Dutch farmers have been conned by the government, the Wageningen university and the Rabobank. They were forced to take high mortgages in order to optimize production and to abide to the rules imposed by the government as a result from the EU nitrogen production limits. Manure was allowed to be injected into the soil and the rain and gras would solve the surplus. By juggeling with nitrogen figures the university and governement changed the rules so that farmers became the outcast of society. Making reference to the year 1850 makes no sense as the Dutch population was about 3,5 and now 18 million and the knowledge of farming was completely different. Right after WWII the government demanded that the farmers had to supply all the food neccesary to prevent hunger. That created the most effecient farming in the world.
Scientists were planning for a 50 million population by 2010, but are only 18 M in 2024 due to plummeting birth rates. This is one cause of the problem.
@@1964_AMU This is exact the reason why scientists are lousey in forecasting. These same scientists are the root cause for declaring catastrofies for mankind in order to create FEAR (False Expectations Appearing Real) amoungst the less educated to control their thoughts.
Hunger prevention was not the only reason. Farms were all small and fragmented and weren't profitable. With the ruilverkaveling a lot of farmers got larger fields and the landscape was more organised for a profitable farming sector, also lots of farmers stopped then. That was the first step in making a hyperproductive industry now run by a few monopolists further up the product chains. After the big lay-off which will happen in 4 months, again big farming companies will uptake the small farmers just like back then.
you have to know the part that have done that the left socialist part who is like this do what i say do not the things i do the biggest group travelers by air for meeting they can do also from there keyboard.
From Brazil and the United States, same places the netherlands imports all their agricultural feedstocks from. Or do you think the netherlands grows any food? They grow flowers and raise animals in concrete buildings, which are fed with american corn and brazilian soy
@@stevewiles7132 Factories. No horizonal growth, but vertical in big ware/storehouses. Allready in business. No more nature. One person/robot/machine can do the trick on a giant scale.
@@kpg1973 dutch corn too in high quantities. There used to be a great variety of plants on the fields, but no more, for a long time. Sometimes you might come across a patch of vegetables, for the neighhourhood-market.
@@annemaria5126 you are mentally retarded. Factories do not produce food. They might process food, as in a bakery. Food comes from farms, usually grain or legume farms. Food production requires photosynthesis from sunlight, which you cant get inside a building. Idiot. I bet you saw some greenhouse with grow lights producing lettuce at 15 dollars a head. Try to grow 2500 million tons of grain like that, idiot.
Good video, I miss some points in the discussion though: - The Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB) is not born out of the farmer communities, but the food processing industries. In NL we have a few humungus slaughterhouses, livestock fodder industries, but also pet food factories and other similar processing plants. They fully paid the farmers uprisings and the BBB party. It's even that intertwined that the party office is next to that of the Farmers and Garden Organisation (LTO). They have all reasons to keep the sector growing, it's in their interest. - The same slaughterhouses make quota for farmers to deliver certain amount of produce for set prices. That puts pressure on farmers to make enough products. - The banks don't have a shining role in this story either. They want to lend money to make the industries bigger, as long if it makes enough money to pay back the loans in time. The requirements to get the funds sufficient enough to do the investments are rising through the years and only make it harder to do so. To compete though, it is neccecary to stay growing. It's getting harder and harder by the year. - The same banks (mostly the Rabobank) were founded by the farmers of the end of the 19th century to make a financial group to pay for the investments themselves. The 'Boerenleenbank' (farmers loan bank) is a product of this. Sadly most farmers got overruled when it made a fusion with the Dutch branch 'Raiffeisenbank' from Germany. It became the RaBobank from then on. Although it had farmer origins, it's now more a business bank. This dispowered the farmers even more financially. - The constant upscaling is outcompeting farmers themselves. More production of one farmer, makes prices go down, ending bankrupting another. Until the next one that outcompetes the other, etc. This phenomenon is part of the 'Pig Cycle'. Since the 1950s there is a constant cycle of extra production --> dropping prices --> farmers going bankrupt --> max production quota to stabilize --> dropping of quota --> extra production, etc. Every cycle, half of the farmers is disappearing and the farm size is doubled. We had 4 cycles now since WWII and the 5th is now underway. - Climate has its impact as well. The weather patterns aren't as stable anymore as they were in the past. That makes farming also a lot tougher. More droughts means less water and hotter weather in summers means more cattle dying. - In the end a terrible thing: only last year alone almost 200.000 animals died of barn fires across the Netherlands. 200K! You read it well. It's mainly because of lack of fire protection, budget cuts and overcrowded buildings, full of chickens, pigs and cows. If it were people, the world would be outraged. Now it's just a statistic. There is more to this topic than it seems. But then again I think of my grandpa. He always said: "A farmer that doesn't complain, is dead." He came from a farmers family. He became a ship builder instead.
