Do not give up Canadian Freedom Convoy or The United States People’s ConvoyDutch farmers formed a caravan of tractors on Wednesday to prove they can be pointless and destructive after they set up roadblocks, dumped manure and trash on the roads and burned grass bales dry after waking up.
Those are some seriously bad things. Roads in central and eastern Holland were blocked by convoys of tractors and flooded with water, with some remaining roads closed even at the end of the day. Police said the cleanup took longer as the companies hired to help received threats of violence against their efforts. Are from Related press:
“We’re doing everything we can to clear the road but… some contractors are under threat,” Fleuren told The Associated Press in a phone interview. He said it was unclear when all roads would be completely cleaned.
“Right now, people are under very serious threat” for helping with the cleanup, he added.
Dutch media reported that at one location, a sign was left saying: “Sorry for the inconvenience, Rutte IV is making us desperate,” citing the coalition government. by Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
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Farmers are angry at the government’s goals of control nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions which they say threatens to destroy their farming lifestyle and put them out of business.
The government says emissions of nitrogen oxides and ammonia produced by livestock must be significantly reduced near natural areas, part of a network of protected habitats for plants and wildlife. Endangered across 27 European Union countries.
Police are investigating the incident while begging farmers to stop manure and fire from burning as it is dangerous for other Danes on the road. What stirred Dutch farmers enough to till the country’s roads? An invitation from a government-appointed mediator to discuss with farmers the best way to reduce the country’s notoriously high nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions. The mediator, however, Johan Remkes was appointed by the country’s centre-right Prime Minister and therefore unreliable to far-right farmers.
Farmers say they are being unfairly targeted while airlines and other polluting industries are not regulated. But agriculture is big business in the Netherlands; The country is the number one meat exporter on the European continent and is often referred to as the “small country that feeds the world.” It also has the highest density of farm animals in Europe – over 100 million animals in a country smaller than West Virginia. All these livestock activities have resulted in an overload of polluting waste that has been a sore spot in the Netherlands for many years.
In 2019, the highest court in the Netherlands found the country was violating EU law by not doing enough to limit runoff and air pollution near freshwater environments. Last year, the government launched a powerful €25 billion plan to reduce the number of cows in the Netherlands by a third, Guardians report. The plan would require some farmers to voluntarily give up farming, switching to “extensive” farming where cattle graze on larger pastures than currently intensive farming.
We dig Dutch here. Thousands threatened to throw eggs at Jeff Bezos’ Mega yacht if a historic bridge is demolished to remove it and dock workers in this country sent back a ship full of Russian oil. But this seems like a rare miss from a possibly small country. Just having access to enough manure to close major roads means there is an excess. Throwing garbage on the street when claiming to have time to introduce green farming techniques also seems to go against the main message. Not all farmers feel the same way. Some farmers told Guardians Anyway, their way of life quickly changed:
“We don’t have to feed the world, but we can show how to do it in a more sustainable way,” says organic dairy farmer Jaring Brunia, from Friesland in the north of the country, said.
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Some farmers are more resigned to the changes, saying there is no future for intensive farming in densely populated areas. Netherlands. “We farm in the back yards of the city and everything is monitored,” says dairy farmer Heleen Lansink-Marissen, from Haaksbergen in the eastern Netherlands.
“We cannot fight for the past. We need a plan for the future and a way to monetize through biodiversity, carbon offsetting and a little less dairy,” she added.
This is not the first time European farmers have dumped trash on the streets to feed themselves. French farmers also drop their animal waste in 2014. They did it again in 2019 when farmers angry about a trade deal with Canada dumping manure directly on legislators’ office steps instead of the road people use. That same year Dutch farmers use their tractors to close the highways leading to The Hague.
