Curbing the environmental impact of agriculture will put farmers from the Netherlands to New Zealand out of business. They’re resisting
A Dutch flag flown upside down in protest against the government’s nitrogen policy on a farm in Hazerswoude, Netherlands.Photographer: Peter Boer/Bloomberg
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A Dutch flag flown upside down in protest against the government’s nitrogen policy on a farm in Hazerswoude, Netherlands.Photographer: Peter Boer/Bloomberg
It took an existential threat to turn a fifth-generation dairy farmer into an anti-government protester.
Bart Kooijman raises 120 cows on 50 hectares in western Holland. If authorities push ahead with plans to halve nitrogen emissions from agriculture by 2030, his could be among thousands of farms that will have to shrink or close.
In an attempt to quell a summer of fury, which saw farmers setting hay bales ablaze and dumping manure on motorways, the government said in November it would buy out as many as 3,000 of the biggest emitters in a voluntary one-time offer, setting aside €24.3 billion ($25.6 billion) to fund the transition. Those who refuse will be forced out of business.
Bart Kooijman on his dairy farm in Hazerswoude, Netherlands, on 13 October. Photographer: Peter Boer/Bloomberg
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Bart Kooijman on his dairy farm in Hazerswoude, Netherlands, on 13 October. Photographer: Peter Boer/Bloomberg
“We don’t want to make fires or block roads but if we do nothing, it’s over,” says Kooijman, a father of two. “We’ll just get kicked off the land.”
Intensive farming — and decades of official inaction — have devastated biodiversity in the Netherlands, forcing the government to impose drastic measures. But the Dutch crisis serves as a cautionary tale for governments the world over as a year of record drought, flood and fire forces us to reckon with the way we produce the most essential of goods: food.
While it’s one of the biggest victims of more extreme weather, agriculture is also a major climate offender. From farm to fork, the food system generates about 31% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Cows and sheep emit planet-warming methane simply by digesting food; their manure and urine is a source of nitrogen oxide which, in large volumes, throws ecosystems off kilter. Too many fertilizers and pesticides are poisoning soils and water, while farmers are clearing ever-larger expanses of rainforest for cattle or monoculture, destroying complex systems that shelter wildlife and regulate the Earth’s temperature.
Agricultural emissions rose 14% between 2000 and 2018, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. If action isn’t taken fast, researchers estimate that food-related emissions alone would push the Earth past 1.5C of warming that world leaders set as a target in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
So after focusing for years on fossil fuels, policymakers are beginning to target farming too.
The most important biodiversity summit in a decade is taking place this week in Montreal. It follows last month’s UN-sponsored climate talks, where a day of the two-week program was dedicated to agriculture. The event built on the 2021 summit in Glasgow, with more than 150 nations now committed to cutting methane emissions 30% by the decade’s end.
To meet that goal, some of the developed world’s agricultural powerhouses are unveiling bold new policies. New Zealand, the largest dairy exporter, said it would begin taxing agricultural emissions by 2025, a world first according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Irish farmers are expected to cut emissions by a quarter before 2030. Denmark wants its farming and forestry sectors to cut emissions as much as 65%.
Feeding the Planet
Food systems generate one-third of global GHG emissions
Source: Our World in Data, Crippa et al (2021)
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Source: Our World in Data, Crippa et al (2021)
Politically, however, agriculture could prove trickier to tackle than sectors like mining, energy or cars, which are dominated by a small number of big, corporate players. Farmers are a force of millions, some with small holdings that have been in families for generations, giving them an attachment to land — and occupation — that runs deeper than profit.
Soaring food, fuel and fertilizer prices are already spurring public discontent. Polish and Greek farmers drove tractors to their capitals to voice grievances earlier this year and protests in solidarity with Dutch farmers erupted across Europe. Farmer protests have surged around the globe — in Europe they’re up 30% from 2021 — and are expected to gain momentum in the coming months and years, driven by inflation, drought and tightening environmental regulation, according to a tracker produced by political risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft.
Agriculture is a major export sector for many countries, but food is also a basic human need, and what we eat is often engrained in our heritage and sense of identity. It’s a more politically charged issue than many.
That’s why the Dutch standoff has struck an international cord, catapulting farmers to the center of a global culture war that’s seen them demonized by activists advocating vegan lifestyles and lionized by right-wing groups opposed to government regulations on everything from Covid to climate. Even former US President Donald Trump has used them to push his agenda. “Farmers in the Netherlands — of all places — are courageously opposing the climate tyranny of the Dutch government,” he said at a rally in July.
Dutch farmers block the A1 highway during a protest near Rijssen in June.Photographer: Vincent Jannink/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
Dutch farmers block the A1 highway during a protest near Rijssen in June.Photographer: Vincent Jannink/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
