For anyone wondering why we grow grass as a crop a lot of the ground isn't well suited for the regular crops you might think of, but it is often excellent for grass or tulips. And so as a result we have gone big on livestock, feeding it all that grass and hay. so we get a lot of products, like milk, which we then use for things like the famous Dutch cheeses.
This isn't the whole story: if the land was so perfect for grazing there would be a closed nitrogen cycle. But that's not the case: extra fodder and fertilizer are being used which creates an excess of nitrogen.
Yeah, you'd need 3 times the entire area of the Netherlands in grass just to feed the almost 5 million cows we have, not even talking about the rest of the livestock...
The netheerlands is not the 2nd biggest *food* exporter by value, it's the 2nd biggest *agricultural* exporter by value - and because a large part of those agricultural exports are made up by flower exports, the 2 cannot be equated
Thanks, I was looking for that context, though I had originally expected "food exporter" to be a result of a large amount of food processing being done in the Netherlands, but them being the 2nd largest agricultural exporter makes a lot more sense!
Floriculture accounts for about 10% of total agriculture export actually (~9.5 billion out of ~105 billion euros). A much larger share of 29 billion euros is throughput or import -> re-export, if you decide to exclude that part the share of floriculture in national production is 13%. If you take away the floriculture and focus just on food export, we still end global 2nd place, with both Germany and Brazil exporting around 81 billion as 3rd and 4th place. If you take away the throughput we end up around 6th place or lower, sources stop being as corresponding so I'm not too sure There's also the issue of gmo seeds, which were to me a surprising large share in our agricultural export value but it's debatable wether you can count those as food as well. My point being is that the situation rapidly becomes more complex as you add more context, the 2nd largest food exporter does in fact still stand but in these kind of rankings there are plenty of criteria to change the result so that it becomes somewhat semantic
the Welsh assembly have said farmers need to use their land to plant 20% trees and 20% wild flowers. Effectively reducing food production in Wales by 40%. That's a big figure. Given inflation rates and foodshortages it really isn't a great plan.
The Senedd hasn't been the Welsh Assembly since May 2020. Furthermore, the 20% can include existing woodland on the farm, so depending on the farm, they may not need to plant 20% only the difference to make it up to 20%. Whether it is a good plan or not, I cannot be sure, but considering that many farms include mountains (heathland and moorland) that are not pasture, I doubt somewhat the reduction of food production in Wales will amount to 40%. If it does, then the Welsh Government and the Senedd need to relook at how the overall target can be achieved without reducing food production.
It is if you plan on starving people. Hahahaha 😆 That's what you get for ignoring history and not learning that Socialism is only a pre-Communism stage. Hahaha. Good luck.
I'm from the Netherlands and here's a bit of extra context: in 2015 a member of the coalition (Henk Bleker) proposed a new law (PAS - Program handling nitrogen) which basically said the government and all the companies in Holland (farmers, construction, ect.) did not have to think about nitrogen emissions, as long as the government could promise to compensate in the future. A lot of advisory committees warned that this was an idiotic proposal, but the government did it anyway. In 2019 the council of state (the one headed by our king) ruled that most of the planned projects couldn't be executed, because the nitrogen emission has already been expelled in the years prior. That's why the farmers (and constructers) protested back in 2019. Then indeed covid happened and the country had a bunch of bigger problems. As for my personal opinion: this all leads back to the clearly imbicile plan from Henk Bleker. If the government sat down with the farmers and constructers back in 2015, we could've had a shot at gradually lowering our emissions.
The farmers need time & help to transition to net zero - your help & the help of the govt. The real reason for the state attacking the farmers is a land grab for big corporations to take over. Drive the small farmers into bankruptcy & snap up the land cheap. Dont listen to the propaganda - its happening everywhere - Bill Gates is now the biggest land owner in the US
Thanks. So we have to get going with the talks with government, industry, farmers, etc. that should have taken place in 2015. I believe that everybody can agree on the final goals, but the disagreement is about how to get there.
Hi, this is the first time I've ever heard of "nitrogen emissions" the atmosphere is 79-80% nitrogen. I live in Canada and there are stories about the huge herds of Bison that roamed North America, herds so large that they took days to pass through any area as they migrated. This all makes me wonder about how we decide what is the proper ballance for nature?
No you can't gradually lower the emissions in our country because 1. we're too densely populated, 2. cattle breeding which is the biggest portion of our country emits too much nitrogen 3. Building houses also emits nitrogen, since we're in a housing crisis that's an issue. Besides that the nitrogen laws are EU based not only from Henk Bleker. Also it's either the farmers are gonna sell their land or change their ways otherwise all Dutch in their 20s are gonna be staying at home till their 30s which is gonna create a new crisis all together. What should the government do? Spend money with reasonable prices for the land they're trying to buy from the farmers dirtcheap since they were already lied to by the goverment multiple times, sadly some farmers will have to cease if we want our housing crisis to be fixed. Furthermore calling the nitrogen crisis imbecile also shows you lack understanding of the problem we're facing, we have one the best educations and I assume you have had biology before. If so, you know the counterargument by the farmers that the 'trees' need more nitrogen is bullshit because everything works in a balance with nature.
Couple of corrections: 1) The government has openly stated that forced purchases (expropriation) of farms is an option. 2) Farmers are also pissed because they were blatantly lied to for a decade ending in 2019. Many borrowed for investments they'll be unable to repay under the new situation. 3) We consume just 20% of the food we produce, the rest is exported... so the "increased prices argument" doesn't hold, especially when you consider that higher prices for milk would actually help all the dairy farmers.
Farmers are pissed because they don't want to do anything that affects their bottom line despite most of them being literally millionaires. The core issue is the common folk cannot keep going on business as usual when that business affects the planet and the climate, the rest is all just dancing around the fact that if we want to not fuck up the climate even more the society collectively needs to take drastic measures that will affect us all.
@@InTimeTraveller for the last decade or so, there seems to have been a new rule restricting the farmers every 6 or so months, in my opinion the nitrogen debate is just the final drop
@@InTimeTraveller I can't even begin to imagine how anyone could set up a serious conversation by maintaining that FARMERS are some blood sucking elitist class looking down at the plebs.
the second correction is completely true. and exactly the point that makes me so angry as a young GL voter. The government has known for decades that scaling up is not possible (at least it should have known that). and yet the farmers have been encouraged for years to grow bigger. As a result, many farmers took on large debts. This is because the price they received for their products went down and they couldn't keep up otherwise. Meanwhile, the profits of large companies are growing. Same story with Schiphol, such a large airport in such a small country is simply not possible. And it can just keep growing. Now that it is really no longer sustainable, the government is taking drastic but unclear measures. This is not the fault of the farmers, but of the government. That said, the so-called playful actions are absolutely unacceptable. Perhaps even more frustrating is that no opposition party has come up with alternative plans that might actually solve it. The left is holding back like some slacker, and most right-wing parties are just adding more fuel to the fire.
The Council of State being 'headed' by the King is both true and false at the same time. Yes he's on the council and yes he's officially it's chair, but the vice-chair actually leads the council.
@@GwainSagaFanChannel The Queen can't just stop parliament. The dissolution of parliament/holding of an election is done at the PMs request. Sure, she could try, but if she were to, it'd cause a massive constitutional crisis and the power would be taken away. Because the UK has an uncodified constitution, there are a bunch 'well, technically this is possible but it will never happen' scenarios. I agree this is different from the Dutch case, but to actually say which monarch has more power is a bit difficult. If she _does_ have any power, it would be as a backstop in a situation where a PM has done something extremally constitutionally questionable and controversial within parliament. For example, if Johnson had tried to hold a snap election to avoid being ousted by his own party. Which, TBH, I'm fine with. Edge cases and loop holes are the bane of any constitutional system (written or not), so having a largely apolitical arbiter in extreme cases seems sensible
Yes...cut back on Dutch farming, which means exports, and move the nitrogen and co2 output elsewhere on the planet where it will probably create greater greenhouse emissions and be less efficient....and possibly contribute to food shortages.
