The uproar between the government and farmers in the Netherlands is a shock to the system, with implications for politics far beyond this normally placid nation.
It’s a head-on collision between the environment and agriculture.
Although the theater of protesting farmers is familiar across Europe, the Dutch crisis has gotten down to first principles in a rather drastic way. To meet environmental targets — specifically the nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions caused by cattle and pigs — the authorities want to squeeze nearly half the nation’s livestock farmers out of business.
Permanently.
Finance Ministry proposals for buying out farmers or expropriating their land are threatened. At least 11,200 will have to close and an additional 17,600 will have to reduce their pollution levels by half.
Provincial governments have been given a year to develop detailed local plans to slash manure-caused nitrogen-oxide levels and ammonia by half within eight years.
The fury of the agriculture communities quickly showed itself in riots, roadblocks, fires on the highways and the defiant parking of tractors outside government offices in The Hague, the country’s administrative capital. The riot police, notorious for their unmannerly ways, have been in action — and remain on standby.
Could the coalition be obliged to hold a general election?
To appease the public’s anger, the government has appointed the first “Minister for Nature and Nitrogen.” This post is in addition to a Minister for Climate Policy, so it’s hard to argue that the government is not taking the issue seriously, though not everyone is prepared to give ministers the benefit of the doubt.
“No farmers, no food!” bullhorns blasted, the protesters convinced that agriculture’s rich culture and history — as well as their incomes — were being destroyed.
The media have been fizzing with the controversy for weeks; almost certainly, it could take years for an inevitable compromise to be settled.
It might be said that the Netherlands is “poorly designed,” geographically speaking. Much of it is below sea level. In the west, its 17 million population is among the world’s top five most densely packed.
The colossal port of Rotterdam, which serves the whole continent, is replaced in the north and east by isolated villages and the endless sands of low-lying islands.
Perhaps the only surprising thing about the clash between the demands of a thoroughly modern, high-tech state and the cultural assumptions of its history is that the conflict has been so long in coming.
This proximity is striking in the image of cattle herds and sheep grazing untroubled in the shadows of high-rise apartment blocks and the gleaming metal superstructures of industry.
Fifty years ago, one in five families lived on a farm. These days, one in 50 does. The Dutch are patient people. However, the threat of evicting farmers and forcing the acquisition of agricultural land has struck a nerve and caused rare indignation across all sectors of this clean, well-ordered place.
Farmers are “our nation’s heroes,” some politicians bellow, while a “Farmers’ Defense Force” threatens blockades by more than 500 tractors.
Despite the passing of the generation whose elders were familiar with clogs and ornate bonnets for churchgoing and social occasions, farming traditions are as strong as ever. Redundancy among holdings that have passed father to son perhaps for centuries is seen as a profound abuse of a way of life.
Inevitably farmers and their supporters are broadening the targets of indignation, as shown by the recent demonstrations in Amsterdam that protested the World Economic Forum’s efforts to introduce environmentally friendly policies seen as hostile by farmers.
After the United States, the Netherlands remains the second-largest exporter of food in the world (mainly vegetables and pork), a status that provides profit and pride. Reducing fertilizers is all very well, farmers say, but being thrown off their valuable land is too much.
For now, the deadlock is complete.
