In the Netherlands, nitrogen sets fire to intensive farming

Blazes of hay on the roads, empty stalls in supermarkets… It has been seven weeks since thousands of farmers mobilize every day to NetherlandsEurope’s leading meat exporter, to denounce an environmental plan they deem unfair. Monday 1^is August, they plan to toughen their action by blocking the ports and Schiphol-Amsterdam airport, the second largest in the European Union.

Anger had been simmering since the announcement of the radical nitrogen planfin 2021 : it provides for the disappearance of 30% of livestock and a limitation of fertilizers saturated with ammonia. A heartbreak for this country champion of intensive breeding. Even more than the 100 million poultry, it is the 4 million cattle and 12 million pigs that are worrying: their droppings generate 40% of the country’s nitrogen emissions. But Amsterdam wants to halve, by 2030, these discharges from livestock effluents.

We are reaching the limits of what nature can bearsums up the Liberal government of Mark Rutte. With 17.7 million inhabitants, this small overpopulated country is suffocating under pollution. Nitrogen-soaked soils, dirty water, green algae in profusion… Not to mention the burping and farting of cows and pigs, which alone release 16% of Dutch greenhouse gas emissions.

Nature Minister Christianne van der Wal does not mince words: “Not all farmers will be able to continue their activity. And the others will have to review their practices. » More than 24 billion euros are planned to cushion the transition, buy back land and compensate breeders. Unacceptable, decides the Farmers Defense Group union. Farmers refuse to be the only ones to toast when industry continues to pollute.

They don’t digest either. political inconsistencies and the newly signed free trade agreement between the EU and New Zealand. An agreement obsolete “, also says the European farmers’ union Via Campesina: Priority is given to agri-export rather than the changes that farmers and the planet need.