That's stupid and it shows you do not understand. Nitrogen build up is caused because there are to many farmers in one small spot. It is a unique problem for NL. It causes local ground to be destroyed.
TLDR, I would like to point out that the current issue and protest has nothing to do with CO2. This is only about nitrogen and its derivatives. Net zero is usually associated with CO2 reductions.
@@mormacil Indeed. These fools in government don't seem to realize that farmers will often rotate with Alfalfa to replenish the nitrogen in the soil, thereby preventing soil depletion.
@@GB-gf3dm Just vote for the ones that aren't ignorant? I never seen one I voted for make such big mistakes. Especially when elected they have a team of experts to guide them.
Yeah the discussion is not about CO2 reduction, but it SHOULD be. If we reduce the "veestapel" (amount of cows?), we not only reduce the nitrogen (read: ammonia) problem, but also reduce CO2. Yet weirly, no one talks about that here in the Netherlands.
ALERT! 1.54 The issue between the government and farmers is NOT about greenhouse gases. It is about the management of 'nitrogen' (stikstof), in this context meaning NOx and ammonia. It is NOT A CLIMATE ISSUE, but a disagreement on environmental protection regulations. The fact that you bring up greenhouse gases in the context of this conflict is reason enough to mark this as misinformation.
@@Eelis0 - So, how much truth is there is there in the allegation the Dutch government wants to appropriate large amounts of farmland to house immigrants?
We're going to have something similar happen in the UK I think once the farming subsidies are phased out and can't compete against cheaper foreign imports. It's so short sighted for urban Governments to set policy without taking into account how it will impact rural communities and internal food production. We had France do it first with the yellow shirts, now it's the Dutch and the Canadians aren't that far behind. I'm pretty sure just as with the Yellowshirts and now the Dutch these protests and strikes will be broken by Government sanctioned violence against peaceful (if disruptive) protests. Maybe Governments should stop biting the hands that feed them?
@@evo8power228I never claimed we were part of the EU and Brexit is the reason British farming subsidies were being axed as the EU used to pay them out (from those EU taxes that didn't go to the NHS like was promised) and the UK government decided they would extend the program for a couple of years but it was due to end this year. These protests aren't EU madness, it's what happens when poorly thought out and unrealistic Government environmental policies and targets damage such a vital industry so they can virtue signal about being environmental while not affecting their lifestyles.
The e.u tells the euro puppet governments what to do ! You can't be this nieve !!! They just do what the e u tells them! The e.u has greta on there environmental board!!! You people are insane if you support the e.u .....TURKEYS VOTING FOR XMAS
The World's government's have their own food stocks in their many underground bunkers so their alright Jack and they don't give a rats arse about we the people as their trying to control what we eat now and the compliant idiots of the general public will listen to them and follow them blindly ? That's a certainty ?it will be our own kind that will sink us all ? Control the food supply of a Country and you control the people is their famous motto ?
It does have to be mentioned that we have a different way of measuring the nitrogen emissions than the rest of Europe. Which is why it is so controversial. We are the only country where this controversial way of measuring the emissions and here a lot of family business will like need to be closed. Earlier this week a "different calculation" came out which stated the emissions were significantly lower
The most important thing this video missed is that climate change doesn't have much to do with this. It's a biodiversity problem caused by excess nitrogen that the government is planning to tackle. This is very much a localized problem, unlike climate change. Involving Chinese CO2 emissions in it is merely a smokescreen thrown up by special interest groups.
how is reducing greenhouse emissions (nitrogen oxides are greenhouse gases) not about climate change? Especially when that greenhouse emission (nitrogen oxides) also reduces the capacity (reduced biodiversity) for capturing (by plants) the main greenhouse emissions (CO2).
@@nydydn It's about degrees. The Netherlands has a very acute biodiversity problem because of excess nitrogen. Climate change is a secondary factor and the timetables are very different.
@@nydydn it’s not so much about nitrogen oxides, but about ammonia (NH4), which settles down in nature causing plants and insects to die, causing harm to biodiversity.
@@nydydn I recommend reading up on "Eutrophication" it's a local environment issue that will kill whatever tiny speck of nature still exists in the country.
N2O, which is produced by soil bacteria when there is an excess of nitrogen compounds in the soil, is a very powerful greenhouse gas, and takes over a century to leave the atmosphere. It also depletes the ozone layer.
You know what's a great idea let's close the most efficient farms in terms of emissions. Then we'll just import more food from countries who don't give a crap about any type of environment.
@@adamantineking3766 They are exporting agriculture to other places, which is a horrible thing to do which we should have learned from Magret Thatcher closing down all the coal mines
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is not about climate. It is about the environment and bio-diversity. The plans are not to slash 30% anywhere throughout the country, but at pretty specific locations where the environment is under pressure
You are correct this has nothing to do with climate. There are hundreds of locations and they all have a 3 km radius around them so that covers a big part of the country. This makes them not super specific.
It's the Dutch government that has been slacking and came up with a policy it even hinted itself on being illegal (raad van staten). From a farmer's perspective, there's no way to do the right thing. Earlier measures were announced and farmers complied. Now those measures aren't good enough. Farmers from what I know are more than willing to comply with a feasible plan - they cannot be blamed for the failure of the government to come up with one. Well now they are on a recess, which lasts 8 weeks. With all urgency and pressure they just dumped on the farmers, they'll just loiter around for 8 weeks. That while the issue is incredibly important, we _really_ do need a good plan. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nah. You're dealing with a Communists takeover using 'Climate Change' as a false pretext. Ignore everything they say about the climate and prepare for a sudden dictatorship.
The plan is actually to place these rules which will reduce farmer crop yields Reducing the income of farmers and forcing a lot to sell their land 30% is a large cut, and the nitrogen from cattle is needed to grow crops well Reducing whats needed for crops is obviously bad and will lead to low food supply The netherlands is following the 2030 agenda
The Netherlands is a pretty special case. It's one of the most intensively farmed countries in the world. This leads to high efficiency, but also a lot of pollution and not much room for nature. They do have more animals relative to their small land area than is sustainable. There are regions where there isn't enough land to spread the manure from the giant animal farms without leading to overfertilization and pollution. Sorrounding parts of northwestern Europe may be in the same position, but this situation hardly reflects most of Europe.
The Dutch know this and have taken extra measures for their farming. They pushed back the sea for their farming! Amazing that their politicians have betrayed them like this. Wait, not amazed at all. The dutch voted against joining the EU! Globalists destroyed western industry, now they are after agriculture too.
This isn't too unusual in Western and central Europe. It's also the case for most of Germany. Overpopulation of livestock is prettymuch a continent wide problem.
Not forgetting that nations like usa and continents like africa and centralamerica also heavily affected by this not just netherlands when it comes to damage done to nature
The Netherlands is a river delta which has the best soil for agriculture. Therefore it makes sense that it is one of the most intense farmed areas in the world.
The video focuses a lot on Net Zero, but in reality the issue is almost exclusively nitrogen. As you show, farmers are the biggest polluters in this regard and nitrogen pollution is a huge problem in the Netherlands. We've reached the ceiling and have had to take some pretty extreme measures (100km/h max speed, temporary halting of building projects) in order to keep under the limit. This problem is more local than global, if farms were to move to other places in Europe then the problem would be gone in the Netherlands (not saying that that is a realistic option tho). We're a small country with a lot of farms, and that's not longer sustainable. But how to reduce these emissions without screwing over a lot of people is a hard task. The previous governments have pretended too long that this issue did not exist and have been helping farmers to expand their operations. Now all of a sudden they are forced to keep the nitrogen limit and have to screw over farmers who expanded because the government encouraged them.
