During the year or so between my first visit to the Netherlands, in August 1997, and my move to Amsterdam from New York, I not only put myself through a one-man crash course in Dutch; I also read every book I could find about Dutch history, society, art and culture, customs and character. But one key fact that I somehow missed entirely, and that only recently found its way onto my radar, is that the Netherlands is, after the U.S., the world’s largest exporter of agricultural products.
At first blush it seems impossible. Yes, the U.S. being #1 is a no-brainer: nobody has anywhere near as much first-class farmland. But the Netherlands, which is 1/231 the size of the U.S.? Really? To travel across the Randstad, the crescent-shaped urban conglomeration that contains most of the major cities, is to imagine that this little land must be a significant agriculture importer. How, then, can it possibly beat out giants like Russia, Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia? Well, as it happens, most of those giants are near the top of the export list: Brazil for coffee; Indonesia, palm oil; China, rice; Canada, oats. But if they’re not at the very top of the list, it’s because Russia and Canada are largely tundra, Brazil and Indonesia mostly jungle, and Australia almost entirely desert.
But the Netherlands? What’s the secret? One word: innovation. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Much of its current farmland wouldn’t exist if not for the reclamation of land from the sea – a practice that is now some seven hundred years old and that, thanks to extraordinary technological innovations during the previous century, has more than doubled the country’s area.
Last year, in an article for Dutch Review, Jesse Rintoul summed up some of the more impressive recent examples of innovations in Dutch farming. The University of Wageningen, thanks to “an alternative soil composite made of coco peat and rock wool,” managed to grow bananas in the Netherlands’ not-exactly-banana-republic climate. A company called Nijsen/Granico produces “about 90,000 tons of animal feed a year entirely from human food waste.” And in Rotterdam, there’s a “floating farm” that feeds cows “with leftovers from local restaurants.” The Dutch, notes Rintoul, have sought to “produce twice as much food using half as many resources.”
You’d think the Dutch would be immensely proud of these accomplishments – proud to be able not only to feed themselves but to sell their agricultural products all over the world. Alas, during the last couple of decades, as the Netherlands’ agricultural sector has grown, so has the number of Dutch legislators who either are hard-core environmentalists or are pathetically eager to obey the globalists at the UN, EU, and World Economic Forum, who are using climate- scare rhetoric to solidify their power.
So it is that while the Dutch government has done precious little to reverse the alarming changes wrought by mass Islamic immigration in the Netherlands’ largest cities, it’s chosen to take on – with well-nigh unprecedented imperiousness – its agricultural sector, to which no Dutchman should express anything but gratitude.
The conflict bubbled over in 2019, when a research institute complained that farmers – or, rather, cows – were responsible for an excessively high level of Dutch nitrogen emissions. Soon left-wingers were speaking solemnly of “the Dutch nitrogen crisis.” The European Court of Justice accused the kingdom of violating EU environmental regulations. A member of the lower house in The Hague proposed cutting in half the number of animals on Dutch farms. The same year, 2019, saw passage of the Climate Act, which called for closing down thousands of farms with the purported goal of cutting nitrogen emissions in half by 2030. Last year the Agriculture Ministry issued a draconian order that called for a well-nigh total halt to farming in some parts of the country.
In response to all this bullying, the farmers took action. Thousands of them used their tractors to block roads, impede food deliveries, and surround government buildings. There were many arrests. But Marine Le Pen supported them. So, in a 2022 speech, did Donald Trump, who condemned the Dutch “climate tyranny.” Having lost support from the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the political party that had traditionally championed agricultural interests, the farmers and their allies formed the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), or Farmer-Citizen Movement, which quickly drew into its ranks conservatives who resented the international globalists for riding roughshod over national policy-making processes that were none of their damn business.
When I was first reading all those books about the Dutch, one point that was made repeatedly was that they were a highly civilized people whose political debate (and, for that matter, corporate decision-making) was characterized by amicable deliberation and compromise. Impassioned mass protests of the kind that are routine in France were uncommon. Power plays were nearly unheard of. When gay people began to call for same-sex marriage, there wasn’t rage on one side and hysteria on the other – there were temperate discussions. In 2001, as a result, the Netherlands became the first place on earth to institute same-sex marriage.
But from the beginning, the showdown over agriculture was different. It wasn’t a matter of Dutch people hashing over an issue with other Dutch people. Instead, politicians and bureaucrats, at the behest of the UN, EU, and WEF, were issuing ultimatums to Dutch farmers – and, to everyone’s surprise, the farmers, instead of rolling over and accepting their fate, put up a mass resistance that, at it core, was of a piece with the British vote for Brexit, the American election of Trump, the protests by “yellow jackets” in France, and the truckers’ uprising in Canada.
The trucker parallel makes particular sense, given that, as Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek put it in a recent YouTube interview with Jordan Peterson, the Netherlands and Canada “are both pilot countries for the WEF,” with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, like his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau, frequently receiving praise from WEF chairman Klaus Schwab for his abject servility – sorry, commendable cooperation. At the behest of globalists, charged Vlaardingerbroek, the Dutch government was “fighting a war of attrition against our farmers.” The wishes of Dutch citizens, long known for their proud liberty and uncompromising self-government, now mattered less than directives originating far – well, not all that far (Brussels, Strasbourg, Geneva) – from the kingdom’s borders.
