{"id":29882,"date":"2022-10-05T18:05:11","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T22:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=29882"},"modified":"2022-10-05T18:05:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T22:05:46","slug":"why-the-dutch-farmer-protest-is-your-cause-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2022\/10\/05\/why-the-dutch-farmer-protest-is-your-cause-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Dutch Farmer Protest Is Your Cause, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=29883\" class=\"attachment wp-att-29883\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dutch-farmers-1024x507.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"802\" height=\"397\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-29883\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dutch-farmers-1024x507.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dutch-farmers-300x149.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dutch-farmers-768x380.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dutch-farmers-242x120.jpg 242w, https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dutch-farmers.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 802px) 100vw, 802px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It was a standoff in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands on the evening of July 5. Police <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/police-fire-dutch-farmer-protest-nitrogen-emission-cut\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">fired gunshots<\/a> at a band of farmers who were reportedly driving tractors into officers and their vehicles to get past a blockade and onto the highway.<\/p>\n<p>A tractor was hit by the gunfire, and three arrests were made. This was just one heated event among countless during a campaign of tens of thousands of protesters that has now become an international showdown between farmers and environmental regulators with global and potentially historic implications.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-0\">The Backstory<\/h2>\n<p>The Dutch farmer protests started with<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/db28ed269ffd4fba935be04d2fc5b27c\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/db28ed269ffd4fba935be04d2fc5b27c\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">an initial bout<\/a> of demonstrations in the Netherlands <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/f0a3d660fc8242c4bfc895280bfe7477\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">on October 1, 2019<\/a> in response to new carbon<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/8172b393ced046e990218feba8f4b362\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/8172b393ced046e990218feba8f4b362\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">emissions reduction legislation<\/a> that disproportionately impacted farmers.<\/p>\n<p>Then, on June 10 of this year, the Dutch government unveiled more extreme measures targeted directly at the agricultural industry. \u201cFarms next to nature reserves must cut nitrogen output by 70%,\u201d<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">the <\/a><em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Economist<\/a><\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> reported<\/a>. \u201cAbout 30% of the country\u2019s cows and pigs will have to go, along with a big share of cattle and dairy farms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to this new legislation, <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/netherlands-wildlife-the-hague-a0809b0fb37e8923ac9184b86325d2e3\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">about 40,000<\/a> Dutch farmers <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2022\/jul\/21\/emotion-and-pain-as-dutch-farmers-fight-back-against-huge-cuts-to-livestock\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">protested outside<\/a> government buildings and the homes of ministers and drove hundreds of tractors<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/u-s-world\/2022\/7\/7\/23198400\/why-tractor-riding-dutch-farmers-protesting-against-emissions-regulations-netherlands\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/u-s-world\/2022\/7\/7\/23198400\/why-tractor-riding-dutch-farmers-protesting-against-emissions-regulations-netherlands\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">to blockade<\/a> food distribution centers including warehouses and grocery stores. Throughout July <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/world\/explained-why-farmers-protests-that-kicked-off-in-the-netherlands-are-spreading-across-europe-10925091.html\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">the movement spread<\/a> to Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and other nations, each with farmers taking to the streets in repudiation of their governments\u2019 measures to reduce the scale and output of the agricultural industry.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-1\">The Industrial Farming Tradeoff<\/h2>\n<p>So what exactly is each side of this dispute fighting for?<\/p>\n<p>The Netherlands, being the world\u2019s <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbs.nl\/en-gb\/news\/2019\/03\/agricultural-export-value-over-90-bn-euros-in-2018#:~:text=With%20an%20export%20value%20of,percent%20of%20these%20agricultural%20exports.\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">second <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbs.nl\/en-gb\/news\/2019\/03\/agricultural-export-value-over-90-bn-euros-in-2018#:~:text=With%20an%20export%20value%20of,percent%20of%20these%20agricultural%20exports.