The farmers need time & help to transition to net zero - your help & the help of the govt. The real reason for the state attacking the farmers is a land grab for big corporations to take over. Drive the small farmers into bankruptcy & snap up the land cheap. Dont listen to the propaganda - its happening everywhere - Bill Gates is now the biggest land owner in the US
To be fair "you're just moving emissions" is a pretty valid argument against the specific target of reducing numbers of animals. We need to take into account not just our direct emissions but the emissions caused by our purchasing decisions
No it is not: - this effect is local, so it doesn't have anything to do with global warming. - you still need a shitload of food and product logistic movements. Do you have any idea how much a cow eats during its lifetime? Or how much milk it produces?
@@PbPomper You are so ignorant, The global demand for meat is growing. Agriculture in the Netherlands is extremely efficient, innovative and concentrated. By moving the Meat and Dairy production to other places, there will be an extreme increase in logistical movements to feed the livestock and to provide customers with dairy products since the other places will not be as efficient and concentrated like the agriculture in the Netherlands. Resulting in a global increase of emissions by logistic movements.
No it's not, if your goal is to protect local nature then moving the emissions elsewhere is a pretty good idea (as long as the new place does not have the same issues)
@@bunnywar True, so there is a definite need to decrease meat consumption overall, but it does mean that 'it'll move somewhere else' isn't always a problem
I don't think enough attention is given in this video to how bad our biodiversity actually is. We have entire groups of animals going extinct in the country. Some groups have already had half of their members go extinct in the country. For example, for the insect group Plecoptera we used to have 28 species in the Netherlands. However, of these, 17 have gone extinct in the country. Only around 10% of our reptile species are not threatened. Also for our pollinating insects the picture is dire, which is the very foundation of all of our plant agriculture. And the huge amounts of nitrogen being deposited and the factory farms that need to reduce in size are all right next to protected natural areas. The last places in which we have some biodiversity left are simply being threatened and won't be around for much longer due to eutrophication if things keep on going as they are.
With most of the country covered by farmland and all farmers using inceticide this is not a wonder.. and let's not forget about the fertilizer that made our ground dead. There no more worms in the ground and when you pickup farm ground it clumps together instead of falling appart. This doesn't sound like a huge problem untill you do some research...
I'm no expert. It's my opinion that large scale farming leads to a lot of unsustainable practices. I would like to see more people work in agriculture, but for that to be possible, it would have to be more profitable on the smaller scale. I'm eager to see how The Netherlands moves forward, the country is really a world leader in so many ways.
You are totally right about biodiversity. I feel that the farmers need an educational crash course on the whole issue and the options that can mitigate environmental problems. And a sensible approach where real solutions can be developed with all parties involved. This dumping from on high puts everyones backs up, and the arrogant approach to the issues shows the distain these elites have for Humanity as if they are above everyone else with their wealth...
Saying "nitrogen emissions" and showing the periodic table entry of the element is misleading and bad reporting when nitrogen makes up 3/4 of our atmosphere. *I* know that you mean nitrous oxides, but most people watching don't have a chemistry background
They are talking about nitrate run off, that occurs when land is fertilised in excess of the crop's requirements.The run off adversely affects the local ecosystems generally and amphibians, fish and insect larvae in particular. Run off can be lessened by careful monitoring of soil conditions, varying the inputs accordingly. The soil can be improved by the addition of clay, so that the land retains the fertiliser for longer. The Netherlands has a particular problem because it is mostly reclaimed land, and the whole country is subject to active water management. So making soils harder to drain may not be a clever move. The whole business of housing more cattle in barns is to take them off the land. Their urine and dung add to the nitrate pollution.
As a Dutch citizen I think that both parties are to blame here. The amount of nitrogen that the farmers put out should have been stopped ages ago, but the government also all but forced all farms to increase productivity in the last decades. Simply put, the amount of NO2 in the air at farms is not the problem, but the amount of NO2 per km2 is. Spread these farmers out over a larger area and this problem would not exist, but this means that reductions will have to be made. I myself have been at the recieving end of government shananigans because of studentloans and I think the answer I got most about that really fits here: You got screwed, get used to it and do as you are told
The farmers need time & help to transition to net zero - your help & the help of the govt. The real reason for the state attacking the farmers is a land grab for big corporations to take over. Drive the small farmers into bankruptcy & snap up the land cheap. Dont listen to the propaganda - its happening everywhere - Bill Gates is now the biggest land owner in the US
the government also incentivise farmer to use NO2 by creating subsidies and laws that incentivise and many times give no other option to companies and people about which agricultural techniques to use.
Small correction at 3:50 : the protests were planned to be held in the Hague (where parlement is located). Not in the capital (which is Amsterdam). I believe that on short term notice they even moved to a different place then the Hague but don't quote me on that
@@mormacil yes for z-holland, but that doesn't matter in this context. They didn't want to go to the Hague because it's the capital of z-holland but because of parlement
"There's even been reports of police firing at farmers". That's not a good manner of framing it given what information is already at hand. One polic officer fired one bullet at the tractor of one farmer. As per usual when ever a firearm is fired by a police officer, this is now being investigated. The vagueness with which you say it unnecesarily leaves too much open for interpretation.
This story skips on the fact that if no emission cuts happen soon, the Dutch government and individual farmers are liable to be sued for extreme amounts of money at the European Court
or the goverment pushing for growth earlier, or the farmers organisations lobbying for doing something about emissions "in the future" a decade or 2/3 ago.
EU regulations are a joke. They do not have unbiased and rational judges in the courts. They allow meat imports from as far as NewZealand in to EU and if a lawyer computes the emissions for such imports vs Dutch produce, It would be logical to use Dutch produce even with extra local emissions. A cow grown in Netherlands and consumed in Germany is one less cow grown in Germany, the net emissions across EU will not change.
@@rodtukker1904 yeah or you know, just consume less meat as it is obviously a luxury product that consumes too much resources and energy and has a detrimental effect on the climate and biodiversity
@@cowmath77 we either change willingly by making adjustments now for climate change, or we are forced to make changes in a chaotic event. Either way, we change.
The sad part is that this problem is known from 1984. The government did not do anything about it and now its is forced by the EU and the Councel of State (raad van state). In the past 35 years our farmers were pushed to increase the scale of production and now the land cant take it any more.
1984 was in the past and was a great and fun year unlike what George Orwell said thanks to Ghostbusters, Footloose, Jump by Van Halen, Queen's Radio Gaga and I want to break free, Transformers, Macintosh, Terminator, Thomas the Tank Engine, Prince's Purple Rain, the last starfighter, Police Academy, Tetris and lots more
I mean... Since the war began, every country in Europe has placed their “net zero” target at a corner of their mind when facing with this energy crisis. We have a tough winter ahead of us...
@@tjmichael I hope your statement still stands when it’s December or January. I will not be surprised if coal receives a reprieve from various states. Germany has already restarted some of their reserve coal power plants. Edit: has already decided to restart*
@@tjmichael your parents were lied to. Do some research because they used the methods that kept your parents smoking tobacco and will be used again to fool you. Money talks, people mumble.
@@tjmichael climate change happens naturally yeah we speed up the process but unless you force the climate NOT to change which would be unnatural there is nothing you can do
@@wrpg9955 Yes climate always changes, but it's about how fast it changes. Please educate yourself ffs. My generation with 0 political power atm will have to deal with the shit boomers and millenials have set us up with
It's not about CO2, it's about emission of nitrogen-based molecules (like ammonia). The difference is important, since these nitrogen-based emissions have *local* effects, not global. The regulations state that emissions *close to certain protected areas* (mostly nature) should be cut. It's not about the sum total per se.
They also don't seem to realize that nitrogen in the soil is what makes plant growth possible. Farmers will sometimes alternate with Alfalfa to restore the nitrogen in the soil and prevent depletion which would make the soil barren. Yet another example of city urbane elites not understanding basic botany, and why they should never be dictating to farmers.
