Animal Farm

The first time I heard about the farmers protests here in Holland must have been at the beginning of this previous summer, in a YouTube video by Russel Brand. I know, I know, this charismatic man with verbal diarrhea that we know from the movie screens from ten to fifteen years ago probably isn’t the most reliable source when it comes to political broadcasting, but I must admit that I do enjoy watching his videos from time to time for their entertaining qualities.

I was interested immediately, and I had not heard of these protests happening before. I never got into the habit of watching Dutch news, and in my circles, the farmer’s protests weren’t something that was being discussed.

After having taken a course in permaculture during the final year of my art study, I developed a general interest in planting and growing things, but mainly in the politics that go along with doing so on a larger scale. I learned about the issues that came with big agricultural enterprises and global systems of distributing and processing foodstuff, and the impact our current farming and food system had on the soil, the environment, and, at large, on society.

Growing up in a rural area in Germany I was used to being surrounded by farmland, golden fields of corn and grain, domestic animals, vineyards, and apple trees, lots of apple trees. Those things feel like home to me and they make me nostalgic.

I started googling and the first thing I noticed was that what I found online about the farmer’s protests in Holland in terms of international reports was mainly coverage by conservative sources. From Britain to the US, the types of magazines and online publications taking a standpoint all leaned into this:The evil liberal democratic government is forcing family farmers to give up their livelihoods under the disguise of saving the environment and no one is doing anything to stop them“ kind ofnarrative.

I realized that this topic was being instrumentalized for all kinds of different obscure theories about the state and power and conspiracy

I realized that this topic was being instrumentalized for all kinds of different obscure theories about the state and power and conspiracy, riling people up against each other, painting the old black-and-white image of good and evil, righteousness and injustice, the oppressor and the oppressed, different versions of an entailed story, and as usual, the truth probably was to be found somewhere in between. Through writing this article I hope to shed some light on a few different perspectives on this issue, in an attempt to make the topic more accessible to myself and others.

In my research so far, I have identified seven agents. Please bear with me, I am very well aware that this topic is immensely dense but I’m doing my best to simplify it as much as possible while still doing it justice. I’m learning as I go.

The seven participants I’ve identified are;
the political left,
the political right,
the Dutch government,
Dutch meat and dairy farmers,
the economy,
Mother Nature/ The permaculture farmer
Russel Brand

To quickly sum up the problem:
The Netherlands is the land with the highest Nitrogen pollution in all of Europe. While Nitrogen is a mineral that is wanted in most farming practices since it supports plant growth and functions as fertilizer, the Netherlands has too much of it. The reason for this is excessive animal farming. Animal manure contains a lot of ammonia and is responsible for the high amounts of Nitrogen in the soil. The problem with this is now that some plant species prefer soil that is low(er) in Nitrogen over Nitrogen-rich soil, and in this way, the high Nitrogen contents of the dutch ground are sabotaging healthy biodiversity. This is, amongst other things, bad for pollinating insects and therefore for the prospects of a healthy ecosystem.
This previous summer the Dutch government passed a new set of regulations, obliging farmers to cut their emissions by half until 2030, which means a drastic cut in livestock numbers, changes in animal feed, and upgrades in livestock housing systems. Thousands of farmers all across the country suddenly were threatened in their livelihoods, dreading being unable to adjust their farming practices this drastically in such a short amount of time. Outraged they started to protest, blocking highways and supermarket distribution centers with their tractors, dumping animal manure in front of government officials’ private residences, and flying the dutch flag upside down.

The police lets them get away with anything during their outrageous protests while doing things that any climate or human rights activist would long have been arrested and tear-gassed for!

The political left/ environmentally conscious politicians
Meat and dairy farmers are among the wealthier people in this country, they drive heavy, polluting, expensive machines, they are causing a threat to the environment with the Nitrogen their animals are producing, and also they keep animals in general, shouldn’t we all go vegan anyway? They need to stop acting as if anyone could truly harm them! They are privileged people, the police lets them get away with anything during their outrageous protests while doing things that any climate or human rights activist would long have been arrested and tear-gassed for! The conservative right-leaning farmer’s defense force doesn’t help harbor our sympathy either! They need to quit feeling sorry for themselves and just go with the regulations that will give us at least a chance at saving our planet and humankind. Even if they lose their farms in the process, the government will compensate them well. We all need to compromise.  

The political right/ politicians showing solidarity with the farmers
Farmers are our hard-working heroes! Without them, we would have no food on our plates! There is no such thing as a Nitrogen problem, Nitrogen is great for nature! Whoever says otherwise and stands behind the new regulations is against farmers in general and thinks they are stupid and worthless, but not us! We value honest work and stand up for the simple man! Everything needs to remain exactly as it is!

The Dutch government
We’ve been telling you guys for decades that something needed to change, but we always made sure that you wouldn’t have to, cause we also profited from the immense amounts of products being exported since we are the second biggest exporter of foodstuff in the entire world. But next to that, we are the country with the highest Nitrogen-polluted soil in all of Europe so I guess we can’t postpone this action any longer now without looking like absolute morons. So, go ahead and figure out how to cut your emissions in half within the next 8 years, otherwise, you will have to give up your farms altogether!

Dutch meat and dairy Farmers
For years, decades, the government has been subsidizing growth in our farmland, and while making us push up the number of our animals, profited from all the exported animal products. Being forced to keep our prices low, we get rewarded for increased production and using chemical fertilizers/ standardized methods of automatization and heavy machinery for maximum efficiency. At the level we are operating our farms now it will become hard to sustain our business with the planned cuts. We feel left alone and treated unjustly.

The economy
The Netherlands is the second largest export country of foodstuffs, especially of animal products, worldwide. Not in relation to population size, but in general. A large part of the food produced there is being distributed all over Europe and even shipped across the oceans. In exchange, the Netherlands is importing a lot of food from other countries and continents. This practice is based on the concept of a profit-oriented capitalist global economy. This means that the Netherlands are producing much more animal products than they’d need for their own supply, and thereby also are producing tenfolds of the Nitrogen that their soils should be able to deal with.

Mother Nature
There is a time and place for everything, also for chickens, cattle, and pigs. It just has to happen in the right proportions. The soil and the ecosystem are out of balance, there is too much animal manure dumped onto it. It’s not about completely abandoning animal farming, but about cutting down massively to bring our soil back into balance, to create conditions under which all plants and animals can thrive. This would include switching from monocultural farming and intense industrial practices to a more location-appropriate approach of permaculture and regenerative food forest landscapes. (Judge for yourself whether that includes consuming animal products or not)

The Dutch government is taking farmland away from private farmers to achieve ALL the power. It’s the beginning of the end!

Russel Brand and other influential online personas
It’s The Great Reset! The government is trying to get it’s hands on all the land to make us completely dependent on them! Bill Gates is US’s biggest individual farmland owner by now and Bezos just opened a supermarket chain! Now THEY are even taking the food under their control! The Dutch government is taking farmland away from private farmers to achieve ALL the power. It’s the beginning of the end!

I’ll leave it up to you to make sense of all of this yourself, I surely projected my own perspective onto it, but I did my best to portray the different truths I listed here as authentically as possible.