Netherlands To Close 3000 Farms To Comply With EU Climate Rules
By Paul Homewood
A reminder that ours is not the only government losing the plot!
The Dutch government plans to buy and close down up to 3,000 farms near environmentally sensitive areas to comply with EU nature preservation rules.
The Netherlands is attempting to cut down its nitrogen pollution and will push ahead with compulsory purchases if not enough farms take up the offer voluntarily.
Farmers will be offered a deal “well over” the worth of the farm, according to the government plan that is targeting the closure of 2,000 to 3,000 farms or other major polluting businesses.
Earlier leaked versions of the plan put the figure at 120 per cent of the farm’s value but that figure has not yet been confirmed by ministers.
“There is no better offer coming,” Christianne van der Wal, nitrogen minister, told MPs on Friday. She said compulsory purchases would be made with “pain in the heart”, if necessary.
Biodiversity under threat
The Netherlands needs to reduce its emissions to comply with EU conservation rules and agriculture is responsible for almost half the nitrogen emitted in the proud farming nation.
The Dutch environment agency has warned that native species are disappearing faster in the Netherlands than in the rest of Europe and that biodiversity is under threat.
But the new plan looks set to reignite tensions with farmers over nitrogen reduction.
Dutch farmers have staged mass protests, burnt hay bales, dumped manure on highways and picketed ministers’ houses over the last three years.
In 2019 a ruling by the Dutch Council of State meant every new activity that emits nitrogen, including farming and building, needs a permit.
That has prevented the expansion of dairy, pig and poultry farms, which are major sources of nitrogen from ammonia in manure mixed with urine. This can be harmful for nature when it washes into rivers and the sea.
Last month, an army of thousands of tractors took to the roads in protest and caused the worst rush hour in Dutch history with 700 miles of jams at its peak.
Farmers fear that the plan to slash emissions by 2030 will cost them their livelihoods, oppose any compulsory purchases and argue farming is unfairly targeted while other sectors such as aviation are not.
‘Restrictions without perspective’
Farmers’ lobby group LTO Nederland said trust in the government “has been very low for a long time”. It accused the Government of drafting “restrictions without perspective”.
Sjaak van der Tak, chairman of LTO, said: “Of course it is positive that a good voluntary stop scheme is being promised. But the stayers who are central to us will have many additional restrictions imposed.”
Agractie, another farmers’ organisation, said the voluntary closure scheme was welcome but must not be applied with the threat of compulsory purchase.
Ministers will decide if enough farms have come forward voluntarily to close in the autumn. They say the plan will help biodiversity recover, building could resume and farms without proper nitrogen permits could be legalised.
They are also looking at eventually taxing nitrogen emissions to encourage more sustainable practices, the Dutch News website reported.
The Dutch cabinet also wants to draw up a long term plan for the future of agriculture with farmers, environmental groups and local government.
The voluntary buyout scheme was “the only way to finally create opportunities for the construction of homes, the construction of new infrastructure and for projects to make the Netherlands more sustainable in the shortest possible time,” said Ingrid Thijssen, chairman of VNO-NCW, an employers’ federation in the Netherlands.
Last month, the Netherlands Assessment Agency said other buyout schemes over the last 25 years had failed to substantially cut the number of cattle.
While voluntary buyouts might be attractive for some older farmers ready to retire, the vast majority would be left facing long term unemployment. There are estimated to be 17500 dairy farms in the Netherlands, so 3000 is a hell of a chunk, which will not only cost a lot of jobs, direct and indirect, but also cause a lot of damage amongst farming communities.
Forget about the nonsense of biodiversity, this is all about cutting emissions to achieve climate targets. Meanwhile the Dutch government seems quite happy to use the opportunity to build more houses for immigrants.
Why do western governments hate their own people so much?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Sri Lanka was a pilot study
Are they all completely mad
Yes.
Yes and we keep voting them back into office. We had the opportunity to stem the tide in the US in the last midterms but decided not to because abortion was declared by the Supreme Court not to be a constitutional right but returned to the states. People voted democrat- these are all the climate loons.
Yup. Leftism is of a piece.
Nitrogen reduction? What a deadly gas Nitrogen, N2, is. Perhaps its just been badly reported, its not done me much harm and I must have swallowed tons of it over my lifetime.
Typically, ignorant politicians and bureaucrats don’t know the difference between nitrogen and the insignificant greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.
