Protests by Dutch farmers against ‘climate change’ emissions cuts continued over the weekend despite the police crackdown. They are protesting against the new government policy that will force farm-owners to drastically reduce emissions in compliance with the European Union regulations.
As farmers’ protests hit cities cross Holland, police made several arrests and, in one instance, opened fire at a tractor convoy.
The defiant Dutch farmers protested by building Canada-style Freedom Convoys on the highways. They blocked supermarket warehouses, leaving shelves stand empty across the country. The empty supermarket shelves were a reminder of what would happen if the globalist climate policies force Dutch farmers out of business.
The farmers in the Netherlands, Europe’s biggest exporters of meat, are fighting for their survival. Under the new emission restrictions passed by the country’s parliament, they will to be forced to reduce their livestock by 30 percent to meet EU guidelines meant to protect the ‘climate’ and ‘biodiversity.’
Pro-EU Climate activists gleefully watched the police crackdown on the farmers’ movement. “You rip a plaster off a wound in one go,” chief of Greenpeace Netherlands, Andy Palmen, demanded. “Painful choices are now necessary.”
Yeah, farmers are not backing down.pic.twitter.com/ESgIdPEm9i
— Keean Bexte 🇳🇱 (@TheRealKeean) July 10, 2022
The Associated Press, on Sunday, reported the ongoing protests:
Bales of hay lie burning along Dutch highways. Supermarket shelves stand empty because distribution centers are blocked by farmers. Then, at dusk, a police officer pulls his pistol and shoots at a tractor.
Dutch farmers are embroiled in a summer of discontent that shows no sign of abating. Their target? Government plans to rein in emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia that they say threatens to wreck their agricultural way of life and put them out of business. (…)
The Netherlands, a nation of 17.5 million people inhabiting an area a little larger than Maryland, has 1.57 million registered dairy cattle and just over 1 million calves being raised for meat, statistics show. The country’s farms produced exports worth 94.5 billion euros in 2019. (…)
Unveiling a map detailing nitrogen reduction targets last month, the Dutch government called it an “unavoidable transition.” It said the coming year would finally bring clarity for Dutch farmers, “whether and how they can continue with their business. The minister sees three options for farmers: become (more) sustainable, relocate or stop.”
The Dutch government aims to slash nitrogen emissions by 50% by 2030 and has earmarked an extra 24.3 billion euros ($25.6 billion) to fund the changes. Provincial authorities have one year to draw up plans for achieving the reductions.
The Netherlands 🇳🇱
The food supply shortage in supermarkets. The Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of agriculture in the world. The farmer’s protest and blockade has huge repercussions for the global food supply chain.
No farmers, no food.pic.twitter.com/aB9HSGrpO6
— James Melville (@JamesMelville) July 9, 2022
Dutch farmers raised slogans like “no farmers, no food,” protesting emission regulations that threaten to destroy the farming sector in the Netherlands, the world’s second largest agricultural exporter after the United States.
The protesting farmers where joined by the country’s fishermen, who also fear disastrous fallout of the new Dutch emission rules. They joined forces to block roads in the eastern Netherlands. “Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, advised travellers to use public transport, rather than cars, to reach the airport, as farmers’ activist groups said on social media they planned to use tractors to block roads,” the French TV channel Euro News reported this week.
“Several traffic jams were reported on highways in the east of the country and on ferry routes in the north, but none near Schiphol during the morning commute,” the broadcaster added.
Dutch farmers movement also received support from fellow German farmers. “The German farmers on Wednesday blockaded the Autobahn A57 und A61 in Niederrhein, near the border. They showed solidarity with their Dutch colleagues,” the German state broadcaster ARD reported.
[The excerpt from the German news report translated by the author]
