Climate Mandates Imposed On Dutch Farmers Will Ruin Their Livelihoods: War Correspondent

Authored by Ella Kietlinska and Joshua Phillipp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The livelihoods of Dutch farmers are under attack due to the Dutch government’s proposed nitrogen policy, which could necessitate the mass slaughter of livestock and potentially shut down almost a third of the country’s farms.

War correspondent Michael Yon in an interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program on July 2, 2020. (Screenshot via EpochTV)

If this policy is implemented, it will have “major security consequences, not just for the Netherlands, but for all of Europe and the world,” said Michael Yon, a war correspondent who has recently arrived in the Netherlands to report on the ground from the Dutch farmers’ protests.

The Netherlands is a small country in Europe with a population of 17 million people, but it is the second-largest food exporter in the world, Yon said in a recent interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program. “They have the most efficient farmers in the world.”

King Willem-Alexander (L) and Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands sign the Royal Decrees as part of the inauguration of the new prime minister’s cabinet at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague on Jan. 10, 2022. (Sem Vander Wal/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2021, the Netherlands’s coalition government proposed slashing livestock numbers in the country by 30 percent to meet nitrogen greenhouse gas emission targets.

The country has already implemented stringent restrictions on new construction, intending to curb nitrogen emissions.

Dutch bank Rabobank has argued that those new hurdles have slowed home building in the Netherlands, intensifying a housing shortage in the densely populated coastal nation.

On June 10, Christianne van der Wal, the Dutch Minister for Nitrogen and Nature Policy, unveiled a plan to reduce nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The Dutch Provinces are responsible for developing corresponding measures to reach the nitrogen emission reductions between 12 and 70 percent, depending on the area,” the statement said.

“Farmers in some provinces will be particularly hard hit … and the Dutch government acknowledged ‘there is not a future for all {Dutch} farmers within [this] approach.’”

The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce says that nitrogen environmental pollution comes from burning fossil fuels but also from manure produced by livestock and fertilizers used in farming. It is estimated that to implement the proposed plan, farmers would need to reduce their cattle herds by 30 percent, according to Barron’s.

But Yon said Dutch farmers are not polluting the environment and that they’ve been farming the land for thousands of years.

Nitrogen is being labeled as a pollutant and used as a decoy by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to put the farmers out of business and control the food supply, Yon said.

Dutch Farmers Protest Against Climate Policy

Dutch farmers protesting against the government’s plans to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia gather for a demonstration at Stroe, Netherlands, on June 22, 2022. (Aleksandar Furtula/AP Photo)

The proposed measures sparked protests among Dutch farmers in June, with a large protest joined by truckers which started on July 4.

Dutch farmers, truckers, and others have used social media in a decentralized way to organize blockades of food distribution hubs across the northwest European country, which resulted in empty shelves in supermarkets.

The protesters also planned to demonstrate at many of the nation’s airports, specifically mentioning Schiphol Airport and Eindhoven Airport.

Dutch farmers and truckers realize that their government is following the recommendations of the WEF, which has been trying to take their land and control their food supply, Yon said.

“If you control the food supply, you control that population completely,” he said.

Dutch farmers are very educated, and they are both businesspeople and farmers, Yon said. They know that if they lose, they will lose their livelihood, and the consequences of their loss will be felt for many generations, he said.

“The farmers are rising up. They know they’re going to be put out of business … which would put all of Europe on its knees, foodwise,” Yon said.

Similar policies are being introduced in Germany and some other countries, Yon said. Some German farmers who want to show their solidarity are also involved in the Dutch protest, he added.

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