Farmers’ Protests Erupt in the Netherlands and Belgium Against EU Climate Change Restrictions
The Financial Times: Dutch government is trying to “convince farmers to reduce livestock herds or leave the industry to cut emissions.”
Farmers’ protests have again erupted in the Netherlands and Belgium as European governments enforce radical climate change policies.
To comply with the European Union’s climate diktats, the Dutch, Belgium, and other European governments have pledged to more than halve their emission of greenhouse gases. To meet these radical targets, they are forcing the farmers to cut down on their livestock or go out of business.
In the Netherlands, Europe’s biggest meat exporter, the government is trying to “convince farmers to reduce livestock herds or leave the industry to cut emissions,” the London-based Financial Times reported last week.
Explaining the drastic EU emission cuts, the newspaper added:
The Netherlands will be forced to choose between agriculture or building new homes and infrastructure if it is to meet its climate targets unless the farming sector cuts nitrogen-based emissions, the country’s nature minister has warned.
The emissions clampdown stems from a 2019 decision by the country’s supreme court, which ruled that no more permits to emit nitrogen could be issued because the country had breached EU nature protection laws. This means permits only become available when they are given up by other businesses.
Farmers Take to Streets in Belgium, the Netherlands
As new EU regulations threaten their livelihood, farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium are taking to the streets.
Reporting the protests in Belgium, Reuters wrote Friday:
Farmers from Belgium’s northern region of Flanders drove thousands of tractors into Brussels on Friday in a protest against a new regional government plan to limit nitrogen emissions.
Police estimated the number of tractors clogging the streets of Brussels at 2,700. Many were decorated with big signs reflecting the farmers’ anger. “Proud to be a farmer,” read one.
Agricultural organisations said in a joint statement that the nitrogen agreement as it now stands “will cause a socio-economic carnage”. They wanted the agreement to better reflect future prospects for the farm sector.
The planned move to limit emissions in Flanders has caused a crisis within the Flemish regional government that was not resolved during 16 hours of talks earlier this week. Belgian media reported Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon wants to make the final decisions by this weekend.
Similar protests were also reported in the neighboring Netherlands, with Dutch farmers joining with anti-globalist rightist parties ahead of this month’s municipal elections.
The farmers form virtually the only self reliant societal group in The Netherlands that has enough manpower to bring the government to its knees.
And that’s exactly why they’re trying to get rid of them.
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) March 3, 2023
Left-wing UK newspaper The Guardian reported the Dutch protests:
Last week, protesting farmers confronted the finance minister, Sigrid Kaag, with burning torches. Tractors have blockaded roads, and slurry has been dumped at the home of the minister for nature, Christianne van der Wal. Meanwhile, the far right has successfully co-opted the farmers’ cause, and promoted a toxic conspiracy theory that targeted farmland is being sequestrated in order to build homes for asylum seekers.
The intimidation tactics used by elements of the farmers’ protest movement have been rightly condemned. But the rural backlash has generated widespread public sympathy – particularly outside the major cities. Ahead of crucial regional elections this month, a new Farmer-Citizen party is running third in the polls.
BRUSSELS – The EU targets will destroy thousands of farms and many thousands of livelihoods, it will increase food prices & leave more & more people reliant on governments.
No one voted for this!
Stand up for the farmers as they stand up for freedom 🔥
— Bernie's Tweets (@BernieSpofforth) March 4, 2023
The Netherlands is the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter after the United States. Farming and dairy sectors also play a key role in Belgium’s economy.
With Ukraine, the proverbial breadbasket of Europe, devastated after a yearlong war, the EU wants to put tens of thousands of Dutch farmers out of business in pursuit of a foolish climate change agenda. “Dutch government proposals for tackling nitrogen emissions indicate a radical cut in livestock – they estimate 11,200 farms will have to close and another 17,600 farmers will have to significantly reduce their livestock,” the BBC estimated last July.
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Comments
It would make more sense to eliminate the left of center population than the livestock.