@@davidford3115 I mean saying that just shows that you have no idea what amount of nitrogen is required. (Hint the amount intensive livestock farming produces is orders of magnitude too much) There is a reason these protests do not really include large number from outside in the meat or dairy industry… And that is also ignoring the hand of the argi lobby in all of this. In many ways some of these plans have been around since ‘99 but have just been lobbied away over the years.
@@EraYaN Just because the plans have been around for two decades doesn't mean they are actually good plans. Advances in agro-technology has made both animal and plant husbandry MUCH more productive, on the order of 5 to 10 times over "natural" farming. If you like having a full belly, thank a farmer. If you enjoy this modern lifestyle, thank a farmer for making it possible. Fact of the matter is, if you implement the polices you are advocating, you WILL cause a famine comparable to the Ukrainian Holodomor or the Chinese Great Leap Forward Plague. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Don't engage in pseudo-science. Don't be Trofim Lysenko, the "expert" who is the cause of Soviet-Communist artificial famines.
@@davidford3115 Actually for famine related reason it’d be great to get rid of livestock, it is probably the biggest calorie destruction you can think of. And just because it’s efficient doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a huge impact on local ecosystems. The amount of actual farms is just to high in certain areas, hence the idea of reducing that. The density of Dutch intensive livestock farming is staggering, and frankly there are quite a few of them who aren’t even complaint with existing rules about dealing with animal excrement for example. Which is a huge source of ammonia and other run-off into surface water for example. And it’s also rather telling that there were about 2000 livestock farmers that did show up with alternative plans without being disruptive tractor terrorists. Hell most of those were already well without targets.
@@EraYaN That "livestock is inefficient so we should abandon it completely" argument has been made since the 1920s. It was wrong then and it is wrong now and is predicated on a THEORY of land use efficiency that completely ignores the nutritional needs of the human body. It is the same kind of flawed logic behind Lysenkoism. In fact, the proposals are the very cause of the Chinese Famine, if you bother to actually look at the root cause. Meat from livestock gives us the Vitamin B12 we will NEVER get from either plants or insects. And that is not the only nutrient deficiency that will be caused by completely eliminating livestock as a food source from the human diet.
Before we had nitrogen supplements, we used crop rotation. Simply add more legumes like clover and alfalfa to pasture (approx 40% legume, 60% mixed grasses) and rotate more legumes like beans to arable land. Its what small scale meat and dairy farmers do. The benefit to more legumes in the pasture land to animals is that it has a higher protein amount than just grass. So it is more nutritional. Legumes are amazing ar introducing nitrogen to top soil. So much so, every few years, there is so much nitrogen build up that beans grown in successive planting, will grow a huge amount of leaves and few beans to reduce the amount of nitrogen again. You don't need to worry about the build up of nitrogen in pasture because the grass will also consume the nitrogen.
@@MsRainingDays I fit somewhere between smallholder and farmer. I have enough land to farm but I treat my self as a small holder/homesteader I have also studied agriculture and permaculture. Also, spraying nitrogen is something we have been doing for less than a hundred years, we have been farming for 10,000 years so it's not like spraying was a light switch moment. Spraying just enabled farmers to introduce monoculture and specialise in a single crop.
@@Doubleranged1 I haven't really looked at the problem in the Netherlands. Enough problems on the home front, but I didn't realise they had a problem with too much in the soil, I thought the problem was with not being allowed to use nitrogen supplements. To get over too much nitrogen is easy. Grow brassicas.
I like how you used images that aren't from the Netherlands at all or were taken out of context. Like the police car being towed, the car was stuck and a farmer helped. This was years ago. The video with the hills/mountains was not even in the Netherlands. This kinda feels like a propaganda video for the farmers because it takes so much out of context and doesn't really do justice to the problems with nitrogen emissions, how the environment suffers, etc. etc. It's a shame, really.
on many of their videos citizens of the countries being discussed often find large amounts of misinformation and/or images being taken out of context and forced into their narrative.
It appears that the images on a lot of RU-vid channels are just eye candy so that a video presentation is made for a subject that is best served as an audio or written commentary. A lot of stock images to keep your eyes occupied.
@@earthwormscrawl The thing is that a lot of the info is wrong or taken out of context too, and most of the images were also talked about in this video. So it's not "filler".
Yes!!! These videos bring happy tears to my eyes!!! Go Farners GO!!!!! Canadian here ...quite excited to see your tenacity and so grateful that your citizens are also fully supporting your efforts !! God Bless!!!
Other commenters before me pointed out there are some facts in the video that simply aren't true. (The protest wasn't at the capital, the polling website used isn't considered reliable etc.) One tiny bit of information this video is lacking is another reason why these protest are happening. I can't go into full detail in this youtube comment, but in a nutshell : in the last few years farmers have been told by the government to replace their existing buildings (like a stable) for expensive new buildings that supposedly emit significantly less nitrogen. By using these new buildings, they were told they could raise more cattle. They keyword that I used two sentences ago is supposedly, as in they don't work to the level they should. What this means is that in general, a lot of farmers are currently in debt. This is party due to regular investments, and partly due to investments they were incentivized by the government to reduce emissions. Even if the government buys out these farms, the farmers themselves will still be left with a large debt. Like I said, this comment is only a very brief explanation. I could go on to why specifically dairy farmers were incentivized to make these changes, or what triggered other events, or to why the investments that farmers have made since 2015 seem to be without much of an effect. But if I were to do that, I'd never finish writing this comment.
Lets say you've not understood the topic at all.. The fight is about ammonia and nitrogen oxide as a fertilizing agent in fragile and protected environment not as a greenhouse gas. This makes it a local issue not a global issue, as the source and deposits as fertilizing agent is local (over 60% is locally produced not imported) You can pintpoint sources right next to these environmental areas as causes of detrimental effects.
The thing is these environmental areas were imposed on places next to the farmers who existed there long before those areas. It's basically about punishing people and driving them out of business over meeting an artificial number of nature reserves nobody asked for.
I live in the Netherlands. Aside from a couple of delays in getting items to the store I buy I have barely noticed it Things are not paralyzed if you can live your life like normal
@@pjhgerlach This. Also take into consideration most of these groups are financed by big agricultural companies who stand to lose a lot of income, and therefore whip up the protests and organise misguided information to the individual farmers. The image of the poor farmer is really, really out of context here. It's mostly self-important pawns in a bigger game.
@@kristinab1078 I don't know who created this propaganda but there is no evidence that land will be taken from farmers for house development. We simply need to cut down on livestock. So some farmers have to cut down and others will have to stop or move to other countries. They will all be compensated.
Seems odd to me that any politician would pursue a policy that would reduce domestic food production at a time when one of the biggest food producers in the world, Ukraine, is engulfed in a major war.
They want centralized food "creation". Food rations, in other words. Individual farms would have to go out of business and be replaced with fake meat products created in factories by Bill Gates and others, who have piled untold millions of dollars into vegan processed foods. The coming created food crisis, is the beginning of that business model.
I doubt that the regulations are actually created by the dutch government. Probably an idea of brussel and know the countries have to implement it. And it obvious that the EU doesn't care much about the food prices, otherwise the Europe Central Bank would not have continued with their money printing, financing of state debts and 0 interest rate. Inflation was high even before the war in Ukraine. And it was obvious that the inflation wouldn't cure itself like the ECB had claimed.