\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">largest<\/a> exporter of agricultural goods after the United States, is among Earth\u2019s most productive farming centers but is also therefore one of the largest polluters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by showing what the future of farming could look like,\u201d<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/magazine\/article\/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming?loggedin=true\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/magazine\/article\/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming?loggedin=true\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">according to a<\/a> <em>National Geographic<\/em> article titled \u201cThis Tiny Country Feeds the World.\u201d But as<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">the <\/a><em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Economist<\/a><\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/europe\/2022\/07\/14\/how-many-cows-are-too-many-asks-the-dutch-government\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> reports<\/a>, \u201cThe Netherlands is the biggest nitrogen polluter in the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The farm animals that will likely soon be regulated out of existence produce manure which mixes with urine and releases the nitrogen compound ammonia.<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">This can harm<\/a> wildlife and disrupt sensitive ecosystems when it leaks into nearby rivers and lakes.<\/p>\n<p>But there are simply no other known methods of producing such bountiful agricultural output with the resources available to the Dutch farmers. So this is a tradeoff between protecting sensitive ecosystems on the one hand, and on the other hand maintaining a thriving Dutch agricultural industry that is able to support its workers while providing the market with maximally affordable products.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to move away from the low-cost model of food production,\u201d<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">said MP Tjeerd de Groot<\/a> of the Democrats 66 party, which is part of the Dutch coalition government. \u201cIt\u2019s time to restore nature, climate and air, and in some areas that may mean there is no more place for intensive farmers there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dutchnews.nl\/features\/2018\/03\/dutch-agriculture-is-not-a-beacon-of-good-farming-practice-to-the-world\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">And according to<\/a> <em>DutchNews.nl<\/em>, \u201cDutch agriculture has to become a lot less efficient or the environment will suffer even more, say agro-environmental scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-2\">The Introduction of ESG<\/h2>\n<p>If this regulatory crackdown on Dutch farmers were an isolated and unusual event, the effects on food availability, food prices, and farmer wages would be bad enough (see the next section). But given the political circumstances currently faced by farmers and those in other industries that are being heavily blamed for environmental destruction, a 30 percent reduction in cows and pigs is likely to be just the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>The deliberate move away from efficient and low-cost farming is in line with a broader global initiative to minimize and reorganize most industrial activity. And that initiative is known as ESG.<\/p>\n<p>As Dan Sanchez <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/will-esg-reform-capitalism-or-destroy-it\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" data-toggle=\"popover\">has delineated<\/a>, \u201cenvironmental, social and corporate governance\u201d (ESG) policies have been around in their codified form since 2004 when top financial institutions were tasked by the United Nations with developing guidelines for reforming the financial sector through \u201cenvironmental, social and corporate governance.\u201d The evident goal was to skew the global economy\u2019s capital investment toward firms willing to fall in line with the environmental and social values of the powers that be.<\/p>\n<p>Since its invention in 2004, and especially in just the last few years, ESG has become a mainstream form of increasingly-state-backed governance that has thoroughly realigned incentives throughout the economy. In December 2021, Reuters <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/us\/how-2021-became-year-esg-investing-2021-12-23\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">named 2021<\/a> \u201cthe year of ESG investing,\u201d and by April 2022, <em>Bloomberg<\/em> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-04-26\/after-1-trillion-fund-hit-morningstar-targets-esg-engagement#xj4y7vzkg\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">reported that<\/a>, \u201cFew corners of the financial universe have been surrounded by as much marketing froth as ESG, which by some estimates represents more than $40 trillion in assets.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">\n<div id=\"om-fqmeg7lcejd7fy5oro5r-holder\">\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"om-lxkcubhhqwmdm0lkjkbp-holder\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>ESG funds by definition prioritize the moral values of their controllers rather than focusing purely on profitability. And many of those political aims, such as race and sex quotas on corporate boards and the mass curtailing of the energy industry, are at odds with maximizing production and minimizing costs for investors, workers, and customers alike. This might explain why ESG funds <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/bidens-esg-tax-on-your-retirement-fund-pension-planning-regulation-climate-change-investment-returns-portfolios-11658245467\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">are underperforming badly.