The infamous Boerenbond in Belgium is nearly built on the same actors and big farm system. Animal wellbeing and soil preservation are not into their plans neither. Thanks for these infos.
@@joehoe222 Wat er werkelijk achter veel genoemde zaken zit, lees ik niet in je verhaal. Ik merk dat bv. ook aan de reden die je geeft voor de stallen die afbranden.
How about the problem with your sort of medieval thinking? You can't demand everyone else to shoulder the burden of a intense polluting agricultural sector! No other industry are allowed equal destructive behaviour..! Btw, yearly billions of EU subventions to this spoiled sector still isn't a blessing to our national economy, health or environment! Just a few facts to enlighten your outdated knowledge 🥱✌🏻
I am a retired market gardener and I grew up on a dairy farm. The problem of nitrogen pollution MUST be solved although the ham-fisted strategy and tactics of the Dutch government has made it worse. I favor ending all farm subsidies in the EU. Then we will see how "efficient" industrial agriculture really is. Of course food prices will rise but they are going to rise anyway. Re-balancing the agricultural system will not be fun for anyone.
Yes you made your millions out of farming and now all of a sudden a change in mindset . Goverments get taxes from export and the farmers build the countrys worldwide and now farmers become the bad guys .
Why should it be "solved"? Was it a problem to begin with? According to whom? This is just government control trying to liquidate a reactionary working class.
i dont think that would do us any good. people with lower incomes spend more on food than those with higher incomes. about 15% of the dutch kids face food poverty right now and 10% of adults. i fear that if we let food prices rize even more it might cause even worse problems
@@FDk-or2lnsubsidies come from the taxes that are paid by everyone... including the poorest of us. The idea that subsidies make food cheap is faulty. The subsiding of agriculture makes you pay partially for the food that you might not even eat.? Ps Cut off subsidies and cut down taxes.🤷 Ps Through subsidies even the rich buy food that is partially paid by the poorest of people. How the heck is that helping the poorest?🤷
Please read the whole thing: Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of agri-food products, but is the fourth largest IMPORTER. What's going on? It imports products and then resells them. In short, more than a producer it is a trader. Import Export Balance : 2023 imports 94 billion , but exports 135 billion. (Eurostat source) Here is a BETTER explanation of the matter. The Dutch have historically been very good international traders for at least 400 years.
"The Dutch have historically been very good international traders for at least 400 years." More like almost 1.000 years. Going back to the Hanseatic League.
The Netherlands are not alone. Here in Canada is a similar process going on. Meanwhile there are dozens and dozens of counties that do not produce food enough for there growing population. The consequence of our woke idiotism will be famine and it won't be far off.
That's intentional. This is how socialists cling to power. First to artificially create scarcity and then offer a "solution", ie. redistribution. We saw this in the Soviet Union, China, Sri Lanka, Venezuela. Today in all "progressive" countries - Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Germany...
"Nitrogen pollution" is about nitrogen compounds such as ammonia (NH₃) or different nitrates (NO₃⁻), not gaseous nitrogen (N₂) in the atmosphere. The former mainly pollutes the air, while the latter mainly pollutes the water. The related nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a strong greenhouse gas and therefore an additional problem. In the video the term "Nitrogen" is used for nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) in general, but mostly nitrates (NO⁻₃). Just in case you were wondering 😅 (Information without guarantee). Not to mention other related or intermediate chemicals as nitrite (NO₂⁻), urea (CH₄N₂O) or ammonium (NH4⁺).
There are simple Measures for the water born compounds. Restoring buffer zones of natural vegetation along waterways, or even creating new ones on site. Wetland species are very good at stripping nutrients. Then there are bio digestion pits were bacteria do the same job. Australia's sugar cane industry has employed these measures with good results. And nobody had to give up the farm.
