Dutch Farmers Protest Climate Policies They Say Could Drive Them Out of Business and Fuel Global Hunger Crisis

Guest Post by Michael Nevradakis

Dutch farmers are protesting new climate policies they say will force them to kill off livestock and drive them out of business — policies which some argue also will drive up consumer food prices and contribute to the global hunger crisis.

Dutch farmers are protesting new climate policies they say will force them to kill off livestock and drive them out of business — policies which some argue also will drive up consumer food prices and contribute to the global hunger crisis.

The new Dutch policy stems from a 2019 court order that nitrogen-compound pollution in the Netherlands “will have to be cut by 70% to 80%.”

But as Dutch News reported:

“The government’s strategy to take a regional approach to the issue will lead to major problems in parts of Gelderland and Noord-Brabant, where livestock farming is concentrated and a number of vulnerable habitats are being seriously damaged.

“To meet the new rules, the amount of livestock farming will have to be reduced drastically, and that means some farmers will have to be bought out and shut down their operations.”

According to a recent report by journalist Kim Iversen, “the farmers in the most regulated areas would essentially be put out of business.”

Iversen said farmers who do not “voluntarily” accept the government’s proposal may have their land seized outright.

“With the latest round of tightening of regulations, the Dutch government has announced more multi-billion-dollar buyout arrangements but has also stated they will expropriate the land from farmers who do not comply,” Iversen said. “They’ll take their land.”

Iversen quoted Henk Staghouwer, the Dutch minister of agriculture, nature and food quality, who said, “There is not a future for all farmers within this approach.”

Staghouwer offered to begin negotiations with the farmers, Iversen said, “but only on the condition the participants condemn the demonstrations” taking place in response to the new policies.

But as Iversen reported, the protests haven’t died down.

Protesting farmers sprayed manure on a local town hall and dumped a truckload of manure in front of the home of Dutch minister of nature and nitrogen policy. Some farmers even brought their cows to a protest outside the Dutch parliament.

Others have blocked roads and highways, causing “major traffic jams,” and blockaded parts of the German-Dutch border, with help from freight and dock workers and fishermen.

In response, police fired tear gas on demonstrating farmers and military tanks were brought in to try and clear the blockades.

Similar to events that transpired in Canada during the truckers’ convoy there earlier this year, the Dutch government also called in tow truck companies to remove tractors, but according to Iversen, “they’re refusing to get involved.”

Meanwhile, Dutch media described the protests as “extremist” and the work of “militants,” Iversen said, leading farmers to also blockade the headquarters of media outlets.

In the midst of the protests, the country’s Farmer-Citizen political party has soared to second place, according to a recent poll. The party, which holds one seat in the Dutch parliament today, would increase its share to 11 seats if elections were held today, Iversen said.

About a third of 50,000 Dutch farms expected to ‘disappear’ by 2030

The Dutch government’s actions are attracting global attention — including in New Zealand, where the government prepared a report on the developments in the Netherlands.

The report describes the Dutch government’s policies as part of “its long-awaited plan to tackle the country’s ‘nitrogen crisis,’” adding the “bold plan zeroes in on the Netherlands’ agriculture industry, calling for scaled emissions reduction across the country.”

The report references the Dutch minister of nature and nitrogen, who said she “expects about a third of the 50,000 Dutch farms to ‘disappear’ by 2030” in what is described by some experts as “the greatest overhaul of the Dutch agricultural sector in history.”

These farms are expected to “disappear” via the aforementioned “voluntary” buyouts on the part of the government, according to the New Zealand government report, drawing on a “25 billion euro [$25.6 billion] Nitrogen Fund to help farmers (voluntarily) quit, relocate or downsize their business and make them more nature-friendly.”

The New Zealand report detailed the “compensation” that would be provided to farmers who “voluntarily” choose to downsize:

“Dairy farmers that want to be bought out need to reduce their cattle stocks by 95 percent and permanently relinquish their right to increase stocks in future.

“For pig, chicken, and turkey farms, this percentage is 80 percent.

“The subsidy the farmers receive include compensation for losing production rights and for the value loss of the company. 270 million euro [$274.3 million] is reserved for dairy compensation, 115 million [$116.8 million] for chicken and turkey-related compensation, and 115 million for pig-related compensation.”

Could Bill Gates’ connection to Dutch agriculture minister have anything to do with new nitrogen policy?