To the Dutch farmers. Stop selling your produce locally, let the people who want to shut you down starve to death, or let them deal with the hungry masses, Also, I suggest a weekly “wash” of your government buildings with liquid manure, they love it when you do that.
We’ll take it! I seem to remember someone from around the baltic developing a new lower-sugar potato that is worth looking into. (While potatoes are technically starches and not sugars, they metabolize almost like sugar and have a very high glycemic index and glycemic load).
“trying to “convince farmers to reduce livestock herds or leave the industry to cut emissions,”
…
The intimidation tactics used by elements of the farmers’ protest movement have been rightly condemned.”
Do they mean intimidation tactics like “Get o ut of the business or we’ll run you out?” Banking throttling. Enforcement raids. Or just declining permitting?
Closing question: Why is gluing ones-self to a working runway not an “intimidation tactic?” Asking for some people who are scary, apparently because tyey work with their hands.
NetZero as it is currently imagined is going to lead to Starvation for 2 Billion people around the Globe.
And not by accident.
Well, they gotta go hard to get ahead of the demographically driven pop crash already baked in.
What’s the point of having a revolution if you don’t get to kill some folk?
They’re just annoyed that the defenseless targets they picked aren’t acting so defenseless. It’s not like they’re trying to actually solve anything.
“The Netherlands will be forced to choose between agriculture or building new homes and infrastructure if it is to meet its climate targets…”
Indeed, they could also dump their “climate targets”, which aren’t — they are select emission targets which *may* narrowly do something small about projected climate changes. Or substitute some other mitigation for “Ban all the things!”
“… will be forced to choose between agriculture or building … unless the farming sector cuts nitrogen-based emissions…”
Sounds like they have chosen. So, how about less building? Mitigating emissions by building differently?
There’s a good deal of land in the southern US suitable for small to medium sized mixed farming and dairy herds. If your govt is shutting down the farm then take the buyout, come to the USA and go back to farming.
The US gov’t is doing something similar…. forcing reduction of crops.
They can only force you if you take their money.
A lot of conservatives “know about” Wickard v. Filburn. Most of them are unaware that Filburn’s case was “less than compelling” because he signed the DOA quota forms promising to limit his production, and received a federal payout in return. This is why DO got to define how his limits would be computed.
Yep. Take their money and you gotta accept their rules. People are crying out for more direct farm purchase opportunities. Small and medium mixed farms can thrive with a little innovation, marketing and refusing to enroll in AG programs.
Even upstate NY and rural PA.
True, though the political climate in NY and PA may put them in an out of the frying pan into the fire situation in a few years. Choosing a low cost alternative with a more conventional attitude towards the link between farm and kitchen table would be a wiser choice IMO.
YR not wrong.
I’m curious about the timing n mechanism of the impending state collapses. NY State was running unsustainable deficits before the ‘rona, and accelerating exodus.
I don’t know how this stuff plays out, or exactly when, but complex systems go suddenly, spectacularly weird when they do collapse. How about states as dynamic co-ops of freely associating counties?
For myself, something like a Chautauqua-era rural college town in the hills would be ideal. I’ve even been looking at hilly parts of Kentucky — they have an odd multi-county attempt at tech-ish innovation.
Global warming a/k/a climate change is scam of massive proportions. 100 of 101 models have overpredicted recent temperature changes. The satellite record shows warning of only 0.13 C/decade. After 100 years; at the current rate, the earth will be 1.3 C warmer, assuming the current rate of warming continues, which it may not. Meanwhile, Western governments will attempt to impoverish their citizens while the Indians and Chinese will thrive. Our governments have lied to us about so many issues. So when are we the people going to vote these lying charlatans out of office?
Have any journalists asked Dutch or EU officials where they expect to get food from if they run the farmers off the land? It seems a rather obvious question but I don’t see it being asked.
Crickets.. literally…
They’re planning on starving most of the population. With the police and military worried about their pensions and dental benefits they’ll do whatever they’re told, including shooting their own countrymen.