Are we living a marxist dream , or witnessing a phoenix rise of fascism?
Its difficult to tell the difference with tehe current Western governments.
Compulsory purchase, land theft, criminalisation of ordinary people living ordinary lives.
I have been anticipating a huge push back for many years now. I think its coming. The stars are aligning. Ordinary folk have limits to their tolerance before they become very, very pissed off. That point is, I fear, fast approaching in the Netherlands, in the UK, in Germany and in other western countries.
The madness continues. The worm will turn. It is not going to be pleasant – potentially civil unrest and violence. You can just feel it brewing. And governments just continue to press on with their crazy, out of touch policies.
Utter, utter insanity.
Yep..agree 100% ..I am 71 , never felt so anti’ government etc..in my life
I’m wishing I could believe that because I think Second Amendment type direct action is perhaps the only thing these Marxists will feel which might alter their vicious mindset unless they are carted off to the local Gulags. I believe strongly that in the UK we have been and perhaps still are too comfortable to revolt. This type of centralised theft might just be the match to the blue touch paper. The Dutch have a history of being split as a population ( cf Dutch Nazis in WWII, collaborators, as well as Belgium, especially France and Italy ) and took extreme revenge but not perhaps as much as some other occupied countries. It is more than insanity…..imposed deathwish more like. It strikes me that these elites want to import millions to stock up on future voting stock for “free and fair elections”; now, let me think, who started that off …….
Yep..agree 100% ..I am 71 , never felt so anti’ government etc..in my life, but I don’t think Govs etc..are ..Out of Touch’ ..they know what they are doing..its deliberate
Socialism and fascism are sisters, born of the same totalitarian impulse to mould and direct humans to the ends the state desires, regardless of the consequences. Arguing whether they are left or right matters not when your freedoms are crushed by either.
During the War there were NZ sympathisers in the UK who were called ‘fifth-columnists’. They were working to prepare the way for a NZ Britain (think of Just Stop Oil in black shirts). I get the awful feeling of Deja-vu when I see what stupid decisions are being made by our ‘leaders’ which are at odds with our continued security – which, in being set up for the new NZ future is, actually paving the way for a OWG of a red tinge.
Tail wags the dog again. I wonder what a general election in the Netherlands would achieve and how to bring it about. They should run this one pass the French farmers . A salutary lesson for the UK remainers perhaps.
Depends on who controls the election as we see in the US.
“farms or other major polluting businesses”
The life itself is a major polluting business.
Utter madness..mindboggling utter madness
The voluntary buyout scheme was “the only way to finally create opportunities for the construction of homes, the construction of new infrastructure and . . .”
The above is to stop – –
“… native species are disappearing faster in the Netherlands than in the rest of Europe …”
I’m missing the logic! How covering the land with housing and infrastructure is good the environment is a mystery.
The “native species” angle suggests excess nitrogen in water runoff is the driver of this because Nitrogen gas (N2) is rather common in the atmosphere.
Other Nitrogen compounds are problematic but should be thought of as extremely minor players in the AGW mantra.
When it comes to providing food over ‘native species’ I don’t think the Dutch – or anyone – will want to eat daisies and buttercups.
Here you go, Henry!
Nice juicy maggots!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/03/maggots-could-revolutionize-global-food-supply-heres-how/
Absolutely disgraceful. Are there no European politicians that will resist the “climate” scam?
Nigel Farage!
He’s just a joke.
A joke who achieved his aim against all odds, beating the entire establishment.
What have the non-jokes achieved?
A lot of people don’t believe so, Adam, such as David Cameron for a start, remember that photo of him standing on the steps of No. 10 looking like he’d been punched in the stomach with his wife in tears, waiting for the removal van the day the result of the Referendum was announced?
He created a new political party from scratch in around six weeks and used it to win a majority in the EU Parliament and become the leader of the British contingent.
It is also highly likely that he kicked a vital cornerstone out of the EU foundations, hastening and ensuring its ultimate demise.
And Ken Clarke who opposes his politics 100% described him as the most important and influential European statesman of the 21st century, nor is he by any mean the only senior statesman to believe that.
And yet, he accomplished all that without ever holding a position in the UK Parliament.
But hey, you keep right on believing that, the more people like you who are so deluded that they write him off, the better.
Yes, Estonians. They look like joining in with Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Sweden and I think the Poles are close.