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And such will be the fate of the Dutch farming industry as investors and entrepreneurs incorporate the fact that efficient industrial agriculture has fallen out of favor among those who wield the powers of political reward and punishment. \u201cFor my son, where can he find a living and know what will be allowed in 10 years?\u201d<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">asked Erik Stegink<\/a>, a protesting pig farmer in the Dutch village of Bathmen.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-3\">The Rise of Food Insecurity<\/h2>\n<p>Such drastic hampering of Holland\u2019s farming industry, both directly and indirectly through the hampering of connected industries such as energy, will put thousands of farmers out of work, reduce food availability, and increase food prices internationally at a time when food insecurity is on the rise.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2022\/06\/09\/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-commitments-to-advance-food-security-in-the-western-hemisphere\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">a statement<\/a> that the White House released in June, \u201cMany of our neighbors rely significantly on imports for food and are particularly vulnerable to rising food costs. The [Western Hemisphere] is experiencing the highest spike in food prices in a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The publication specifies that between 2014 and 2019 the number of people facing severe food insecurity nearly doubled to more than 90 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. About a third of Venezuelians are food-insecure, while 50 percent of their children under five are showing signs of malnutrition. The number of people facing food insecurity in Honduras nearly doubled last year.<\/p>\n<p>The ongoing food crisis in Sri Lanka is a particularly gruesome display of just how tragic the results of heavy farming regulation can be. <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/covid-health-china-india-asia-c9a49428e9bad5c0bb087534c0d310f8\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">About 90 percent<\/a> of Sri Lankan families are skipping meals due to widespread <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-06-17\/sri-lanka-faces-food-crisis-as-farmers-abandon-fields-and-inflation-surges\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">food shortages and food price inflation<\/a> of roughly 60 percent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a scary turnaround for a middle-income country that once faced no problems feeding a population of 22 million people,\u201d <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-06-17\/sri-lanka-faces-food-crisis-as-farmers-abandon-fields-and-inflation-surges\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Bloomberg<\/a><\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-06-17\/sri-lanka-faces-food-crisis-as-farmers-abandon-fields-and-inflation-surges\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> reports<\/a>. And why did it happen? There are many reasons, but as <em>Bloomberg<\/em> explains, a major one is that, \u201cIn April 2021, the government, led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, banned synthetic fertilizer imports to push the country toward organic farming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Dutch economy and most Dutch farmers have deep enough coffers that they probably won\u2019t suffer (for now) from the drastic food insecurity that many poorer countries are experiencing. They will have the luxury of cutting back their quality of life and their children\u2019s futures in other ways instead, as will most of the Americans whose grocery store prices will rise as a result of the Dutch agricultural exports becoming scarcer. But manufactured scarcity and price increases will likely mean immediate starvation for many at the margins in places like Sri Lanka and Latin America.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-4\">The Logical Conclusions<\/h2>\n<p>As some of the farmers have pointed out, there is a case to be made that advancing agricultural progress rather than obstructing it would ultimately have better environmental impacts, not worse. This is because innovation rather than impact reduction has often proven the clearest path to sustainability. And innovation requires that there is capital to invest in new processes and experimentation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCars were very polluting but they had a chance to make cars less polluting with innovation. That is what we want,\u201d Dutch farmers party founder<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2021\/dec\/15\/netherlands-announces-25bn-plan-to-radically-reduce-livestock-numbers\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">MP Caroline van der Plas explained<\/a>. And improvements to automobile sustainability are exemplary of the rule, not the exception.<\/p>\n<p>The history of industrial wealth creation and its environmental impacts<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/top-global-energy-agency-calls-for-phasing-out-of-all-gas-powered-cars-coal-fired-plants\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" data-toggle=\"popover\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/top-global-energy-agency-calls-for-phasing-out-of-all-gas-powered-cars-coal-fired-plants\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" data-toggle=\"popover\">shows consistently<\/a> that new wealth tends to improve people\u2019s ability to adapt to a changing environment at least as much as the corresponding environmental changes are problematic for human welfare. The economic datasets known as <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/04\/21\/science\/earth\/21tier.html?searchResultPosition=3\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">the Kuznets curves<\/a> suggest that, at least in modern times, starving people who are focused on the short-term concerns of surviving another month actually tend to damage their environment more than relatively wealthy people who can afford to invest in their long-term wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p>So how is one to decide whether agricultural progress is worth its cost in ecological disruption? The answer becomes clearer when you take the two opposing goals to their logical conclusions.