Ukraine is nowhere near being one of the biggest food producers the U.S China Russia India Brazil Germany Holland Italy and many others producr significantly more.I suggest you do some research before parrotting the mainstream media narrative
@@Worldturnedupsidedown In 2019, in terms of total export value, Ukraine is in the top forty for overall food production. In terms of grain exports, Ukraine was number 4 in the world. That by itself is enough to greatly impact food prices. Tack on COVID-19, bad fiscal and monetary policy and the food prices are out of control. With this as our backdrop, why would you try to reduce your food production now?
agriculture needs to reduce emisions by improving the way they produce, not by reducing the amount of products we can live without cars but we still need food
It seems this video misses one mayor point. This isn't about climate change. This is about the ecology of our Natura 2000 regions. Interesting points to note are that for some of those near the border, the foreign component alone already exceeds the targets we've set ourselves. So the Germans will need to close their farms as well in order to meet these targets, but they won't since the targets they've set themselves is such a low bar, that they can emit 100 times as much before they get into trouble.
Such strong positive rtalk...how are you going to feed people? And employ people?? The green revolution is only an enslavement tool propogandized to exploit people. It's rubbish
Good. These emission reduction standard's purpose is to destroy farming sectors. U will need farmers who ignore these ridiculous standards if U want to eat.
I'd like to add a couple other things to this a someone from the Netherlands. Part of the problem was caused by our last few ministers of Agriculture and provincial governments. Both sides kept encouraging expansion in the agricultural sector even when environmental problems were known to be a concern. As such part of the protest is also about the u-turn the government has made now that other sections of the government started looking at emissions from agriculture. Many farmers have been expanding their businesses and investing literal tons of money. This protest isn't just about farmers going out of business but also about losing millions in investments they had been encouraged to make. many of the policies now being implemented should have been started 8 years ago when we first learned about the potential problem but the opposite was done and now when we are pushing for carbon neutral to all is being done twice as fast as would have ben preferable and with much more investment on the line. Second note is that is mostly about nitrogen pollution as that significantly harms biodiversity. part of the reason the government isn't backing down so quick is due to just how badly a lot of our wildlife is hurting right now.
Nitrogen in the soil isn't pollution, it actually enhances it. There is a reason why farmers alternate with Alfalfa; the nodes in the plant's roots have nitrogen fixing bacteria that prevent soil depletion.
@@davidford3115 Yes it does and enhancing the soil is a problem, I get that you never seen the Netherlands up close but most of the biodiversity comes from selection on barren soil if you take away the barren soil the plants die as they get selected against ( they evolved to survive in barren soil and there for compete poorly in rich soil ).
And then to think the province of Flevoland was originally intended as an agricultural powerhouse....When we left in 2010 land was already taken from farmers for the expansion of Almere.
@@alexmackay7454 the nitrogen in the air isnt the primary problem here. Its about it's derivatives (NO, NO2 NH2 etc.) ending up in normal soil, which changes the composition of the ground. Which in turn impacts the biodiversity. I doubt that the increase in nitrogen in the air is having a significant impact, but because there are bacteria in the ground that transform that nitrogen into it's derivatives, that could lead to soil with a different composition.
The Dutch farmers a few years ago were told to restructure their businesses and invest in lots of new high-tech equipment. Now they tell them to drop production by 30%. Of course they're mad. How are they supposed to repay their big debts ordered by the government?
In the video it is said that the agricultural sector constitutes about 10% of the Dutch economy. The Dutch bureau of statistics has the following information about the agricultural contribution to the economy: "The contribution of the agricultural complex to the Dutch economy was approximately 6.4 percent in 2018. If only primary agriculture is considered, this share is 1.4 percent." "The added value of the total agro-complex amounted to approximately 49 billion euros in 2018. The total agro-complex thus contributes approximately 6.4 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP). Part of the activities of the total agricultural complex is related to the processing of imported raw materials, such as cocoa, grains and tobacco. The added value of the agro-complex based on foreign raw materials is about 2.5 percent of GDP; that of the agro-complex based on domestic raw materials amounted to 3.9 percent. In the part of the agro-complex that is based solely on domestic raw materials, supply and primary production make the largest contribution to the added value with 34 percent and 38 percent respectively. Employment in the total agricultural complex has grown to about 595 thousand work-years in 2018, which is approximately 7.9 percent of national employment."
The title is already wrong. It’s not about net zero. That’s about CO2. It’s about nitrogen. Of course, reducing our live stock would also reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, especially due to methane. But that’s not the point of the current protests.
If you have ever been to a relatively untouched natural area the idea of methane being an issue become laughable as the animals live togeather in huge numbers.
@@blaisemorris1301 thing is, there’s no such thing as untouched nature in the Netherlands. And if you’ve ever visited one of our mega stalls, you’d know that methane and ammonia is a very big problem in this country.
people come from neighboring countries when they observe this, they are not stupid to not understand who has the main say here and is trying to create a problem..
The pro oil & gas people in Norway also uses the argument "people will just buy oil and gas from other unregulated countries" when defending the continuation of searching for more. I think this type of argument is actually applicable to all people that are affected by green transition politics. But the argument is groundless if we already have decided and dedicated to cut emissions collectively.
At least people can reduce the demand for oil and gas. Kind-of difficult to reduce the demand for food. People need to eat and they have limited amount of money. So, they will either buy locally produced food or food, produced in Brazil and shipped. Which option will produce more pollution? I am skeptical about environment regulations that do not come with bans or import tariffs on the same goods produced in countries with less strict environment regulations. It only hurts local businesses and local people, as local businesses become unable to compete with a factory in China or wherever.
It's not groundless. If highly regulated countries stop producing, but the demand does not shrink, you just end up buying the product/service from less regulated countries. This is exactly what happened with Germany and it's crusade for green energy, fuckers just bought shit from Russia...
@@Pentium100MHz those are the go to arguments farmers use all over europe, aren't they? Let us have our way or you'll starve to death, other countries are worse than us and changing our way doesn't make a difference on a global scale anyway.
@@janojupiter2364 I use similar arguments for other stuff. Hypothetical situation. Let's say there are two factories (one in Germany and one in China) producing very similar products. Both factories pollute a lot as part of the production process. Now, Germany passes a new law that requires the local factory to reduce pollution. It does so, but that increases the price of manufacture and the end price of the product. Now the local factory is no longer competitive with the Chinese one (that does not have the same requirements) and either goes out of business or has to move to China as well, laying off workers. The end result is the same (or more) pollution and local people losing their jobs. Some of the regulations make sense - for example, China or India can dump as much toxic waste into their rivers as they want, at least the rivers in Germany get clean. That may be worth the job loss. However, the better way to do it would be to impose import tariffs on products made in countries with less strict environment regulations. This would mean that the local factory can still compete with the Chinese one while reducing pollution. This is especially true for "global" type of pollution like CO2. Here's the good question - would the EU, in this time, be willing to impose tariffs on imported food, raising food prices even more? Or is it just the goal to get rid of local farmers and instead import food from even more polluting farmers of other countries while still raising the prices (less supply, same demand)?
- None of this has anything to do with CO2 reduction targets. It's about nitrogen deposition. - Exporting meat does not reduce food prices locally. This also has nothing to do with high food prices. - Emissions per animal are down, but the number of animals has grown so much that total farming emissions are up. We need to get them back down, not just relatively speaking, but in absolute numbers. - Whether there is popular support or not, the Netherlands is legally required to protect Natura 2000 areas, so emissions in these specific locations are coming down no matter what. - Easy come, easy go; newcomer Forum voor Democratie was the largest party in the 2019 provincial elections, but are currently polling at only 5 seats in the Second Chamber of parliament, should elections be held today. BBB will share a similar fate.
"- Exporting meat does not reduce food prices locally. " Yes, it does. There is a total amount of food produced and a total amount of demand for it. Reduce the supply and prices will go up. For example, Ukraine has problems exporting its wheat. This reduces the supply and food prices go up, including locally produced food. It does not just raise prices on Ukrainian wheat or even wheat in general, more types of food get expensive, because people need to eat.
Why nationalize the land though? Sounds like opportunism from the government in a situation they facilitated. Alternatively they could tax fertilizer and use the income to substitute nitrogen saving solutions. This situation is rather suspicious in light of all the far more effective solutions out there.
