Dutch farmers used tractors to block roads and supermarket distribution networks to protest government-mandated emissions reductions that threaten their livelihoods on Monday.
Over 40,000 farmers have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest climate-related regulations that the Dutch ruling coalition itself concedes would force upwards of 30% of farmers out of business, DW reported. [bold, links added]
Farmers have dumped hay bales on roads, left manure outside government officials’ homes, and blocked highways and other critical infrastructure to protest the regulations, the Associated Press reported.
“The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business,” the government said in a June statement announcing the new emissions targets.
The farmers contend that they are being unfairly targeted by the regulations and losing out on their prospects, the AP reported.
Video of Dutch police firing on a protesting farmer in the Netherlands. This appears to have happened last night.pic.twitter.com/fHg60HDi8M
— Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968) July 6, 2022
The Netherlands’ largest airport urged its travelers on Monday to use public transportation to get to its terminals amid fears that the farmers’ blockades would target airports, and fishermen have also blocked several harbors this week in solidarity with farmers, the Associated Press reported.
The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the present emissions reductions and resultant backlash trace back to a 2019 court ruling that found the Netherlands was not doing enough to protect its natural areas.
Citing the ruling, the Dutch government introduced targets last month to halve nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions, both of which are present in large quantities in livestock manure.
The ministry told TheDCNF that it is working with farmers to “look at a new way of doing business with innovation, relocation, extensification and involving more nature in agriculture.”
Still, many farmers are disillusioned.
“We cannot invest. Our fathers, our uncles, cannot invest in the future. And so as young farmers we also have no prospect of … taking over a farm,” Marijn van Heun, a 23-year-old Dutch dairy farmer, told Euro News.
This is the end path of climate change activism. Eventually everything has to be stopped, even our food supply. Dutch farmers are protesting new rules that will close farms and force them to kill off livestock to curb “emissions”. Godspeed to the farmers pic.twitter.com/aBXRiRqDIH
— Malcolm Roberts 🇦🇺 (@MRobertsQLD) July 1, 2022
The Netherlands is the largest exporter of meat in the European Union and exported almost $100 billion worth of agricultural goods in total in 2019.
The protests come as the world faces food shortages brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and some fear that the ongoing supply disruption caused by the protests could increase prices in the Netherlands and beyond, Al Jazeera reported.
The shelves of several supermarkets are already starting to empty in the #Netherlands as farmers across the country have blocked distribution centers for two days.#Boerenprotest #Farmersdefenceforce #Farmersprotest #boerenprotesten #boerenzakdoek #boerenterreur #DutchFarmers pic.twitter.com/kiT85H6HjH
— We Are Protestors (@WeAreProtestors) July 5, 2022
Over the weekend, the Dutch government appointed Johan Remkes to lead talks between farmers and government officials responsible for crafting the emissions-reduction regulations, the AP reported.
Dutch farming lobby LTO described Remkes as “an administrative heavyweight with deep knowledge” of the issues and said it was open to talks with him, according to the AP.
Read more at Daily Caller
Good. Blockading food distribution centers, with the resultant empty shelves, is a good way to get people’s attention. I am reminded of an old proverb I heard decades ago: Don’t criticize farmers with your mouth full.
Destroying their lives and a way to make a living all over the totaly false threat of Global Warming/Climate Change reminds me of the Klamath bucket Bergade back in 2001 after the water to the Klamath Basin Farmers was cut off over some Fish looks to me more like the world under Eco-Nazis/Watermelons
Nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions in livestock manure have not changed in centuries. What has changed is the World Economic Forum has called on a reduction in the consumption of meat. Just as Biden is trying to use ozone as a lame excuse to reduce the use of coal and stop oil production in some locations, the Dutch government is using nitrogen emissions as a lame excuse to reduce meat production and force some farmers out of business. I find it amazing that those in power are dumb enough to believe any action for a small nation such as the Netherlands could have an impact on the world wide scale. They seem to think that if they take action by inflicting great harm on their own citizens, the rest of the world will follow. The reality is it is very unlikely that North and South America and Africa are going to be forcing their citizens to reduce meat consumption.
There’s no Green eggs and ham.
The Netherlands is a major exporter of the kind of food that the Greens don’t like, although I think that they eat a a lot of it in the dark.
Another major Dutch export is farm families. The exodus has been going on for decades. My neighbours are successful hog farmers. I sell them my corn and every once in awhile, I get some valuable manure from them. My land needs it.
Go ahead Holland, drive away your most valuable resource. You lose.
The World Economic Forum can Go Pound Sand over all this load of Go Green/Climate Change Malarkey after all Livestock have been on this earth since the begining but its only now according to some screwballs Vegan Nutcases and PETA/HSUS idiots that Livestock are causing Global Warming/Climate Change
But look at how deluded the Dutch government is. It’s quite possible that even many of the farmers have been indoctrinated into the green religion but object only to the clearly unfair application of the green toxin to them.