Well, that all changed on March 15. In provincial elections, which showed the highest turnout in years, the BBB won 137 out of 572 seats – a stunning victory. In every one of the Netherlands’ twelve provinces, the BBB became the top party while Rutte’s VVD lost 17 of its 80 seats. The VVD’s partners in the governing coalition all experienced major shrinkage, too: the D66 lost 9 of its 41 seats, the CDA dropped from 72 to 43, and the CU declined from 31 to 22. Since the provincial councils will proceed, on May 30, to elect the Senate – the upper house of the Dutch legislature – the BBB will now (barring some freak development) become the largest party in that body.
News media in the Netherlands and abroad used the word “shock” to describe the BBB’s upset win. It was as much of an upheaval as the Brexit and Trump victories, and like them it provided metropolitan globalists with a timely reminder that the deplorables exist. Not that the BBB didn’t find support in the cities, too: the German newspaper Die Welt noted that its urban vote count was impressive, an apparent reflection of a widespread feeling “that the government cares about all kinds of things but not the prosperity and security of ordinary citizens.”
Needless to say, the BBB’s triumph means that the government’s plan to stick it to the farmers is almost certainly dead. But where does that leave the Islamic crisis? Will the farmers be on the right side of that issue? Geert Wilders, the face of public resistance to the Islamization of the Netherlands, seems to think so: as soon as the contours of the March 15 vote became clear, Wilders tweeted his congratulations to the BBB for having crushed Rutte’s government and declared the readiness of his Freedom Party (PVV) to work together with the farmers. Alas, the PVV ended up losing 6 out of 40 seats, while Thierry Baudet’s immigration-critical FvD had a disastrous night, dropping from an impressive 86 seats to a mere 15. Sad news, that. Still, at the moment, for the most part, things do seem to be looking up for the anti-globalist cause in the Netherlands.
Hurrah for Dutch farmers. In the Nitrogen Cycle economy what goes around comes around to bite the Rütte government in the butox.
Climate change, nitrogen, fossil fuels……….digital ID and currency.
These “governments” are not trying to save the planet, or protect people. These policies are designed to CONTROL the populace.
Outlaw all combustion engines. Switch to electric battery power only. No more cash…..all purchases through computer systems. Get rid of the farmers who produce the food and have Government take them over.
Where does it lead? Pretty simply to see.
If you annoy the government, or pose a threat to their power…….they shut off yours.
If you annoy the government, or pose a threat to their control of finances…….freeze your bank account.
If you annoy the government or pose a threat to their power……..they will starve your family.
We don’t have to worry about Chinese politicians anymore. We have to worry about the politicians who are on China’s payroll.
And as we know already……both Biden and Trudeau have been taking Chinese money for years.
Stock up on gas kiddies……and learn how to garden.
Well said – they truly are evil.
Control the food, control the people.
Stalin practiced this extensively. People do not like to watch their children starve.
Indonesian palm oil? I remember that. I hated it at first. I hated the smell and the taste. Indonesians stir fry everything except fruit because those islands are in the tropics and food will make you sick otherwise. Just like the water.
And anybody who opposes farmers are mentally ill. We all need them to survive.
What are we going to do without them? Eat beetles?
Stir fry or boil before eating.
There were some stories about people who lost their eyes because of infection from eye drops. So I checked where the water in those eye drops came from 🙂
I wouldn’t buy anything that contains water from those areas.
Good to know that there’s at least one little country far away from America where the Neo-Marxists are losing. There’s another little country far away where the people tried, but lost to Globalists.
Yes, and that little country across the sea, helped save our Country in 1777. Without the Dutch monies we would have lost the Revolutionary War. It’s time to honor our Dutch allies, by doing the same thing here in our country by taking it back from the Globalist, through the ballot box.
You are correct. BTW, The other little country I referred to is Israel.
Dutch history is interesting. In the 1600s, the Netherlands were a great power, along with England. The Netherlands was a great trading nation, with excellent ships, excellent sailors and officers. They fought 3 naval wars against England, the hardest naval battles the English navy ever fought.
I am a great admirer of the Dutch. It was during that period that arguably the greatest paintings ever produced came out of the Netherlands.
Thanks Seekers!!!
The Green agenda is intended to destroy agriculture. That means making the world less green.
Nothing makes world greener than Carbon Dioxide.
Ironic that the ‘green’ people are trying to eliminate two of the things plants require. And nitrogen makes up almost 80% of our atmosphere. Just turning the soil or aerating puts some in it. Next they’ll mandate crops have to watered with Brawndo, the thirst annihilator (“Idiocracy.”).
“Brawndo’s got the electrolytes that plants crave!”
“Brawndo” LOL that movie was a rip off of the novel “the marching Morons” by Cyril M. Cornbluth but it was funny as F.
