Netherlands to buy out and close 3,000 farms to meet climate goals

The Dutch government is planning to buy out and close as many as 3,000 farms in the country, exacerbating an already-bitter dispute with growers as leaders attempt to halve the country’s nitrogen emissions by 2030.

Leaders said last week they plan to allocate some $25 billion to the buyout plan, which they will use to purchase between 2,000 and 3,000 Dutch farms and other large nitrogen emitters "well over" their property values.

If farmers do not agree to the plan, the buyouts could become compulsory. “There is no better offer coming,” Dutch Nitrogen Minister Christianne van der Wal told members of parliament last week.

The plan comes as the Dutch government moves to halve its nitrogen emissions by 2030 in accordance with European Union conservation rules. But to meet that target, the government estimates that 11,200 farms will have to close, and 17,600 others will have to reduce their livestock numbers significantly.

The targets have been met with outrage in the Netherlands. This summer, tens of thousands of protesters massed in major Dutch cities to protest news of the emissions cuts, blocking roadways, bridges, and key waterways.

Farming is a critical sector of the Dutch economy. Despite being just slightly larger than the state of Maryland, the Netherlands is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural goods, behind only the United States, and its exports in that sector totaled roughly 105 billion euros in 2021 alone.

Emissions from farming are a major concern in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has a nitrogen balance nearly twice the European average — the majority of which comes from farming.

But farmers have argued they are being unfairly targeted and that other harmful industries have remained comparably unscathed.

Others fear a reduction in the Dutch agriculture sector will result in higher-cost, less-efficient production in other parts of the world.

Global agriculture, in some sense, is zero-sum,” Ted Nordhaus, the executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, a global research center, said in an interview this summer.

"So if productivity and yields go down in the Netherlands, it means that the demand gets taken up somewhere else," he said.


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I'm going to offer no comment on the insanity, other than to incredulously ask, "They have a 'Nitrogen Minister'...?"

Let’s cap and trim the population by not growing enough food. As long as there is a 2a, this will not end well for the elite. Netherlands however seems fucked.

I wonder how much of this is cover for a shrinking population (meaning not enough farmers, or young people entering the field)?

And, given that the atmosphere is already 78% Nitrogen, what is the purpose of restricting Nitrogen emissions?

Yeah, let's let people die of starvation instead of "global warming". What idiocy!!!

Shame on them and the fucking EU!

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I wonder how much of this is cover for a shrinking population (meaning not enough farmers, or young people entering the field)?

And, given that the atmosphere is already 78% Nitrogen, what is the purpose of restricting Nitrogen emissions?

The same purpose of calling carbon dioxide a pollution.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Let’s cap and trim the population by not growing enough food. As long as there is a 2a, this will not end well for the elite. Netherlands however seems fucked.

They can wise-up and elect a different breed of parliament members.

This is literally insane.

When I was stationed in Germany as an Army cook, I noticed that the majority of all our fresh vegetables and all dairy was coming from the Netherlands. I would imagine that’s how the German economy in general also operated?

Are they TRYING to cause food shortages and starvation?

^^^Don't be silly, fresh vegetables and dairy all come from the supermarket...

One day, it will be necessary to fight these people, or we shall all perish. Fortunately for me, I'll be in the ground before the results of all this leftist madness take full effect, and then it will be the problem of others.

Sure, why not? It is great that they have 28,800 farms that are doing too well.

It would also be kinda cool to have $25,000,000,000.00 laying around and not really doing much.

Going to grow extra food from da vindmills!

Are the dutch being good Kommrads and doing exactly what the government tells them so they'll be safe from the evil nitrogen?

Oh wait, they have no choice as they can't fight back.

Dutch gun laws are actually quite strict as you would expect. Gun ownership is seen not as a right, but a privilege, with hunting and target shooting as a sport the only two legitimate reasons for owning a gun. Owning a gun in the Netherlands for both sports and hunting comes with extreme vetting and sees lengthy procedures, and don’t even think about owning an assault rifle.

I'm not sure but I think they mean NOx or Nitrogen Oxides, which are the primary focus of vehicle emissions regulations. Nitrogen based fertilizers (anhydrous ammonia) may lead to NOx but I haven't really looked into it.

The Greens want to end the use of such fertilizers and grow crops "organically". Sri Lanka tried and yields plummeted, and the country is collapsing.

The more I watch what is happening the more I am convinced that Greens are being funded by enemies of the west (Russia, China, etc.) so that we destroy ourselves.

I know we, as a country, have been doing stupid self harming shit lately, ie… E-everything bullshit, no fracking, no drilling, giving back really bad gun runner for a no athletic ability American hating pothead, etc…. But, it seems Europe is really trying to commit suicide.

At least our country isn't the only one with insane leaders. I don't get the increase in idiocy around the world.

Usually is isn't about sound policy. Its about money going into the right pockets with an increased chance some of it will rebound into campaign coffers. 1. Remember Solyndra? They got 500 million dollars from the government and they were filing for bankruptcy a year later. A lot of money went into pockets instead of the business. 2. Dr. Michael Mann lead author of the famous Hockey Stick study is worth between 1 to 5 million dollars. That's a lot for writing grant proposals, and doing work no one is allowed to replicate. 3. Wonder why the Keystone XL Pipeline is killed every time Democrats get power. Not about sound policy its about Warren Buffett and his railroad cars that currently carry crude oil from Canada into this country for refinement.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/a...sal/?sh=2b5392b02672

https://networthmask.com/michael-e-mann/

https://www.ibtimes.com/warren...cause-effect-1560093

American farmers were as I recall warning about an impending food shortage brought about by government fuckery a couple of years ago. A decrease in food supply will lead to desperate people doing desperate things. This will cause people to riot, engage in civil unrest, and sweeping government control when they’re “forced” to step in. It further explains why they want our military style guns so badly.

At first I dismissed the whole nitrogen emission aspect of this story as being total bullshit. I thought what if they're talking about nitrogen run off. No it turns out that is easily stopped.

What they are talking about is the additional nitrogen in fertilizer introduced by man as this is processed by soil and plant it emits nitrous oxide. That is a greenhouse gas but interacts with far less heat than CO2.

As usual if I can get them to cough up actual measurements that usually tells a completely different story. CO2 makes up 0.04 percent of the atmosphere at about 400 parts per million. Nitrous oxide is measured at 329 parts per billion. But, they are quick to add the boogyman of that represents a 121 percent increase since pre industrial levels. That may be true but 121 percent increase amounting to 329 parts per billion is about as next to nothing as it gets.

Again, it’s soil degradation.

If nitrogen emissions are the problem, the correct answer is more, and better, farming.

Nothing else will increase the amount of nitrogen locked up in soil other than good stewardship by man.

Reminds me of a few years back when tire sellers and repairers were selling us on inflating our tires with Nitrogen.... "let's put 78% Nitrogen in with the air in your tire and it will ride better and last longer."


I guess the good news is if the 2nd largest producer of 'food' in the world. (I question this) stops making it we will at least lose some weight... but then again it sounds like the ultimate goal is to just reduce the world's population... by starving folks to death.

Question... isn't the Nitrogen (which I think is an element) just like our Hydrogen and Oxygen .... the same amount on the planet since day one? Excluding what we shot out into space?