<\/p>\n<p>Agriculture will always disrupt ecosystems and cause pollution, but if it is allowed to flourish it can also make up for that by continuing to improve through innovation as it<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/the-malthusian-fallacy-paul-krugman-just-fell-for\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" data-toggle=\"popover\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/the-malthusian-fallacy-paul-krugman-just-fell-for\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" data-toggle=\"popover\">already has been for centuries<\/a>, and by making humankind wealthy enough to endure an ever-expanding range of potential environmental conditions, which will<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/quillette.com\/2020\/05\/17\/capitalism-or-the-climate\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/quillette.com\/2020\/05\/17\/capitalism-or-the-climate\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">eventually be necessary anyway<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, there is no good ending to the story of limiting and reducing the ability of the farming industry, possibly humans\u2019 most important industry, to produce food. The less food civilization has, the less possible it will be to adapt to changing climate conditions. And since agriculture will always affect its environment, the goal of minimizing the environmental impact of agriculture and other industrial activities is one that will never be complete until everyone starves.<\/p>\n<p>Ecological change is a constant of biological reality\u2014but humans remaining well fed is certainly not. And that hasn\u2019t changed in modern times, as is demonstrated by the 20th century history of mass starvations caused by central planning in places like <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/jan\/01\/china-great-famine-book-tombstone\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">China<\/a>, <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1979\/08\/08\/archives\/225-million-cambodians-are-said-to-face-starvation-plight-held.html\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Cambodia<\/a>, and the <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Holodomor\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">Soviet Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.mises.org\/Road%20to%20serfdom.pdf\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"> <\/a><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.mises.org\/Road%20to%20serfdom.pdf\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">once wrote that<\/a>, \u201cThe more the state \u2018plans\u2019 the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.\u201d Dutch statists preventing farmers from growing food is a good example of this. It will make planning their budgets, careers, and livelihoods more difficult for the farmers who are being regulated, but it will likely make such planning more difficult for individuals all over the world as well.<\/p>\n<div>\n<h5>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/saul-zimet\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><br \/>\nSaul Zimet<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p class=\"brief-bio\">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saul Zimet was a Hazlitt Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and a graduate student in economics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/why-the-dutch-farmer-protest-is-your-cause-too\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a standoff in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands on the evening of July 5. Police fired gunshots at a band of farmers who were reportedly driving tractors into officers and their vehicles to get past a blockade and onto the highway. A tractor was hit by the gunfire, and three arrests were made. This was just one heated event among countless during a campaign of tens of thousands of protesters that has now become an international showdown between farmers and environmental regulators with global and potentially historic implications. The Backstory The Dutch farmer protests started with an initial bout of demonstrations in the Netherlands on October 1, 2019 in response to new carbon emissions reduction legislation that disproportionately impacted farmers. Then, on June 10 of this year, the Dutch government unveiled more extreme measures targeted directly at the agricultural industry. \u201cFarms next to nature reserves must cut nitrogen output by 70%,\u201d the Economist reported. \u201cAbout 30% of the country\u2019s cows and pigs will have to go, along with a big share of cattle and dairy farms.\u201d In response to this new legislation, about 40,000 Dutch farmers protested outside government buildings and the homes of ministers and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[446,3895,3894,3896,3897],"class_list":["post-29882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-climate-change","tag-farmers","tag-farming","tag-netherlands","tag-starvation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29885,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29882\/revisions\/29885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}