FARMERS in the Netherlands are furious over government plans to buy and close down up to 3,000 productive farms in order to comply with controversial European Union plans to reduce emissions.
The Dutch government says it must reduce its nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions levels by 50 percent by 2030 to comply with EU regulations.
In order to do this it has proposed forced buy outs of up to 3,000 farms that are deemed as ‘peak polluters’ starting next year, if farmers do not sell voluntarily or take immediate action to reduce their emissions.
Thousands of Dutch farmers have been protesting around the country in the last few months, with more protests planned, but the government doesn’t seem to be listening.
These bold moves have emerged following several court cases in The Netherlands that found the Dutch government was not doing enough to address the nitrogen crisis.
At first the government introduced plans to reduce livestock numbers by 25 percent but have now gone further with the buy-out plans.
In the European Union The Netherlands is one of the most intensely farmed Member States with 1.1 percent of EU farmland producing 6 percent of food in the EU.
However, it produces over 10 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per hectare, over four times the EU average, and also has high pesticides and energy use per hectare.
Farmers are also angry that the big industrial GHG emitters such as airports, oil and construction industries, are being offered a much less impactful set of regulations.
Dutch farmer Klaas Meekma milks over 1,100 goats at Deinum and says the government has made a mess of the situation.
Klaas said: “It’s a real shame how farmers are being treated in the Netherlands. They are being pushed out to make room for industry, aviation, transportation, solar fields and housing of the growing numbers of immigrants.
“And all because of a so-called nitrogen problem the government created itself. It was created by farming-hostile civil servants in The Hague who focused on nitrogen deposits and went a long way to select a large number of sometimes very small areas with nutrient poor species for protection in the EU Natura 2000 list.
”READ FULL ARTICLE: https://www.tsln.com/news/food-control-dutch-farming-on-the-verge-of-a-disaster-as-government-pushes-to-close-3000-farms/
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