DECRYPTION – Since June 10, Dutch farmers have expressed anger at a plan to drastically cut nitrogen emissions. On Tuesday, the police opened fire on a tractor.
Are we witnessing the birth of the Dutch yellow vests? Since June 10, farmers and growers in the Netherlands have been demonstrating regularly across the country to protest the government’s announcement to drastically reduce nitrogen emissions. The initially tentative protest movement increased to a crescendo. In recent days, tractors have blocked several supermarket distribution centers and caused shortages in some stores. Farmers also forced a police cordon in front of Environment Minister Christianne van der Wal’s home.
Especially on the night of July 5-6, a gathering degenerated dangerously, and the police opened fire. “Around 10:30 p.m., tractor drivers tried to ram officers and service vehicles. (…) A threatening situation arose, warning shots were fired, but also targeted shots,” said the local police on their Twitter account. “A tractor was hit. (…) Three suspects were arrested. Nobody was hurt,” she added.
The Belgian press reports eight arrests as part of the investigation. Although the circumstances are still uncertain, this event marks the rise of a movement that could grow even more in the coming days.
Expect a herd reduction of a third?
At the root of the trouble is a huge project to reduce nitrogen emissions into the air, initiated by the government under pressure from the country’s highest administrative court. “We are talking about reducing nitrogen emissions in Natura 2000 sites protected by regulations by up to 70% by 2030,” explains Le Figaro Alessandra Kirsch, PhD economist and agricultural policy maker and principal investigator at the Think Tank Agriculture Strategies. Nitrogen occurs in three main forms: “NO2, in car exhaust fumes, N20, from fertilizers and cattle waste water from grazing, and NH3, which comes from animal excrement,” explains the agricultural engineer. Since 2019, speed limits for cars have been increased from 130 to 100 km/h to combat NO2. Now the government is tackling N20, a greenhouse gas, and NH3, ammonia.
Livestock contribute 40% to the excess nitrogen in the Netherlands
Alessandra Kirsch, doctorate in economics and agricultural policy
The people primarily affected by these restrictions are therefore farmers and breeders, who are in abundance in the Netherlands as the country is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world after the United States. “On a very small agricultural area of 1.82 million hectares there are 53,000 farms, four million cattle, 12 million pigs and 100 million chickens,” remembers Alessandra Kirsch. As a result, “breeding in the Netherlands contributes 40% to excess nitrogen,” she points out. Overall, agriculture is responsible for 16% of Dutch greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from fertilizers and manure.
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Dutch breeders have been using a number of technical levers for a number of years to reduce these emissions: “Covering of manure pits (a tank for collecting animal waste, NB nitrogen requirements are met as closely as possible, reducing the number of animals per hectare on pasture”, counts However, “reduction targets are very high over a very short horizon and these levers may not be enough. So much so that we are talking about the possibility of reducing the herd by a third,” she continues faces a difficult dilemma: adapt with these technical levers and reduce the herd, relocate it to less sensitive areas or simply stop its activity.
In the continuity of the Yellow Vests and the Freedom Convoy
Against the wall, farmers and breeders in the Netherlands took to the streets and formed a movement that inspires others. “There were the red caps, the yellow vests, the convoy of liberty, and now this: we have entered the era of riots”, Analysis for Le Figaro Michel Maffesoli, sociologist and professor emeritus at the Sorbonne, who dedicated a book to him has theme. For him, all these movements have the same cause: “It is the manifestation of dissent against a democratic elite that imposes rules in an abstract way and without consultation”. Here “the vertically imposed European standards” are called into question in the service of a “political ecology”. “We have adopted a technological farming model in the Netherlands for decades and suddenly we want to return to artisanal farming,” he translates.
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As early as November 2021, the Dutch had brutally rebelled against the health policy decreed by the government. There had been clashes between police and demonstrators in several cities, and many were injured. The demonstrations against the nitrogen plan are part of the same idea of ”the gap between the people and the elites,” suggests Michel Maffesoli. At the risk of a “saturation mechanism”, observed in particular in the Yellow Vests movement. “Such a process can become violent after a while,” warns the sociologist.
Tractors evacuated by police during a blockade. Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP/AFP
The fact that the farmers’ and breeders’ associations have recently distanced themselves from the demonstrators also proves that the movement is tending to become more radical. According to several former students of Michel Maffesoli now settled in the Netherlands, it is even gaining sectors other than the agricultural world. And one thing is certain: “The demonstrations should develop and will not stop overnight, despite the onset of summer”.
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