The green agenda is intended to be a global, earth-based (immanent, rather than transcendent) religion to replace faltering monotheism. Most people fail to recognize who is pushing the global agenda and how deep and *thorough* their philosophy is and how much they resent a single, anthropomorphic and free willing deity. Try reading some of Joseph Campbells academic work, for starters. Pay attention to Richard Attenborough and his musings.
The green agenda is about much more than population reduction.
Yeah, I agree with that. They are trying to replace God with worship of something outside oneself. On a tangent, I think that is where all this worship of a beneficent inter-galactic civilization looking out for our best interests comes from. Something outside taking care of us, instead of the God inside.
The Green’s main aim – aided and abetted by the WEF – is not to save the world from Carbon ‘poisoning’ but to reduce the world’s population to about 1 billion max.. hence food producers MUST be put out of business.
The Farmers refuse to be forced off the land and lose their livelihoods over a totally fake crisis and their telling the Eco-Freaks the live Wild or Die idiots the Globalists like Gates and Soros and the UN Globalists No Deal
She’s a wolf in sheepclothes, her only 4tune ,made vvd by OPROuTTE Smaller Pitty i cant send pics from CDA Flyer, her pic on that or drawing wolf in sheepclothes ór legs tru the monsanto SPONSOR Basket.
According to one of the interviewees on the Jordan Peterson podcast it’s not about nitrogen the global elites want to build a tri-city a smart one controlled by Goolag.
We’d do the same, if our elections were not rigged.
Indeed. And all the GOPee can say about rampant election fraud is Voat Moar Harder. What abject cucks!
The only reason why South Africa hasn’t starved to death, for example, is because the mainly Dutch-derived Afrikaner uses his expertise in agriculture to support the “bleks.” But insofar as native blacks have made it a habit to invade Afrikaner farmland, and rob and kill the farmers and their families, a disaster looms here. There have literally thousands such murders since the advent of black rule. Let’s hope that “humanitarian” NGOs don’t bring the blacks to America en masse. It would by the end of our country.
Farming in S.A. is difficult even for the best. Poor soil and drought, truly a tough row to hoe.
Timing and a chemist knowledge to make it come out right.
Kill the man that keeps you fed. Great idea.
It is all deliberate, the UN Agenda 2030 openly calls for depopulation and the UN does not want to depopulate Africa and the Middle East, it is deliberately overwhelming the western world with fake refugees to demoralise us along with the so called gay community and so called women’s rights, because the only rights the are interested in is their rights to work, and have abortions.
Wake up guys, the WEF might be the visible front to this but they are 100% in cahoots with the UN, just as the World pHarma Org is in league with big Pharma the WHO is also owned by the UN.
DEFUND THE UN NOW, kick them out of NYC and move them to the poorest nation in the world, see how enthusiastic they are to help out with equity then.
Thank you, Mr. Bawer. The Dutch Farmer party participated in the 12 provinces’ elections and their 4-500 elected legislators choose the Dutch senate in June. Until then all national law-making is frozen and there will be a lot of political horsetrading in the provinces about whom to vote for in the coming Dutch senate election. In all 12 provinces, the Farmer party is number one, and perhaps in all 12 provinces will end up in and lead the government of the province. That is one warzone.
The second is that the Farmer party will have a huge majority over the other parties in the Dutch Senate in June and already the current administration is in crisis because the pressure is rising to step down and initiate an early election. That election will be won, of course, by the farmer’s party.
Three, the leader of the Farmers party Caroline van der Plas is well aware of the international political resonance it will have because there are half a billion farmers globally. So ideologically since the Germans peasant’s war (1524-1525), we have a new movement that is totally opposite to liberals, socialists, and communists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants%27_War
You give this poor dispirited American hope for the future. Thank you, and may you light the fires of freedom throughout the world.
Yes, that’s an interesting take on the situation that never occurred to me before. Maybe our political problems can be traced to advances in technology and such that made possible the movement of populations from the farms to the cities.
Anyone notice that the government uses fear to control people! They create chaos, and hype to crush your freedoms.
The proliferation of whatever/whatever complexes is now so widespread the govt is essentially in control of every aspect of our lives from agriculture to healthcare and beyond. Eisenhower called it the “military/industrial complex” when speaking specifically of the war machine. It needs to be called what it is, fascism. Modern day businesses, willingly or not, go along for one of two reasons, they can’t refuse the money or they fear being regulated to the point of bankruptcy. Our new fascism comes with a smile and an offer you can’t refuse instead of jack-booted thugs and an interment camp. A rose by any other name….
Indonesian palm oil? I remember that. I hated it at first. I hated the smell and the taste. Indonesians stir fry everything except fruit because those islands are in the tropics and food will make you sick otherwise. Just like the water.
And anybody who opposes farmers are mentally ill. We all need them to survive.
What are we going to do without them? Eat beetles?
“Brawndo” LOL that movie was a rip off of the novel “the marching Morons” by Cyril M. Cornbluth but it was funny as F.