What they fail to realise - or refuse to acknowledge - is that the expulsion of Nitrogen (N2) is a linear function of population density. Nitrogen expulsion is expressed in mass/hectare. The Netherlands is top of the "polluters" when regarded according to that standards at 45 kg N2 per hectare. However, when considering the per capita expulsion of N2 the Dutch are below European average. If agriculture is "responsible" for half the expulsion, let's imagine getting rid of all of it; the Dutch expulsion will then reduced to 22.5 kg N2/hectare, which will be the absolutely lowest per capita pollution in Europe at 5,1 kg N2 per person, but still being the fourth most polluting country in Europe after Luxemburg, Germany, and Belgium, so we still can't build homes or roads; it just will no longer be producing food or flowers. Other countries will have to take up the slack, and I can almost guarantee they will expel MORE N2 to get the same output as few agricultural land around the world will be as fertile as Dutch clay - never mind animal welfare and health - but the world needs to be fed. I can hear the vegans already whine: "we should stop eating meat" ... No we shouldn't; our digestive track has developed over hundreds of thousands of years to digest animal products. You can fool yourself by eating only veggies - never mind all the non-huggable animals that the production of such kills - and using manufactured (chemical) supplements to compensate for the shortfall of your diet ... brilliant; replacing biology by chemicals and there's nothing like giving control of food to corporations that manufacture those indispensable supplements. Or you could accept the situation as is and let technology be developed that can solve some of the issues.
Excellent comment, it's ridiculous how our entire country is in a chokehold due to these measures that are based on bureaucracy rather than a realistic view of nature. Our future and economy is being destroyed by a non issue.
> If agriculture is "responsible" for half the expulsion, let's imagine getting rid of all of it; Every complex problem has multiple solutions. Not targeting the primary cause because that in itself will not be sufficient doesn't seem very productive. > Other countries will have to take up the slack, and I can almost guarantee they will expel MORE N2 to get the same output Probably true but not really relevant. Nitrogen emissions are a regional problem. If emitters move and spread out over a larger are that is still a solution. > Our digestive track has developed over hundreds of thousands of years to digest animal products. That doesn't in itself prove that there isn't a more efficient way to get what meat provides us, but even taking it as a given, humans have never in their history eaten as much animal products per capita as we do now. We could still significantly improve the situation by eating *less* animal products. > replacing biology by chemicals If there is a more efficient way to produce food that doesn't involve animals, what's the problem? We're using animals as small chemical factories on legs anyway. > Or you could accept the situation as is and let technology be developed that can solve some of the issues. The idea that the future will solve the problems is how we got here. The nitrogen emission problem has been known for decades. For decades the agricultural industry in cooperation with the government has done the bares minimum*. Now that that doesn't fly anymore the agricultural industry reacts like a victim rather than the primary cause. I probably agree with you that that trying to solve a problem that has evolved over decades in 5-10 years does more harm than good, but the victimhood complex of the agricultural sector is annoying. Concrete steps rather than vaguely gesturing towards magical future solutions would be helpful. * The agricultural industry has significantly reduces emissions, but that's like reducing your speed from 200kmph to 100kmph when you should be driving 30.
They fail to realise or refuse to acknowlege it is because it is complete cowdung. It depends on the economic activities. It is not "if", or "responsible" between aanhalingstekens. The agriculture IS responsible for almost a thirth of the nitrogen deposition. And it is not all of agriculture: it is the enormous livestock. The Netherlands has the highest livestock density of the world. We produce 4 times as much meat and dairy than we consume. So if the population declines, it doesnt matter for the nitrogen emission: we will just produce 5, 6, 7 times our own consumption. Reducing the lifestock does solve the issue. Than we can still farm, as there is still arable farming. And there is even a place for some lifestock, as a halving of lifestock is sufficient. Regarding your argument that others will produce it...and then? A bit nitrogen deposition does not have to be a problem. It is a problem when there is a huge concentration like in the netherlands of nitrogen emissions. So please, stop whining.
