Not quite understanding the affects of this I did a little research. It’s a pretty unanimous conclusion that the negatives outweigh the positives when dealing with fertilizers that cause excessive nitrogen, almost kind of scary.

paul2d wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 9:23 pm This has been reported on Sky News Australia and AlJazera and a few other places. It is largely ignored by the mainstream media. Appears to be the Dutch war and small farmers over use of Nitrogen fertilizers under the guidance of the World Economic Forum.

The framing of the Dutch farmers is extremely efficient, works even on this forum....

Small farmers... Yeah, right. Farmers with two 2 hectares of land, 10 chicken and three cows...

Nope, that's not what's aimed for. An example of what's aimed for, a former 'large' farm with 'just over' 20.000 animals:



"Owner ***** keeps pigs on farms in the Netherlands, Hungary and Romania. His concern Sebava (Veghel) breeds one and a half million piglets a year for slaughter."

"In 1996, Straathof in Erichem bought a two-storey poultry farm and switched to pigs. In the "pig flat" he housed more than twenty thousand animals: meat pigs downstairs and sows with piglets upstairs."

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Knorhof

You can imagine housing over 20k pigs all year round will quite cause some pollution, more than the local natural environment can absorb. That's the problem, the massive scale of it in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Another example why pig farms cause some trouble: (https://www.boerenbusiness.nl/top5/arti ... sbedrijven)

"The municipality of Venray (Limburg) is head and shoulders at the top of the list. The municipality has a total of 117 pig farms. Of these, 49 farms have more than 5,000 pigs."

If you do the math you'll notice these 49 pigfarms account for nearly 250,000 pigs. The other 68 farms probably account for the same amount, but let's just do math with these 49 farms only....

The municipality has 43,997 inhabitants (January 31, 2022, source: CBS) and has an area of 146.03 km². (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venray_(gemeente))

So that's an average of well over 1,700 pigs per km², when doing math with just the 49 (largest) out of 117 farms in one municipality in the Netherlands. These farmers are not small, they're not feeding the Dutch population, as they claim. They produce for the export.

The farmers do have a point though, they've been supported and encouraged to expand by major parties in the Dutch politics for decades. But the Dutch governments is forced now, by the judicial system, to enforce its' own environmental laws which have been ignored for decades. So now they see now other way than to decrease the number of animals held in the Netherlands. This is not about farmers, this is about large scale industrial run meat farms.

Thanks @Kammekor for the excellent summary ^^^ and links.
I remember reading before about the environmental damage from industrial pig farming in Spain (also mostly for export).
I had no idea that the NL was doing this on such a scale. It shows how the facts can be manipulated to convince people this is govt vs people.

Dutch farmers are not known for either their intellect, or their ethics.

As kammekor pointed out, they're neither small framers, nor are they feeding locals.

Greed. Pure greed.

I don't have a strong opinion on this but there are two sides to this story, which one to believe ?

@Kammekor Where do all these pigs end up? In Europe or in China?

If they reduce production and create a shortage, the cost of all that cleanliness will be paid for with bacon inflation

I live at only 15 minutes from the dutch border, and there are small and big farmers everywhere, and they do feed locals and do export. Is not really all black or white. But whatt makes me always laugh, doesnt matter in which country they are, did you ever here a farmer telling he was happy with everything ?? Its always or to dry, or to wet, or to cold or to hot. Everywhere in the world, and IMO it has to do al lot with the world food organisation, or what was the name, how more they complain, how more they get from thos organisations. And still they will complain . . . And after everything, they all do drive a big car an sunday, useally not during the week, but they keep on crying !!

Doc67 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 3:56 pm @Kammekor Where do all these pigs end up? In Europe or in China?

If they reduce production and create a shortage, the cost of all that cleanliness will be paid for with bacon inflation

Loads end up in Italy, as Parma ham..... But they're transported Worldwide, including China. But selling Parma ham instead of a chunk of raw pork significantly increases the value, and we Dutchies love adding value to our products.....

Closing industrial scale farms in the Netherlands will not lead to a shortage I think, just a shift in location. Northeastern Europe offers great opportunities without the population density seen in the Netherlands.

Bongmab69 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 4:14 pm I live at only 15 minutes from the dutch border, and there are small and big farmers everywhere, and they do feed locals and do export. Is not really all black or white. But whatt makes me always laugh, doesnt matter in which country they are, did you ever here a farmer telling he was happy with everything ?? Its always or to dry, or to wet, or to cold or to hot. Everywhere in the world, and IMO it has to do al lot with the world food organisation, or what was the name, how more they complain, how more they get from thos organisations. And still they will complain . . . And after everything, they all do drive a big car an sunday, useally not during the week, but they keep on crying !!

Well, the Dutch farmers need some slack. Decades of stimulation and support by the government recently changed into 'look at the pollution you cause'. The pollution isn't new, report after report after report has been published since the 80's in the last century, but those were largely ignored. By planting some trees the government hoped they could compensate for the pollution, but the judges no longer accept it.
On the other hand, most of these farmers are multi millionaires, albeit with large debts. They own massive plots of land, massive barns (which could be used for different purposes), massive machines. Just look at the tractors in the video's, those are 200-500k machines.

But you know what they say about a farmer, a farmer always has money.
When a farmer runs out of money, he or she will sell a cow, or a pig. And once the farmer runs out of life stock, well, it's not a farmer anymore.

tightenupvolume1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 3:06 pm I don't have a strong opinion on this but there are two sides to this story, which one to believe ?

Yes, the police shot at a 16 yo boy on a tractor, but the initial story was he tried to drive his tractor into a police barricade.

Here's some footage from Dutch Police encountering protesting farmers a few days before that happened:



Let's say the farmers came well prepared. You can hear them shout 'met z'n allen', which means: 'All together'. Tell me the difference between these 'protesting farmers' and hooligans.