@@MarceldeJong if nitrogen is the problem, then there are solutions that makes the use more resource efficient. If the main source is taxed, then those solutions are more likely to be put into practice. One would be more efficient use of cow manure as fertilizer, retaining the nutrient in the soil, preventing it spilling into the surounding ecosystem.
TLDR: There is no scenario in which the Dutch government can set aside the ruling from the High Administrative Court (Raad van State), as it's the highest judge. Even if we have prime minister van der Plas (BBB) she'll be unable to reverse it.
@@AnymMusic the highest court in the land has already judged over it, there’s no further appeal, and unless the party wants to ignore reality, it’s going to have to deal with the ruling. I’m just really glad we don’t have a prime minister Caroline van der Plas.
Does judiciary have such high amount of power? I mean, there needs to be a balance but if democratic will can't overturn judicial decisions, I don't think that's a good idea. I imagine the courts have stated their reasons in great detail, and must be treated with respect but they can't be treated as facts set in stone immune to any criticism and democratic oversight.
@@AnymMusic It's a part of a EU treaty and it has been set in to law. The Council of state/High Administrative Court has already set its interpretation about it, the only way to change it now is to break the treaty. No one in their right mind will do that
Sorry, but this is an incredibly bad take on this issue and some of the framing is pretty disingenuous. 1) It's not about climate change or a tragedy of the commons, it's a local problem of local nature areas that are under direct threat from nearby pollutors. 2) with the 50% reduction of emissions per cattle, it would have been fair to also present the increase in the total number of cattle. Because of that, the decrease in actual emissions has stagnated. 3) The problem is uniquely Dutch, because nowhere else will you find a similar density of cows, pigs or goats. 4) It's really about manure and fertilizer. However, the problem is so big now because of decades of inaction that now all of a sudden a judge has ruled that the practice can no longer continue. Now they are scrambling and all possible solutions are going to hurt
This is actually an issue in the UK as well, although thankfully our government is too busy committing scandals to actually get involved. It's not very well known outside of the construction industry though.
Most farmers are in debt. Because of investments made to lower reductions. After paying of the debt there wont be much left. I dont believe the farm land bought will be used for parks and nature reserves. I will be filled with appartments and homes for mainly immigrants. Filling an area with more people is more poluting for the environment than farming. It is all about money. Developper and investors making money. What the Dutch get is more concrete, asphalt and an even higher population density. Fck that.
@@yourealittlebitfat4344 Farmland is 54% of the area of the Netherlands, Housing and roads are 13%. If what you claimed was true they wouldn't need that much.
Can you please allow me as a legitimate urgent refugee from this country called *the Netherlands* please??! Oh and take my parents, my sister and everyone else with me coz we're SO SICK OF THIS GOVERNMENT AND THE DANN EU!
It should also be noted that one of the governing parties, CDA, has been the party most responsible for giving the farmers the most slack on their nitrogen emissions for years with 'theoretical solutions' in the future that have, so far, only remained theoretical. They have sold the agricultural sector down the river with very lax, permissive regulations until this rubber band couldn't be stretched any more, and now it has snapped all the harder, right in their faces. Farmers have been duped, and while I cannot condone the blockading of distribution centres, as it punishes citizens for the actions of politicians, there remains the age old question of who is more culpable: the conned, or the con-man?
Yeah the CDA and the Dutch Liberal party (VVD) have willingly steered the farmers into the wrong direction by emphasizing growth in volume and monetization into ludicrous production increases. All for the quick buck for now and being blind for the near and intermediate, let alone long future. Political Conservatism created this.
@@soylentgreenb Climate change is pretty terrifying. Especially to a low-lying country that quite plausibly won't exist in 100-200 years. But catastrophic ecosystem collapse may turn out to be much, much worse than climate change - and hey climate change will contribute to that, too. I don't think people realize quite how dependent we are on the natural ecosystem around us, nor just how precipitous the already in-progress mass extinction event is. We _need_ insects and various microorganisms simply to survive, let alone thrive. Nitrogen pollution contributes to the biodiversity decline, so it _needs_ to be dealt with. The fact that _that_ isn't public knowledge and reiterated constantly in this debate is really dangerous. We're not doing this for fun & games, we're going this to save society from collapse. Sure, we may choose different strategies, and nobody knows exactly which one is best, easiest, nor even really sufficient. But that doesn't mean we can afford to just ignore the issue entirely, either.
In a world where right to private property is valued, why does the Dutch government not help subsidize the farmers to change to better environmental practices or help them change to less nitrogen oxide producing livestock; why is the solution to separate the farmer from their land. What is the real goal here?
As a Dutchman, it's really refreshing hearing TLDR's factual report, instead of all the opinions of people around me, or the dutch media. Hoping for both parties to meet in the middle, because they both have valid arguments. Groetjes!
Yeah, I'm also pretty disappointed (and worried) about Dutch media coverage on this one. If selectively presented "facts" dominate the debate, they'll influence the electorate, and force politicians to make choices based not in reality, but to pander to a confused base. Even worse would be if the government then tries the excuse of blaming Brussel's for forcing their hand, because that's a recipe for irrational but very dangerous anti-EU rhetoric. It's really a shame that the actual harms and best ways to deal with them aren't more on the forefront. Instead, it's all about projecting fake pastoralism, and presenting farmers (a very rich and influential group of people) as somehow being oppressed by absurd rules. Public debate isn't based on frank appreciation of the actual situation, but on winning at all costs - including eroding social cohesion, and lying.
Factual report? Lol, the police car being towed in one of the first videos is years old and it was just a police car that got stuck. The "police firing at farmers" might not be totally TLDR's fault but its 1 isolated incident where the farmer in question almost drove into the police. The biodiversity is a real problem and frankly more nature > farmers.
@@SchapieNL that first point you make is very accurate. But my focus is on the overall explanatory way of reporting on this issue. Look for "Atro Patene" 's reaction under this video, there are many sides of this story. Choosing one makes you none the wiser, and that is the overall "vibe" of this video (in stark contrast to a certain Russell's take on this issue)
If you thought that environmentalists are out of touch, just remember that they're pushing for reduction of food production, while half of the world are facing food shortages and possible famine this winter.
So send the soja-beans from amazon to the hungry and not to The Netherlands to produce meat for the richer part of the world. That change will in prove environment in The Netherlands as well.
I currently reside in Noord-Brabant, which at the moment has some of the worst nitrogen pollution in the ground due to widespread fraud in fertiliser record keeping, so their claims of reductions in fertiliser use are partially based on fraudulent statistics. It will eventually ruin the ground water fro human consumption in this province. Farmers have to cut down more, or NL will end up a ground polluted mess.
You're talking about the fact that farmers employ 660.000 people, and that this accounts for a certain percentage of the dutch population. This is not correct, since most of the employees come from Eastern European countries who work here in the right seasons, or sometimes the whole year.
I'm from the Netherlands myself. I don't want to side with either side as I don't think either side are rational, fair and constructive. The public are willing to clap for farmers and nurses, but are not willing to pay fair prices for food or justified salary increases. Our government wants to do everything as cheaply as possible and offer farmers, earthquake victims and others no way forward. Too many farmers only care about the present and don't realize that status quo would be ruinous to the country and their own companies/families. Until all sides are willing to talk as adults, it's not possible to find a suitable solution.
emissions are only part of the story, lot of the issue lies with Nitrogen Deposition which is relatively localized around the farms. which is why many farms close to natural reserves have been bought out and in some cases the results are already visible. so even if less Dutch farmers would mean more import it would still solve at least part of the environmental problem. (at least in the netherlands) though I don't really see how the "less farmers=more import" argument makes sense seeing how the vast majority of Dutch production is being exported, so less production would just mean less export. not necessarily more import cuz that all depends on how this shift to the new situation is handled....