What you fail to realise is that the components referred to as " nitrogen pollution " are NH3 and different nitrates (NO3-). One pollutes the air while the other pollutes water. There are pockets where there is so much nitrogen that the ground has become sterile
The solution is very simple.... Dutch start working 40 hour weeks :D, stop importing workforce en masse, reduce number of foreign workers and other immigrants and thus reduce the price of housing and pollution but at the same time take a hit at the living standard and understand there is a cap at how much things can work efficiently in a limited space with certain amount of people without sacrificing something. Something has to give and certain future will be chosen. I cheer for the future where Dutch will keep the farmlands. Let's hope it will happen.
Best farmers in Africa i have seen them convert rock strewn land into flourishing farms and dust bowls into productive farm lands. I don't know how they do it and if it is something that comes naturally to them.
@@michaelotieno6524 with cheap labor, enough water and fertiliser and a good amount of perseverance almost anywhere can there be productive agriculture. It goes south when locals realise they're being exploited, like back in 2001 with the burning of white people owned lands in SA.
@zolanidingaan2511 Literaly the history of South Africa. Dutch farmers moving to unoccupied uncultuvated land and making it fertile and productive. What happens when the SA government sizes farms and give them to the blacks? The farms fail and go barren again.
The Dutch are brilliant at adapting, and have been doing so for centuries. The problem is that greed plays an integral part in the over-production of certain products which results in major pollution. Scaling back EVERYWHERE is the answer. Profits, yes, but not at the expense of everything else. Give the land time to recover. Give the air time to improve. Give wildlife space to exist. The Netherlands is an amazing country. Let's keep it that way. x
That is the absolute goal and function of any competitive system. They drive efficiency with the ruthless destruction of any model of enterprise that fails to decrease the cost of production.
There were a few people like Lubach, who warned the country that the BBB is there to support the big corporations and not individual farmers, but the people didn't listen. And neither did the government. Not all of it is the farmers' fault, though some of it is. They had to keep growing and growing, when actually organic, small farms should be made profitable. I still find it hard to sympathise with farmers who have to be forced not to abuse their animals though and not to poison the ground and water. Anyone with a soul wouldn't have to be forced, but do that on their own.
Yup. I for one knew about the BBB connections to pharmaceutical giant Bayer as an example. Nonetheless, too many Dutch famers ended up believing in the tales and movement of the BBB. Ignorance is bliss.
This video's author either didn't do his homework, or is quite biased. The massive Nitrogen emissions mean that Dutch agriculture is not as efficient as it could be. Land efficient, but not chemically efficient. Also, the only reason the Nitrogen crisis became a crisis is that the Dutch government failed to act for over 10 years, knowing that they had to comply with EU law within that deadline but not doing anything until the last minute. If the VVD had done proper policy planning, it would've been smooth and easy, no need for "crisis".
".... knowing that they had to comply with EU law within that deadline but not doing anything until the last minute." Sounds like just another day in politics and the kingdom of bureaucracy. When you look at the past 60 years or so. Yay!
It means the plebs will riot and overthrow the rich if they keep increasing prices in the billionaire owned supermarkets too keep increasing their profits. Got to pretend there's a scarcity and someone else too blame for the public being fleeced for every penny
We like our diary, but not thaaat much. Prices did drop a lil bit, but the market was already saturated. Too much supply for a very perischable base product and no where to send it too isn't great
"Melk de witte motor" (milk the white motor) and other marketing tricks have led us to believe we need to drink milk. But it was only to get rid of surplus. Like our desert habits. Why do we need highly sugared dairy after our meals? It's plain stupid. We've been brainwashed.
The progressives hate the West. This is just another way to hasten the destruction of what they despise so much so there will be room for their utopia. I think this was tried before but where?... Oh yes! It was Mao and it was called the cultural revolution! Why not try that again, it worked so well last time.....
It is out of stupidity . Its the woke mind virus. It affects evil people and renders them completely stupid and removes all logic from their brain because it is a cult. The satanic cult.
they want to reduce the number of Dutch farmers by half because because "that food is for export anyway" forgetting that other countries pollute way more to produce the same food than the Netherlands . so the Dutch are actually saving the world.
@@AspectRatioPolice In reality, they export at such low costs that they have ruined several agricultural sectors in Morroco, Algeria, Poland, France, Germany....The Dutch farmers are not happy, they would like to sell at higher prices. The Dutch State Dept. does not want, it is controlled by the BBB.