In a recent episode of the “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” agricultural researcher, permaculturalist and author Christian Westbrook — also known as the “Ice Age Farmer” — said the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have long pushed the idea of a so-called Green Revolution, based on the idea that animals and plants are “dirty and dangerous.”

 

Westbrook warned that narratives crafted to appeal to “green consumers” disguise a more nefarious intent on the part of the global elite who, in fact, are in the process of launching a “hostile takeover” of the global food system.

In fact, Dutch political commentator and legal philosopher Eva Vlaardingerbroek recently raised questions about the Dutch nitrogen-reduction policy and a possible link to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Vlaardingerbroek tweeted:

 

In her tweet, Vlaardingerbroek referred to this statement by Gates:

“I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.

“Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”

Gates’ $600 million investment in Picnic is reportedly intended to:

“… speed up its expansion in France and Germany, and will invest especially in robotic fulfilment centres, electric vehicles and a team of software developers.

“Moreover, the company wants to create a framework to satisfy the growing demand — and to do so more sustainably.”

As it turns out, Staghouwer, the Dutch agriculture minister, has been examining the “feasibility” of introducing a meat consumption tax.

And, according to Iversen, “since 2017, the pig population [in The Netherlands] has been shrinking because the government has been paying farmers to close their businesses.”

In 2019, an organization known as CGIAR [Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research] received an initial $79 million in funding, with $310 million to be provided over three years, from a coalition headed by Gates and composed of the World Bank, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K.

CGIAR, with this funding, intends to make “investments contributing to work in crop breeding, seed systems, gender equity, livestock, nutrition, and policy.” While the focus of these investments will be the developing world, the presence of the Dutch government in this initiative is notable.

‘Farmers did not create the nitrogen problem’ — the chemical industry did

In her report on Dutch farmers, Iversen said no one is arguing we shouldn’t address climate change. It’s more a matter of how do we balance that need with the need to address today’s urgent hunger crisis — and who pays the price?

“[The] climate and environment are extremely important issues and we should always work to improve our planet,” Iversen said. “But when people can’t get to work or put food on the table, the question becomes whether or not we’re going about this the right way.”

And while much of today’s climate change-related rhetoric is focused on reducing carbon emissions, the “next on the chopping block seems to be nitrogen emissions,” Iversen said.

She added:

“Nitrogen, which is a key nutrient for plants, is also a pollutant. Fertilizers that washes off the fields can end up in lakes and coastal areas, killing marine life.

“Airborne ammonia from things like power plants and engines contributes to smog and other environmental issues, but in farm-centric areas like the Netherlands, it mostly comes from livestock, urine and manure.”

“In order to reduce nitrogen emissions, you would have to reduce livestock,” Iversen said, as “many farmers use manure as fertilizer.”

But according to scholar and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., “The nitrogen problem in agriculture is a problem created by synthetic nitrogen fertilizers made from fossil fuels,” which “contribute to atmospheric pollution and climate change.”

Shiva told The Defender that synthetic fertilizer production is highly energy-intensive:

“One kilogram [2.2 pounds] of nitrogen fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of two liters [0.53 gallons] of diesel.

“Energy used during fertilizer manufacture was equivalent to 191 billion liters [50.5 billion gallons] of diesel in 2000 and is projected to rise to 277 billion [73.2 billion gallons] in 2030.”

While the nitrogen pollution problem must be addressed, Shiva said, she sharply criticized the Dutch government’s “unscientific, unjust and undemocratic response,” which places the onus on farmers.

“Farmers did not create the nitrogen problem,” she said. “The problem is created by the chemical industry.”

Shiva added:

“According to the ‘polluter pays’ principle, the chemical industry must pay for the pollution. Farmers are consumers of fertilizers, not the manufacturers. They are victims of a chemical-intensive industrial agriculture system.

“The planet and people need more farmers, not less.”

Instead, according to Shiva:

“The scientific and just response to the nitrogen problem is [to] shift from fossil-fuel chemical agriculture to biodiverse ecological agriculture and regenerative farming, and to create transition strategies for farmers to shift to ecological agriculture, which regenerates soil nitrogen while making farmers free of harmful and costly chemicals.

“Chemical-free food is good for the health of the planet and people.”

While not directly addressing the situation in the Netherlands, Oxfam, in a July 6 press release, also criticized attempts to combat pollution by targeting farmers.

According to the press release:

“Governments must stop making empty promises or creating more bureaucratic processes.

“Instead, they need to invest in small-scale food producers and food workers. They need to repurpose our global agriculture and food system to better serve the health of people, our planet, and our economies.”