Indeed. The people preaching don't seem to understand that farmers will often plant Alfalfa to restore nitrogen to the soil. These city urban liberals think they know more about biology and botany than the farmers.
Netherlands exports 70% of the food it creates. The plans are for a 30% reduction in emissions. Lets do the apples and oranges thing and reduce production by 30%. Now we can still export 40% of what we do today and have no reduction in domestic consumption. That's ignoring the bit that 80% of Dutch food is imported because we eat a lot of stuff we can't grown ourselves.
@@gilgameschvonuruk4982 The shortage is in grains, which isn't impacted here. The Dutch changes are in livestock, entirely different market mechanics. Also it makes zero sense to destroy our local wildlife for the benefit of other countries. If anything this is a good pressure for better suited less densely used land to be used for this.
@@mormacil The manure from livestock is used as fertilizer, even in the production of grain. If there is less manure, it needs to be replaced with chemical fertilizers, which are one of Russian exports. Also grain is usdd to feed livestock, so a lack of grain affects the meat prices.
@@gilgameschvonuruk4982 Dutch manure is destroyed because shipping it is far to expensive to be competitive with artificial fertilizer. And cattle is almost exclusively fed soy waste husks and not at all effected by grain prices.
I am from America and I stand with the farmers of the world! They are the good guys! Do not let the bad guys take there land and shut them down ----- unless you want us all to starve!
This “nitrogen crisis” is the dumbest thing yet. They want to save the plants or something and at the same time build 1 million more homes…. Thats why they need the land
Interesting as usual, although I missed you pointing out the involvement of the industries that are responsible for cattle food and fertiliser, which have a large interest and have been lobbying for decades resulting us being in this s**t
Balance is key. Going green should not come at the cost of raising the financial burden of working people. Radical steps should be moderated to gradual steps to ease in change instead of flipping off a switch
Except this problem is causing a complete standstill in other areas. They have lowered the maximum speed on our highways in 2020 and there was a complete stop to ANY construction because we were on our max nitrogen and carbon emissions. Meanwhile we have a crippling housing shortage. The only solution is a direct change in the amount of cattle that the Netherlands keeps. As cattle farms do count for 60-70% of total nitrogen emissions (mostly in the form of ammonia)
Here to remember that the farming industry gets 30/35% of total EU subsidy while employing less than 3% of the total population and accouting for less than 8% of total EU gdp. Just to put things in perspective.
well we all need to eat and no country want to rely on other country for their food. just look at all the Africa and middle east country heavily rely on the world food market supply
@@khanhnguyen-tt3ff Absolutely, that's not the point though. No farmers ever, especially in the Netherlands, are going broke, they simply will have less earnings. Because, if the only way for your business, that, I do not think I stressed this enough, take an expectionally high amount of subsidies from the EU, to generate earnings is to pollute the air and the ground like there's no tomorrow, then maybe you should change job. Something is not right.
I lived in Brazil for about 6.5 years. Totally independent on whether Lula or Bolsonaro will be president after the next election, I don´t think the politicians there care much about burning the rainforest to make room for more cattle. Seen from a global point of view, what happens with agriculture and preservation of rainforest in Brazil is far more important than the Netherlands. Of cause everyone needs to contribute to save the planet, but maybe we should first focus on the countries where there is the highest potential for improvement?
The solution is that both tackle climate change and that Europe as one of the biggest historical contributors to climate change and as a pretty rich continent takes a lead role in the battle against climate change. Anyway the measures in the Netherlands are about saving the biodiversity and groundwater locally. So the measures make sense but what the government also has to do are other things to help the farmers. They have to support them financially in the transition to a more sustainable agriculture and also give those a job or support who can’t be farmers anymore. They also have to stop subsidising unsustainable agriculture.
what are you guys talking about ? Brazil dosent need to be fixed . Europe and America barely has any forest left , we preserved more than 60% off the original natual forests . furthermore environmental code its the most rigorous of the entire planet . you will go to jail for cutting trees but not necessary if you kill someone. in the amazonian rainforest farmers can only use 15 % of their property. anyway i would appreciate if you fine gentleman stop spreading lies about my country many thanks
I'm not Dutch but I'm European and I say: First the Americans have give up their big V8 gas guzzlers and the Chinese need to reduce the emissions of their colossal factories. Only then the rest of the world will do the same to achieve net zero. Until then why do we Europeans have to pay the price when the world super powers and developing nations don't. So I find the EU Green policies(also government policies) fairly unnecessary.
I've Serbo-Croatian roots and I live in the Netherlands for many years. I really support the protesting Dutch farmers. Food security, comfort of the population and economy are FIRST. The climate hysteria together with the Western energy war against Russia will destroy prosperity of Europe. I want the inflation to stop, the energy prices to go back to the old level and the Dutch government to let farmers live freely without "nitrogen laws".
TLDR tells a new story : chaos in gentle Netherlands 'coz farmers are victims of ecological policies with this video of July 14th (10 days after the main manifestation and the (not so succesfull) blockades of highways : none of the biggest dutch newspapers is still talking about that topic (what a quick drawback from "chaos" to normality). And as many dutch viewers indicates : you're basing your "demonstration" on an untrusty poll, and you're willingly make a local problematic (on intensive nitrogen use) into a worlwide one. Anyone who gives you credit as an "information channel" is a victim.
I am purely shocked by how news are in the media and how the events are in reality. I live in The Netherlands, right in The Hague, very close to Malieveld (Dutch would know why this is important:)) and I have noticed NOTHING of what is described in this video. I don't mean to say that there have been no protests (i have seen 3 trucks running around) but the news make it sound like The Netherlands is in chaos while people directly involved hardly notice.
what would you expect them to say? The news is accurate, it's just that when the news say that there were fights between the police and the protesters, we tend to somehow imagine a civil war situation in which every street is a war zone, when in fact the "fights" between protesters and the police only happen on a few streets, and not every day, and only between the hours for which a protest is approved, etc.
Okay, before we blindly accept the numbers on that "already done our part" argument, lets have some better data. You say emissions per animal have fallen since the 70s, but how much has the population of those animals increased in the same time period? I bet it's quite a lot, and the numerical increase more than offsets whatever savings they're claiming to have produced. Use of fertilizers being halved sounds good, but how much of that is due to changing the types of fertilizers used? Some of the most economically efficient types also are among the worst for pushing up nitrogen and ammonia emissions. Again, I bet they haven't been shifting toward greener but less cost-effective options. Not saying all their arguments are wrong, but I'm deeply suspicious of what the sources of their numbers are.
Alot of “I bet” here, yet a quick google search can show that (e.g. Registered adult cows) there are currently 1.57 million registered adult cows here in the Netherlands. That number has barely changed in comparison to 1950! Want to know what did grow quite exponentially? Amount of cars, planes and amount of housing needed. Schiphol has been becoming bigger and bigger, on a skymap of Europe you can barely see the mainland through all the planes (except Ukraine, because you know). An important detail that also gets left out by media is when the news broke out, many farmers were down to quit but wanted to retain their land because it’s been grandfathered in, yet the government didn’t want any of it and instead want to take it down to make lots of housing space. For the Dutch that are still waiting for homes? No, for all the migrants that keep coming towards our country. Tl;dr : there is more than most media talk about, if those same media even talk about it at all and most of the reasons the government tries to justify it’s actions are plain wrong.
@@vruscryaotic1830 "there are currently 1.57 million registered adult cows here in the Netherlands." you think you are clever by only giving the number of adult cows, but the total number of all cows is 3.8 million, according to the CBS (dutch version of ONS). But to be fair, the numbers of cattle haven't changed much the last 10-20 year, but unfortunately this also goes for the nitrogen deposition. "For the Dutch that are still waiting for homes? No, for all the migrants that keep coming towards our country." You just repeat the bollocks that the likes of Baudet and Wilder have been spouting. We need about 1 million houses in the Netherlands to ressolve the housing crisis. At the moment we have about 8 million houses, occupying about 10% of the land, farmers have about 50% in use. The claim "we" need all the farm land for house is rediculous, we do not need 40 million houses, we need 1 million houses. Stop repeating the utter nonsens of Baudet, Wilders et. al.