The dutch government is blaming farmers that they produce too nitrogen but the crops take that nitrogen away. The government is blaming farmers because they need the land for houses, industry airportexpansion so they blame farmers for more than 20yrs. The entire agricultural sector is almost export. For example we send pigs to spain to get slaughtered we export all the crops and get the bad crops from other countries but the biggest problem the gevernment is destroying nature without even knowing it. In the largest naturepark they spreading liquid manure because it won't grow otherwise
What does nitrogen pollution even mean? You talked about it the entire time and didn't explain. Nitrogen is the main component of the atmosphere, how does that can be a pollution?
Hi thank you for the video. I am missing a big part of the impact of pesticides, fundicides and other toxic chemicals used in intensive farming that lead to the worst quality of water in Europe.
Hmmmm you don't suppose it has anything to do with the minimum 25% tax rate on a small business built into the sale price right out of the gate, do you? The garden tax. The Swiss do it smart. No taxes on their gardens (counting small potatoes is extremely expensive), and a barter system in the community so everyone growing gets a balanced diet beyond their own growing skills. Whatever is overly abundant goes to the soup kitchens/ Church. Talk about intelligent designs!
Reading these comments one may think farmers are part of the poorer part of the population but farmers in NL are really rich. They have controlled the government at the expense of other people's interests for so long.
@@NexLevelBacon you are right. Much of the veggie food has to be transported thousands of miles because it cannot be grown locally. We can't eat what a goat can!
Cargo Ships is the cleanest way of transport search up on how much your ship transports in containers. And then look up how much a truck does that. 1 container is about 1 truck
@@dutchskyrimgamer.youtube2748a tremendous amount of what gets transported doesn't need to be. World Trade is an abused system. Don't get me wrong though there's infinite fuel and carbon isn't bad for the environment.
We are delivering huge amounts of high tech grown food, but the food is empty. Its appearance is great, but its without minerals and vitamins and taste. It grows too fast, not even in soil anymore, under artificial light and temperature control, sprayed with chemicals to look good and not be eaten by critters.. and that makes us sick! The air is polluted, yes, but the farmers are not the only ones. What about the airplanes spraying chemtrails, the cars, the industry? We are at the end of Europes rivers that are polluted, so now we are the problem!? 🤬
You've lost a subscriber in me. This is a very nuanced topic and your oversimplified portrayal of left wing media versus the BBB is egregious. You basically disguised a political ad as an informative video while leaving out many important details, such as that the BBB is not at all for farmers but only for big agricultural corporations who themselves are squeezing out every last bit of money they can from these farmers. Or how our agriculture sector is the main cause of the many droughts we are experiencing (just think about how insane that is). The quality of swimming water is the worst in the continent, and we are killing all biodiversity among plants, animals, etc. You also failed to mention how despite our efficiency gains, the impact of innovation on our emitions has been negligible. This means farmers have invested a lot of money into things that were promised to them to reduce emitions only to find that it had little to no impact. Now you're suggesting we just keep going down that road instead of facing the music. Our agricultural sector is amazing and something to be very proud of. Yet, is has grown to be far too big for us to sustain and we have been ignoring that for way too long. I understand that farmers are upset, because they've been lied to for a long time and government policies have been swinging back and forth way too often. However, the solution is not to continue lying to them and ignoring the problem. The solution is to cooperate with them to find a new perspective where their passion, innovation and adaptability are better suited. We used to be a country that looked to the future and made strategic moves. Now we just look back and yell at eachother.
The same people who forced them. To set up this type of an industrial system are the same. People who are trying to get them to stop it now, and those people themselves will not suffer any type of an economic downturn. Large-scale industry. Such is the production of automobiles is where most of the pollution is coming from? We need food, weakening your production of food. It's just going to shift fertilizer usage, someplace else they're not going to stop it. Most of Africa wouldn't be viable app. As productive land without massive amounts of fertilizer. You stop using fertilizer, you're going to end the green revolution and millions and millions of people will starve none of your solutions. Do not involve reducing people to poverty
You're mostly missing the point, however, you summed the essence of the issue with this one sentence: "I understand that farmers are upset, because they've been lied to for a long time and government policies have been swinging back and forth way too often." If you "actually" understand this... then you wouldn't write much more. If "they lied to them" to get to this problem (under the guise of "solving" those issues, apparently)... what's to say what "they" implement to "fix" such "problems" (very nebulous in itself) won't make the issue worse, yet again... and yank and pull the farmers around for no reason, yet again, in the process? What's your solution anyways? Reduce production levels? Reduce profitability? Reduce inputs/fertilizers? Ban something? Put people out of business? Incentivize more people into the business? Or what?