The Chinese communists must be laughing their rear ends off at prosperous western nations destroying their economic productivity and agricultural self-sufficiency via utterly indefensible, foolish and self-destructive “green” diktats.
The intimidation tactics used by elements of the farmers’ protest movement have been rightly condemned.
No, they must continue, and apparently harder amd more frequent
The politicians took 600 million from ECF to destroy their Country , they must not be allowed to win!!!
How can we help the farmers?
Usually farmers have lots of used tires around. They should all gather them up, take them to parliament and set them on fire. They don’t have anything left to lose anymore. The woman on the tweet says they’re losing badly as well as getting shot at.
https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1632710156378046466
God bless those farmers.
Citizens please stand up with them!
No to the NWO!
California dairy farms, many started by the Dutch, moved from Cerritos and La Palma (Dairy valley and Dairyland) to Corona, and are now moving to Arizona and Nevada because of California regulations.
Last fall we visited a Cheese maker in Holland. Many nearby farmers were flying the Dutch flag upside down.
in the early 1800’s 95% of people lived on farms
circa 1900 about 40% worked on farms.
today it is less than 1%
The reason is farming has become so much more efficient.
In 1900 it took about 15 minutes of human labor time to make one loaf of bread from planting the seed, harvesting, milling the grain, to making the flour, etc, today it takes about 2 secs of human labor for a single loaf.
those leftists are going to enjoy their time on earth trying grow food to survive.
Meanwhile, the Belgian and Dutch governments have issued a joint statement on the recent enormous battle victory over Eurasia . . .
The only effect that livestock have on CO2 or methane is via the fossil fuels that are consumed in the running of this industry.
The anti-CO2 alarmists pretend that the CO2 and methane released by livestock themselves contribute to greenhouse gas warming. That is a fraud.
Animals are part of the carbon cycle in exactly the same way that plants are. All living things take their carbon from the atmosphere, either directly (plants) or through the plants they eat (herbivores), or through the plant-fed animals they eat (carnivores), and when they die all of that the carbon is released as CO2 or as methane, which in turn breaks down into CO2.
The only effect that any plant or animal has is to temporarily remove a bit of carbon from the atmosphere, then return it. This taking and returning mostly evens out over time, with a seasonal effect as plants in temperate climates absorb CO2 in spring and summer and breathe it back out in the fall.
That breathing in and out of the carbon cycle has no effect on climate at all. It is a stationary cycle that does not affect the level of CO2 from one year to the next.
The Dutch might have to worry about nitrates as pollution, but that is not what is motivating their anti-farming and anti-livestock policies. They are pretending that cow farts are causing global warming, which is an absurd lie.
Even if there really was a danger of fossil fuel emissions making the planet too warm (there isn’t: the only actual climate danger always has been and always will be global cooling), cow farts would have no effect on that. Instead of plants breaking down directly into methane and CO2, they break down into methane inside of some cows which then vent the methane and CO2 into the atmosphere.
Anyone who thinks that makes a difference is brain dead. Ditto anyone who thinks: “well maybe we should just not grow plants then!” No, then the CO2 never gets taken out of the atmosphere in the first place.
But that is really the level of thinking at work. Because biomass breaks down, these idiots think it is better not to have biomass.
That’s what anti-livestock is: it’s anti-biomass. Which of course just reduces the amount of CO2 that is temporarily withdrawn from the atmosphere, and that actually does increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Of course they are not actually motivated by climate concerns. They just want some excuse kill off 95% of the human race (WEF’s oft-repeated goal), and that’s what the global warming scare is: an excuse, which is why they don’t care if it actually makes any sense.
Communists love to kill people. Wherever they achieve power they always commit society-wide mass murder.
Pol Pot murdered every educated Cambodian. Mao tried to kill all the birds, but settled for starving 70 million people. Mass starvation has always been their primary weapon.
After all, what’s the point of having power over people if you are not going to murder everyone who disagrees with you, or who might think about disagreeing with you?
That’s how these people actually think. They just want an excuse, and climate alarm gives it to them.