long as they make their farms more biologically sustainable. So less of thosee mega-stables chock full of pigs, for instance. Some farmers will need to be bought out, yes, but there are plenty of farmers actually open to this. Even the (de facto) leader of the most militant farmers organization (Mark van de Oever of the Farmer Defence Force - yes, that's their actual name, all in English!) has said that his farm is for sale, at the right price.

In fact, your post actually highlights part of the problem: how the discussion is messed up through misinformation. The Dutch government doesn't hate all farmers, doesn't want to get rid of them all, doesn't think food is unimportant, or whatever people say. (Not you; but I was in the Netherlands the past two weeks, and there are plenty of banners pointing out the importance of farmers. As if anyone said that they're irrelevant!) The Netherlands have a serious problem with density of population, industry, farming, and everything, and solutions are required, both because the Netherlands have to follow EU regulations and simply because nitrous oxide emissions are indeed damagingly high in the Netherlands. That's the reality, not some anti-farmer agenda.

(And yes, this might mean that animal farming will get more difficult, and meat will get more expensive. But that seamlessly fits into a worldwide need to cut back on meat production (and hence consumption) to guarantee food availability (meat production is relatively inefficient) and reduce emissions. Again, that's not anti-farmer, that's the bigger reality of having to control humanity's environmental footprint on the world if we want to be able to continue living comfortably on Earth.)