i was not aware of the problems that the agricultural sector causes! thank you for sharing. To be top 2 in grain exports world wide is insane for such a small country, though! that can only be done under extreme circumstances. i think probably the main culprit will be big industrial farms and the ones who have to shrink because of policies will be small local farmers, but yea it is a difficult topic to handle, especially in the outrate times we live in.
Reduce nitrogen emissions by exporting the agricultural sector? So they are exporting nitrogen emissions to another production area because people keep eating the same amount of food. I’m not sure how that is reducing nitrogen emissions. It’s really quite bizarre.
500 tonnes of tomatoes per hectare of greenhouse is phenomenal. That's 50kg per square metre. Surely the clever dutch could invent some way of recapturing Nitrogen effluent.
OK, I'm going to ask a simple - possibly stupid question, but it is fundamental. What is wrong with nitrogen? Assuming there is minimal waste in the Dutch food production methods, let's say it all gets eaten - even if the Netherlands stops producing food, the same amount of food is going to be made somewhere else in the World, so won't the same amount of nitrogen be produced anyway? isn't this just more virtue signalling by European states, exporting production so they can say how clean they are, the same way Germany decided it wouldn't have nuclear power stations and it would cut down on coal mining so it looks like a very clean country but it still needs all the power, it just imports it from Poland especially now someone cut off it's Gas from Russia? The same way Britain says how little pollution it has because all the stuff we used to make here now comes from China?
We have to start somewhere. Getting meat and dairy products from farther away will eventually make them more expensive, decreasing demand. In the end other countries will follow with decreasing animal farming too.
@@Simon-dm8zv why would you want to do that? Since the hunger of war in the Netherlands the Dutch are now the tallest strongest people in Western Europe, what's wrong with being tall and strong?
Nitrogen oxides are the problem not nitrogen which is 80% of the atmosphere. It seems to me that the Netherlands should export manure and other nitrogenous “waste” products. I’m sure there would be ready market for these given how expensive fertilisers are.
It’s clear that bio industry, keeping animals in an industrial way should end. Both in favor of environment and animal welfare. That doesn’t mean that animal farming has to disappear. It should be scaled down so that the number of animals is in balance with the land available. This won’t lead to famine.
There is no such thing as a free market. There are always limits and this is political. Productive farmers are doing their job properly. Malfunctioning markets are partly the responsibility of administrators and, more generally, politicians.
And then EU is saying Finland needs to stop cutting down forests that grow back to stop climate change! Central Europe was cut down to last tree already thousands of years ago so maybe they should first grow their forests back.
Just abolish the EU. Europe would save HEAPS of emissions (and money) from all the junkets/conferences they fly everywhere for and the vast bureaucracies pay packets!
Actually most of central europe has already been re-wooded a lot since the high middle ages. France, germany, Italy, poland all where far less wooded in the time of charles the great than they are now. Archeologica lakebed drill core pollen analysis cant be faked. And the documented wood-area is currently growing in germany and france at least. Has been since WW2 when it was decimated all over. Dont know exactly what "EU demands" you actually cite, but rewooding has been a goal for nearly half a century and much has been done in most member countries.
O čom píšeš,moja krajina má najviac lesov v EÚ podľa percent. Máme medvede,zubry, rysy a vlky a myslíš si že sedia na lúkach???? Zvolili ste si liberála Rutteho, diktátora ktorý vás likvidoval . Prečo nepodporujete odchod z Únie ktorá je tiež diktátor?????
