Dutch farmers are making an unlikely cause célèbre. For starters, most are conservative, not liberal. And they are fighting against the strictest environmental regulations, not for them. However, they win over liberals like me who sympathize with the family farmers who provide us with our daily bread and yet receive so little respect from society’s ruling elites. And they are inspiring protests from other farmers across Europe, including Germany, Poland and Italy. I praised the current Dutch government for being sensible on issues such as climate change. Last year it embraced nuclear power, one of the first Western nations to do so since the 2011 Fukushima accident that shocked the world. But the government’s mistreatment of its farmers has shocked me. The prime minister recently called protesting farmers “a-holes” and sniffed: “It is not acceptable to create dangerous situations.” And yet it was a Dutch policeman, not a farmer, who inexplicably shot a 16-year-old boy driving a tractor. Fortunately he was not injured. While nitrogen pollution is exacerbating climate change, the government says its main motivation for reducing it is to protect its natural areas. Scientists say that in 118 of the Netherlands’ 162 conservancies nitrogen deposits are 50% higher than they should be. Police officers try to get a farmer’s tractor to leave a blockade at a distribution center in Nijkerk, the Netherlands on July 5, 2022. Photo by ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN/ANP/AFP via Getty Images Without a doubt the Dutch should do more to protect their natural areas. The country produces four times more nitrogen pollution than the European average due to its intensive livestock farming. The Netherlands is Europe’s largest meat exporter and the second largest food exporter overall after the United States, a remarkable achievement for a nation half the size of Indiana. Food exports generate more than $100 billion in revenue annually. Experts attribute the nation’s success to the farmer’s embrace of technological innovation. But even many on the political left say the government’s demands are too extreme, based on radical green fantasy and dodgy science. “It seems to be very fast,” said Wim de Vries, a professor at Wageningen University and Research, who 10 years ago made alarming claims about “planetary boundaries.” Farm vehicles stop traffic near the Dutch-German border on June 29, 2022. Photo by VINCENT JANNINK/ANP/AFP via Getty Images The government is demanding a 50% reduction in nitrogen pollution by 2030. This amount would require a reduction in livestock by a third or more and therefore bankrupt many farmers. And farmers say the government’s pollution measurement model is inaccurate. They say measurements near seawater skew nitrogen calculations. Data show that ammonia pollution from manure has already fallen by nearly 70 percent since 1990. And farmers say they will continue to reduce pollution as they implement low-cost, common-sense solutions such as diluting manure with water, injecting of on the ground and more often the washing of barn floors. The Netherlands is something of a model for the efficient use of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture. Since the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the same amount of fertilizer. It is hard not to conclude that politics and green ideology, more than science and logic, are driving the government’s decision. Ammonia pollution from manure in the Netherlands has been declining for decades. The Netherlands has had a nitrogen pollution permitting system since 2015, but this has not satisfied green groups, who want to see a significant reduction in meat production. A leftist Green-like party, D66, joined the governing coalition in January on the condition that the government halve the number of animals. “There is a small group of left-wing people, many of whom are vegetarians, who for 35 years have been making many arguments to reduce livestock,” said Jan Cees Volgelaar, former president of the national milk producers’ union. Farmers suspect the government’s motivation is to reduce farmland so more housing can be built for the country’s growing immigrant population. They point to statements by the Minister of Nature and Nitrogen, “We need speed because we need houses”, which the Prime Minister has also echoed. Meanwhile, many are waving the national flag upside down in solidarity with the farmers. A new poll published two days ago shows that if elections were held today, the ruling VVD party would lose 13 of its 34 seats in parliament and its ally D66 would lose 11 of its 24 seats. By contrast, the farmers’ party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BBB, formed just three years ago, would go from just one seat to 20. It is not long before the government changes. He was a pioneer last year in the sensible embrace of nuclear power. He could once again be a trailblazer by rejecting demands from the radical Greens and adopting a more gradual, science- and technology-based approach to pollution. After all, when you’ve lost Mick Jagger, you’ve lost the world. Michael Shellenberger is the author of “Apocalypse Never” and Time magazine’s “Hero of the Environment.”
