If The Dutch Government Thought Its Farmers Would Submit To Environmental Statism Easily, It Was Wrong

In a bid to defend their property rights, Dutch farmers showed up in droves in the de facto capital of the Netherlands on Saturday to protest their government’s overreaching climate policies, which demonstrators say will impede their ability to make a living.

Gathered in The Hague, over 10,000 farmers protested against the national government’s plans to halve the country’s nitrogen emissions by 2030. Under the guise of climate alarmism, Dutch officials are seeking to cap “emissions of nitrogen oxides from farm animal manure and … ammonia in fertilizer” by closing up to 3,000 farms near so-called “environmentally sensitive areas” over the next year.

While the government has claimed these closures will initially be voluntary, the threat of compulsory land buyouts for those who fail to comply with the program by the fall makes it a clear attack on basic property rights.

“We see the farmers around us, and we know how important our farmers are. How will we eat if we don’t produce food?” one protestor told Rebel News. “For all those families, they [have been] there for centuries. It’s their country. They made it bloom.” Government officials are “lying to our faces. They’re trying to steal the companies from the farmers, and they’re trying to take our freedom away,” another said.

The Saturday demonstration was hardly the first of its kind. As The Federalist reported, an estimated 40,000 farmers in tractors and trucks participated in protests last year, clogging up major highways and blockading supermarket distribution centers in protest of the regulations.

In some instances, the government responded to protestors with brutal force, deploying tear gas and dogs to break up demonstrations in cities such as Heerenveen. The response closely mirrored that of the Canadian government, which used similar tactics in abusing state authority to quash truckers protesting the country’s Covid jab mandates.

[READ: Pay Attention To The Dutch Farmer Protests Because America Is Next]

While environmental alarmists will undoubtedly champion the Dutch government’s climate-crazed war against farmers as necessary to “go green,” freedom-loving people understand the goal of such policies is to centralize power and control in the hands of globalist elites. As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson previously noted, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is an “environmental ideologue” who wishes “to transform global food production and eliminate private land ownership” by adopting United Nations-backed initiatives that “squeeze farmers and ranchers around the world” to centralize control of the food supply in the hands of a few elitists.

Two years ago, for example, Rutte was featured as a guest speaker at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel titled “Transforming Food Systems and Land Use,” wherein he discussed a WEF initiative regarding “food innovation hubs” to “scale [agricultural] innovations” that can “address food systems.” A big proponent of reducing nitrogen emissions, WEF, along with the Clean Air Fund, launched a global initiative in September 2021 called the Alliance for Clean Air, which calls for participating members to establish “air pollution footprints” on gases such as nitrogen oxide within a year of joining.

The Netherlands will hold regional elections on Wednesday to appoint members of the Dutch Senate. According to The Daily Caller, regional governments are tasked with achieving national government objectives, such as nitrogen caps.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

The Federalist