SOURCE: Kit Knightly at Off-Guardian<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This week, tens of thousands of farmers have gathered from all across the Netherlands to protest government policies which will reduce the number of livestock in the country by up to a third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a typical example of media weasel-wording, the press reports on this all headline something like \u201cDutch farmers protest emissions targets\u201d<\/a>, but this is a massive lie by omission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government policy being protested<\/a> is a 25 BILLION Euro investment in \u201creducing levels of nitrogen pollution\u201d<\/em> true, but it plans to achieve this by (among other things) \u201cpaying some Dutch livestock farmers to relocate or exit the industry\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In real terms, this ultimately means reducing the number of pigs, chickens and cows by about thirty per cent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s<\/em> what is being protested here \u2013 a deliberately shrinking of the farming sector, impacting the livelihood of thousands of farmers, and the food supply of literally hundreds of millions of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the scheme is allegedly about limiting nitrogen and ammonia emissions from urine and manure it\u2019s hard not to see this in the broader context of the ongoing created food crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Netherlands produces a massive food surplus and is one of the largest exporters of meat in the world and THE largest in Europe. Reducing its output by a third could have huge implications for the global food supply, especially in Western Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps more troubling is how this could act as a precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t the first \u201cpay farmers not to farm\u201d scheme launched in the last year \u2013 both the UK<\/a> and US<\/a> have put such schemes in place \u2013 but a government paying to reduce it\u2019s own meat production? That is a first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That it is (allegedly) being done to \u201cprotect the environment\u201d makes it a big warning sign for the future. Denmark, Belgium and Germany are already considering similar policies.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Western world seems to be enthusiastically embracing quasi-suicidal policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, paying farmers to reduce the amount of food they produce\u2026while (notionally) threatened with war\u2026in the midst of a recession<\/a>\u2026facing record inflation<\/a> as the cost of living spirals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does that really make any sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\nTHE BIG PICTURE<\/h4>\n\n\n\n