That’s the problem with the Dutch government’s policies, according to Iversen, which appear to be intended to favor major agribusiness companies at the expense of small farmers.

“[The] move towards this more sophisticated style of farming … would then be controlled by a few large companies and put all the small farmers out of business,” she said. “That’s what the Dutch are protesting.”

What happens to Dutch farms ‘affects us all’

Whatever happens in the Netherlands in terms of food production will likely have global ramifications, due to the size of the country’s agricultural sector, according to Iversen, who said, “What happens to their farms affects us all.”

After the U.S., the Netherlands is the biggest exporter of agricultural produce in the world, according to the Dutch government, which states, “The Dutch agricultural sector exports some €65 billion [$66.1 billion] of agricultural produce annually. This is 17.5% of total Dutch exports.”

“Artificial fertilizer prices have been skyrocketing lately,” Iversen said. “With the inability to use manure, those [food] prices are only going to go even higher.”

She added:

“Some [Dutch] farms will go under … just because of their inability to secure fertilizer for their farms.

“The ones that can stay in operation will of course pass those extra costs on to the consumer, driving food prices up even more than they are now, and with less meat on the market, we’re looking at a serious price crisis.”

Iversen said “Dutch farmers know this,” which is why they are “sounding the alarm bell” and have been joined in their protests by many non-farmers, as “it isn’t just their businesses that would be impacted, it’s all of us.”

U.K.-based analyst V.N. Gelis told The Defender, “Disrupting food supplies, plus the effects of the [COVID-19] vaccine,” referring to increasingly prevalent vaccine injuries, “weaken people’s resistance.”

The above may, however, not even entirely capture the full extent of the price increases experienced by many consumers.

In a 2016 interview, analyst Paul Craig Roberts, former U.S. assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy, explained how the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is calculated:

“Let’s take the consumer price level. That measures inflation. Over time, the way the government has measured inflation has fundamentally been altered.

“Formerly, there was a fixed basket of goods; items in the basket were weighted according to an estimate of their percentage of consumer expenditures, and so if an item went up, then the index would go up by the weight of that item in the basket of goods, so that you had a measure of a constant standard of living.”

This has since changed, according to Roberts:

“What they did was, they introduced the ‘substitution effect.’ They argued that when the price of something goes up, consumers substitute a less expensive alternative … When the price of something went up, they threw it out of the index and stuck something in there that was less expensive.

“In that way, they changed the index from measuring a constant standard of living to one that measures a declining standard of living.

“They do this in order to avoid having to pay cost-of-living adjustments on social security. That is one way they understate inflation.”

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Stucky

What if the cows themselves identify as something else?

The farmers should just paint the cows in black and white stripes …. call them “zows”.

Problem solved.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Good idea. And the EU dumbshits can whip up another document to decree “Zow farts are green and heal the environment”. Problem solved.

TN Patriot
TN Patriot

Nitrogen makes up more than 3/4 of the earth’s atmosphere, so we breath it in constantly.

Without CO2, there is no life on earth.

It appears the greenies have targeted 2 gases that are found in abundance in our air, so nobody can dispute their claims.

Ginger
Ginger

This is all to get everyone except the agriculture slaves in a city and under their control.
Cuba controls their citizens with the monthly ration book. It has been going on for over fifty years. They put into place the own nothing and be happy or get shot idea. Cuba should be a paradise with its location, weather, the Gulf.
Take time to read this, it is what in store.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Rationing_in_Cuba

jo
jo

Your wiki piece is a good template for prepping here in the “Great Satan”: Rice, beans, sugar, cooking oil will likely be similar to Cuba. Barter will be useful–small items like cigarettes and booze, lightbulbs, needles & thread will all be coveted by somebody and are easy to store.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The fact they’re claiming this is about “climate change” tells you their government is not doing this for any real environmental reason.
Fertilizer or ammonia runoff are real problems. Problems of water pollution— having exactly nothing to do with global warming (which doesn’t exist anyway).
This is about “the environment” in the same way that Covid measures were about “public health”.
It’s about control and that’s all.

olde reb
olde reb

Without CO2, there is no PLANT life on earth. Without O2, there is no animal life on earth. Both require H2O.

How can we use nitrogen ?

flash
flash

The Agenda 2030 also known as the Kalergi Plan is to free up as much farmland as possible in order to incessantly import Africans until all the Dutch are raped Black. They want Europeans dead.