They already control 90% of it. That's why they're starting to go after home produce, starting by forced registration of backyard chickens. Once all registered, there'll be "an outbreak" that will "justify emergency powers to slaughter privately owned birds". Already been massive forced evictions off allotments and selling those sites off. The ruling elites have gotten greedy and want the poorest too own or produce nothing but have to continuously lay them to survive
Dutch agriculture takes a considerable toll on the environment and nature. This is partly because people have to work extremely efficiently to make any money out of it. However, the previous government used all kinds of false calculations etc. to halve agriculture, so to speak. This is now being reversed considerably by the current government. However, something does need to change. The Dutch soil is becoming enormously acidic and we have a huge mountain of manure that we need to get rid of. In addition, a lot of pesticides are being used and it is becoming increasingly clear that this has a major impact on the health of the population and nature. We cannot continue in this way, that much is clear. Dutch agriculture must become more sustainable for the future. This will be at the expense of a part of export, but we do not have to produce for half the world. In return, we will incur much lower costs in all kinds of other areas. The point is that farmers must be able to earn a decent living.
What about the food exported from the Netherlands? People who are buying it MUST eat. In Britain, our farmers are under the same pressure. Who will be growing OUR food? ( and our population, like Netherlands, ) is rocketing!🇬🇧
@@davidw8668the fun thing is that NOx and ammonia makes nitrogen and water again. So acid rain from industry neutralize ammonia in the farmland. No one meantions this, because it’s not about the nitrogen at all. It’s about controlling the food supply.
Hi, NItrogen loss is a problem, but much of this can be overcome with the use of biochar which balances the nitrogen : phosphorous ratio in the soil. It also absorbs ammonia is faeces of livestock reducing nitrogen pollution. We can produce at the moment 200 tons of biochar to combat pollution and increase the health of livestock to be more productive.
From a purely objective point of view, it is most efficient to have at least a portion of agriculture dedicated to livestock. Animals can create valuable resources from land that isn't suitable for growing other crops. However, livestock is disproportionally affected by intensification, for instance, more cows in a smaller space, what will they eat? Especially in the winter months, Hay is a bit part of that diet, sure, but also grains, legumes, soy etc. for protein. Now, save for hay which is largely a local waste product, growing the other feed in the Netherlands is expensive, and more importantly, more valuable as products for human consumption. So, the feed, primarily soy, is imported, feed which is high in protein, protein which contains a large amount of nitrogen. Some of that nitrogen gets turned into delicious delicious meat, a big part of which is exported again. Yet a large portion of the nitrogen just goes in on one end of the animal and exits out of the other, which will eventually find it's way into nature. The Netherlands is, quite simply, importing nitrogen in the form of animal feed. The scale of the livestock industry just cannot be supported by grazing and local agricultural waste such as hay alone. And both in terms of energy/inputs, financially and perhaps even a moral point of view it cannot be justified to domestically grow crops fit for human consumption, only to feed them to animals, to later eat the animals or animal products. I think the financial gain achieved by the Netherlands supplying the world with high quality animal produce can't possibly weigh up to the environmental toll that is being put on the country. The Dutch landscape is beautiful now with intensive agriculture, and it was beautiful too over a hundred years ago with less intensive agriculture. The idea that scaling down the amount of livestock will suddenly and drastically change the landscape for the worse does not seem like all that sound of an argument.
Livestock farming isn’t just destroying the Netherlands - it’s destroying the entire globe. Read George Monbiot’s ‘Regenesis - Feeding the World without devouring the Planet’. By the way, your summary of the history of Dutch agriculture could have included a remark about the loss of biodiversity as a result of the consolidation in the industry in the 1950s: if I’m well-informed, some 225,000 km of hedges were destroyed, that’s 5,5 times the circumference of the planet.
No it's not. Livestock farming has a much lower impact than monocrop agriculture. Pasture raised cows are even a net carbon sequestor into the soil. My cows live in wildflower meadows along with the bees, butterflies and birds, grazers build ecosystems.
Could you name me a few countries where the biodiversity has gone up in the last 100 years? Now you make it seem as if this is only in The Netherlands…with nothing to compare it to…
Thanks for this historical overview. Nicely done. What is not being discussed here, is the soil crisis. The soil gets pourer each year. What is being done about that? Are we as a community in the Netherlands (not only the farmers) willing to adapt even further?
Writing From New Zealand. We are getting the same rubbish against NZ farmers who have the lowest carbon footprint in the world. An example, we can grow, process and export lamb to the EU with a lower footprint than lamb grown in the EU. Yet the Greenies want to shut down our farming to achieve "bugger all" regarding greenhouse gases.