@@atmosfear667 How about we don't import 100 thousand migrants a year in our country instead of ruining the lives so farmers so city people can get houses.
@@MichelleCatlin First of all we do not import people and second of all it's not a hundred thousand a year. The last 20 years it was on average 37.000 people that came to the Netherlands. Besides that most of the immigration is from western countries (largest group is from EU), not the countries you're thinking of. Stop regurgitating the drivel from Baudet and the likes, they lie, all the time, full stop.
@@atmosfear667 I take it Mr. V!irus is some kind of anti-immigration nutjob? We've got plenty of them over here too. Doing a slightly more through data trawl it does appear that total cattle numbers haven't increased radically in the Netherlands in the last 50 years, and currently stand just shy of 4 million animals, so it appears that an expanding cattle population isn't an issue. You're certainly right about nitrogen counts having stayed fairly stable over the last decade and some change. As far as I can see most of the per-animal drop-off from 1970 onward seems to have taken place in the 90s and 2000s, which suggests some major change there, although I can't speculate what it was. I suppose (barring some technological innovation) there's got to be a lower limit on how much nitrogen each animal produces and perhaps the Netherlands has simply reached that state here in 2022? Of course, there's still the question of pigs and fertilizer types in use, which I don't really care enough about to do a deep dig on. People who actually live in the Netherlands probably ought to research the subjects and see where these numbers are coming from and how accurate the claims are. Relying on snippets of data from news media and youtube vids for something that's impacting you so heavily is unwise, on par with a US citizen trusting Fox, CNN, or MSNBC to provide complete and unbiased coverage of political issues.
For people who think this is a working man's protest. Its not, most "farmers" in the Netherlands are incredibly wealthy business owners dependant on state subsidies They're not worried about their livelyhoods. They're worried about their profits more than our future
I think the only arguement that the farmers really have that holds any water is the simple fact if they reduced meat production, that unfullfilled demand will then be filled by another exporter who doesnt reach or achieve the same type of emissions standards per pig/cow... In essence increasing global emissions in the end despite netherlands itself having reduced Nitrogen emissions... I do feel for farmers in a certain sense... the measures and technology that is used to achieve this standard of emissions per head of cow/pig is one of the best in the world, but it doesnt come cheap at all... many banks placed conditions on the loans that the farmer now had to take on more cows to produce more and earn more... the government incentivized it. This leaves farmers in a bind, both unwilling to stop and change their whole livelyhood to reduce the market, or unable to finance any kind of further technological advance and meet mandatory regulations... plus think beyond the farmers... and the industry as whole surrounding agriculture... these jobs will be lost, and the Market stands to shrink as a whole... However this is typical case of capitalism in general... the motive of growing to your strengths regardless of whether one should prevails altogether... the market has been defined on the supply we can provide and our economy is based on this industry... reducing or tinkering on this even on the best intentions, will cause pain because it fundamentally challenges the narrative of capitalism...
In this video TLDR admitted that the farmers have been reducing emission of various types for years bit by bit. Why can't they let this trend continue and if the number needs to be reduced do it slowly to allow the farmers to adapt or AFTER THE INCOMING FOOD CRISIS! Reducing emissions slowly over time should have been the goal of the government, something they had failed to do and are now rushing to do it all at once like headless chicken. Farming is complex and difficult to do right and all changes to it need to be done slowly, lest you bring your country to anarchy and starvation, this move by the Dutch government is too fast and at exactly the wrong time to be doing so because if the food crisis comes and they reduced production, then it while it might not be the Netherlands that starve, the poor countries that used to buy from them will. Agriculture is the single most important sector a country can have, if you mess with it people will inevitably die and it seems the Dutch Government will find this out shortly.
Because as the video alluded to, all sectors spend too much time drag-assing back in the 90's when the concept of a gradual reduction would still have held. Now its pain time where the chickens have come home to roost and no-one wants to deal with it. The pandemic and the Ukraine war are unfortunately timed as well.
Your premise is largely correct, but... "Why can't they let this trend continue?" Because it's too late. If this would be let to continue, by the time the farmers would reduce emissions to an appropriate level, there wouldn't be any farmers anymore because the land would be useless due to pollution that was let to continue. You are perfectly right that the politicians fucked up in the past. Funny enough, it's to some extent the same politicians as today, because Rutte doesn't leave even after he quits. Trust me, there's no lost love between me and the racist government of Rutte. (see the welfare scandal that took down the Rutte government that is currently in power and has been ever since it was taken down) Yet a drastic solution today prevents a severly drastic reality check in a couple of decades. At that reality check, protests, dialogue, and negotiations would be pointless, because the soil will be barren and I can only hope that Rutte won't be in power by then. Also, Netherlands is an incredibly rich country. There won't be any anarchy or starvation in the Netherlands, even if the entire farming industry stops at once today. Moreover, you are clearly projecting your image of agriculture onto Netherlands, and that's wrong. There's a reason Netherlands is so incredibly successful in agriculture. It does things differently and better. More precisely, the government put in place very efficient mechanisms to really shorten the distance between agro-science and agro-business. Farmers in the Netherlands are pretty much told every year what to plant and how to do it. They are free to do whatever they want, but most really follow the advice because everyone noticed that following it leads to more and better products, so more money. VisualPolitik made a video about Wageningen University, where the research is done. My point is that agriculture in the Netherlands is as complex as the government dictates it. On the other side, I understand the farmers' complaints. They were told again and again to do things in a very specific way, which made the farmers decently rich, and now they are told that they need to just do something else and drastically reduce their standards of living, while the rest of the society doesn't have to go through this. This is especially hard if you're middle aged, or old. Imagine being 50 and being told that from now on, you will have to do a different kind of work, which will pay about the money you used to do when you were 30 and farming. It's like a recession, but worst, because it only affects you, and not the entire society. I would surely be pissed about it.
It was annoying when Dutch farmers exported their liquid manure to East German fields. Which led to over-fertilization there and endangered the groundwater. Obviously the Dutch have more animals than the meadows there can support.
Do not forget those are most likely the mass scale meat farms of chicken renches not the meat industry of cows or pigs that not allowed to be held more than 100 per farmer
where's the evidence of that? There are far worse pollution than that. But that is true. Manure is a resource and it's deposal to water should be utterly forbidden.
The government has been forcing farmers to grow and grow from the mid 80's when they started with the milk quotums. Small scale farming was made not feasible so to survive as a farm farmers had to buy out other farmers milk quotum just to keep a stable income. Regulations have been added and farmers have had to invest a lot to comply and now in some area's (natura 2000) they have to be reduced by 95%. Those area's however are not close to cities but mostly rural which means that this would have an enormous impact on rural communities. Add to this that the main green parties get the majority of their vote shares from Urban areas this by many in rural areas is seen as another case of "them telling us how to live our life better so that they themselves do not have to change". The biggest mistake here has been the awful communication strategy by the government. They produced a map with the farm reductions, while saying that other sectors would get their reductions at a later stage, and then told the regional councils fix that. Trust in the government has been low for quite a while now in the Netherlands and especially in the rural areas. They do not believe the government will reduce other sectors at a later stage or if they do that they will only have to reduce what the farmers could not reduce leaving live in the urban areas of the country mostly unchanged. Another point of contention has been the remarks of the Prime Minister that it was needed to build houses and that if needed there would be forced buyouts of farmers. But again those houses are not build rural but in the same urban areas that are hardly impacted by these green measures.