“The basic gestalt:

EU and WEF promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aka Agenda 2030.

Part of the SDGs is the reduction of agricultural impact on climate change by means of nitrogendioxide (NO2) restrictions.

Dutch gouvernment signs contracts promising to execute this agenda and proceeds implementing new laws restricting NO2 emissions from farms

Dutch farms however barely produce any such gases, even the Dutch government statistics indicate 90% of the measured NO2 comes from Germany. NO2 is also a frail and unstable molecule that doesn’t actually impact the local environment.

Independent digital soldiers discover the TriState City project in their efforts to find out why the Dutch gouvernment does this. TriState City is scheduled to be the complete bulldozing and rebuilding of the entire Benelux as one giant smart city, akin to the 90s movie Judge Dredd.

TriState City is supposed to become the capital of the globo-homogenised One World Government (OWG).

This OWG needs all that Dutch farmland to build ghettos.

The NO2 law is just a tool being used to completely decimate the Netherlands, Dutch culture and the Dutch way of life.

Farmers share this information and quietly decline this law.

Dutch government publicly threatens land appropriation by force if the farmers don’t comply.

Farmers organise tractor rallies and block highways.

Farmers surround the home of the minister of agriculture.

Farmers collaborate with other branches of the economy to organise a general strike and shutdown for Monday the 4th of July.

Dutch government debates on the potential strike and say on public record that military violence may be used on the farmers if they attempt to shut down Schiphol. ln so doing the Dutch government quietly declared itself enemy of the People and became strictly illegal under admiralty law for it violated its corporate contract with the citizens of this nation.

Dutch media reports nothing but angsty inconveniences.”

The Dutch Farmer Rebellion

“The man of the future will be of mixed race. The races and classes of today will gradually disappear due to the elimination of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-negroid race of the future, similar in appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples and the diversity of individuals. Instead of destroying European Judaism, Europe, against her will, refined and educated this people, driving them to their future status as a leading nation through this artificial evolutionary process. It’s not surprising that the people that escaped from the Ghetto-Prison, became the spiritual nobility of Europe. Thus, the compassionate care given by Europe created a new breed of aristocrats. This happened when the European feudal aristocracy crashed because of the emancipation of the Jews [due to the actions taken by the French Revolution]”

Richard Coudenhove Kalergi.

flash
flash

hmmmm… Coudenhove, is that German for Clovenhoof ?

MrLiberty

Similar in appearance to the ancient Egyptians, but dumb as a bag of manure, while the ancient Egyptians were quite advanced (assuming aliens weren’t helping them “as many alien researchers suggest”).

B.S. in V.C.
B.S. in V.C.

That p.o.s. bill gates pushed the bullshit vax on everyone next he will be pushing his fake ass beef on everyone, TPTB are truly evil bastards

Walt
Walt

‘How Dairy You’.
LOLOLOLOL

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Stucky

Cow farts come from dairy air!
.
.
derriere …. get it??

James
James

That’s udderly ridiculous!

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MrLiberty

Used to have a decorative piece of artwork like that when we lived near dairies.

Anonymous
Anonymous

No cheese for you!

James
James

The govt. may confiscate the lands?!

These folks are in literally the fight for their way of life and life itself,while hope it works do not feel “peaceful protest” will work,as always,be glad to be wrong!

I know folks are sick of the “new thing”but when right feel we should support the “new thing”.

I was thinking enough room on the proch railing for perhaps adding a Netherlands Flag,me poor porch flamingo would really be in a confused tizzy then with yet another foreign flag being raised!

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Stucky

Join me in supporting the cows! I’m going to put Cow Posters in my window.

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ken31
ken31

Straight shill propaganda, the author is a real piece of shit misrepresenting every reality in this story.

It is about land and property theft, stripping natural rights from their people and it will devolve into civil war. There is nothing factual or sincere in the climate rhetoric whatever.

MrLiberty

Most of the world is simply not prepared for what will be necessary to actually address this WEF problem. Most will side with their oppressors when things finally get going.

James
James

“Most will side with their oppressors when things finally get going.”

Most will then die.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

policies which some argue also will drive up consumer food prices and contribute to the global hunger crisis.

How could it not? After all, that is the intent, isn’t it?

olde reb
olde reb

If you want anything screwed up, rely upon the government to take charge.

overthecliff
overthecliff

I wonder how those farmers have voted since the inception of the EU? I think they are reaping what they have sown. That goes double for Americans.

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