There are 2 reasons politicians will run with the ‘climate sceptic’ line, (1) they come to understand it and are brave enough to defy ‘faux consensus’, and (2) they detect the tide is turning, and will be out of office if they remain ‘on message’ (regardless of reality). We have to keep up the pressure on them and the general public, saying what the realities are, and why they’re facing the high energy costs and potential supply disruptions.
I learnt in history that the Dutch really valued family farms because during WW2 family farms provided food security during the occupation. Now they appear to be giving that up at the alter of global warming.
It’s not just the EU and its member states encouraging this sort of action. The Greens in New Zealand are pushing for the last ruminants farms (sheep and cattle). Dairy farmers in Ireland are also facing the same sort of pressure although I realise Ireland is a member of the EU and it could be exactly the same as the Dutch.
French farmers would show them how to react!
I have reached the conclusion that the Greens, zealots, alarmists don’t care how many people they push into penury and starvation.
Greentards are misérable people who hate life. They want everyone else to be like them.
And when ‘everyone else is just like them’ they will become our Commissars and lead a privileged existence not available to the proles.
“…they will become our Commissars…”
No; of one amusing fact we can be sure. The Revolution always eats its children, and so the present lot of would-be tyrants will be purged first in the inevitable game of ‘who is more extreme than whom.’
“Forget about the nonsense of biodiversity, this is all about cutting emissions to achieve climate targets.”
Do these agency people not understand that cutting emissions takes no CO2 out of the atmosphere…to achieve climate targets. What it does do is make transportation fuels less and less available and more costly to complete the transition to renewables and electric transportation.
No, they’re thick as mince.
No, Chas, I don’t think they are thick: they merely accept that most of the public are and will be easily fooled. They actually rely on us ridiculing them as it takes the eye off the ball.
But much less useful as mince can be used in burgers, meat loaf, lasagne, cottage pie…..
When people question whether politicians are really thick I always recall the comment made by Dr North that before he met with these people he respected them. However, on meeting them he was left wondering how they made it through the day unaided given how stupid they are.
How the hell is anyone that Stupid. I realize that environmental wackos are functionally illiterate morons, but an entire Government full of these idiots, time for the Netherlands to shut down and reboot.
Absolutely mad. The “evidence” is utter junk science, activist rubbish. We are in the manic grip of a cultist madness that has infected every institution and government.
What is the Dutch govt smoking? Do they not realise that ‘livelihood’ does not equate to the value of the farm, but to the annual income?? What does their govt think will happen to the land, or will they tenant it out, and continue farming as before? In which case, this will be one of the most blatant ‘land grabs’ in history.
Surely the education in western countries is letting us down. “Nitrogen” wow that sounds scary! Nitro glycerine well that’s an explosive isn’t it?
How is it these nutters have managed to make 80% of what you breath in so scary as well as making a demon of what you exhale. And for God’s sake don’t fart!
But somehow a really dangerous and quite “unnatural” product (H2) is somehow our saviour.
YCMIU
It’s not about cutting emissions, CO2 or N2O. It’s about oppression. The corrupt Dutch government wants to clear thousands of farmers off the land to make way for a new Tristate city which will house 45 million people. They are so corrupt that they don’t even care about where their food is going to come from.
They might care when the people realise it’s not coming from anywhere, and they realise who deliberately ‘broke’ the food supply system.
Not to mention the effect on food supply outside the Netherlands
>>They might care when the people realise it’s not coming from anywhere, and they realise who deliberately ‘broke’ the food supply system.
These rules are not related to ‘climate”. It is not about CO2 or other greenhouse gases and their alleged catastrophic effect on the climate. It is about two nitrogen compounds (not nitrogen itself): NH3 and NOx. Specially NH3 is certain plants (e.g. poison ivy) grow faster than others. It disrupts/limits the growth of other plants around it. It makes for an unbalanced growth and have ‘thus’ a negative effect on nature. So the emission of both compounds needs to be limited.
Some side notes:
– NH3 and NOx emissions have been on a sharp declined for almost two decades. Amongst others thanks to investments of farmers into technology.
– NH3 and NOx concentrations in NL are relatively high compared to other EU countries. However, they are low compared to parts of other parts of the world with heavy traffic and heavy industry (e.g. China, India).
– because of the sudden rules, construction of new homes, offices, renewable energy facilities etc. is either being delayed or being canceled.
PS. People refer to carbon dioxide as carbon; people refer to ammonia as nitrogen. Should we refer to water as oxygen?