La plus intéressante et la mieux documentée HISTOIRE CONTEMPORAINE DES PAYS BAS que j'ai pu entendre depuis 1975. 17 minutes d'informations sourcées présentées factuellement. 🌷🥚🐄🧀🍺Travail remarquable 🇳🇱. Bravo 🎉👑
I really doubt that the Netherlands can keep this level in agriculture. Climate change will also hit Netherlands and I don't think that anyone will adapt to this properly. Livestock Farming is besides the nitrogen problem, a big contributor to climate change due to methane generation by enteric fermentation. The Germans don't want to give up their combustion engine, you don't want to keep your livestock Farming and all argue with their cultural inheritage. But mother nature will just process its laws by heavy floodings, heat waves and sea level rise. We changed the world too quickly and not sustainable...but we all will pay the price now whether you're farmers consider it fair or not.
Climate change is a complex issue with uncertainties: Flooding largely can be managed. that’s also the reason you saw less problem of flooding in the Netherlands compare to Belgium and Germany. Yes CH4 is a greenhouse partially emitted from farming industry but the efficiency in total CO2 equivalent/ liter of milk production is much higher else where. Moving this industry abroad just shift the problem, which is really an European approach. Rising sea level: we are already under 0m for so long…. Ps rice production also generates huge amount of CH4. Try to tell the enormous Asian population stop eating rice and see what’s happen. In a grand scale how important is the contribution of Europe? Plus extra uncertainty from cooling effect on Europe from slowing down of North Atlantic deep water formation. My guess would be with technology and some gov support, it can last quite long.
Livestock farming does not contribute to climate change. Pasture raised cattle are net carbon sequestor into the soil. Its misinformation, the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle is just that, a cycle, from the air to the cow to the ground to the cow to the air. Very different to burning fossil fuels. They lie about water consumption as well as 99% of the water cows need comes from rain and the grass they eat. The only cattle farming that contributes is indoor only industrialised farming and deforestation, neither of which occurs in the Neatherlands.
I think you need to mention the import of soy from the Amazon and the surplus of dung as a result. Also, the production of meat for food is very inefficiënt if you consider feeding the global population because for that you need to feed the animals first.
well...comparing water use efficiency in greenhouse tomatos vs. field tomatos is much like comparing apples to oranges, while yes, you can do it, you really shouldn't try to make a point out of it...
Via Rotterdam harbor, agricultural supply companies imports cheap food components to Holland. Pigs en Fowl is raised in big sheds by this stuff and shit out most of the Nitrogen in the process. The animals are slaughtered and 2/3 of the pigmeat is exported . The excess, so the shit with nitrogen has to be brought in or on the land. Sheds and land leak the nitrogen.
Greenhouses put all resources inside under quarantine effectively. As fluids evaporate, they are collected, filtered and reused to grow crops whilst sunlight, lamps and natural gas are used for heating. It doesn't take 9 kilograms of water to make 1 kilograms of tomatoes. It only takes about a kilogram of water. Greenhouses are usually equipped with sluices to prevent the loss of moisture and scalability helps to offset costs. What it doesn't say though is that the greenhouse sector of the dutch farming industry is the biggest user of natural gas in the country and thus a major contributor to greenhouse emissions.
@@MarijnRoorda Most of the CO2 produced by the WKK's (very big natural gas engines) is pumped into the greenhouses for the plants to consume and grow. This isn't always the case but under perfect circumstances a WKK will burn the NG to create hot water, the engine turns a generator that powers the lights and the CO2 powers the plants. And newer greenhouses will digest the plant remains after clear-out into biogas that helps fuel the WKK for the new crop.
Amazing channel, very well made and informative journalism! Food security becomes ever scarcer. NL is not even in the top 10 of CO2 producing countries. You are blessed with fertile lands, I live here too and farming is a world apart from my home country of Norway. Dutch Farming now and forever. Sustainability above housing investments. Much of the weiland (pastures) is not suitable for building as it is situated in Polders and or on very soft ground.
@AskTorin there is Zero journalism. You forgot about the part that The Netherlands has the worst water quality in EU. Only 1 % is clean. Just saying. Oh yeah and even the land is infertile because of excessive use.
The Netherlands is a big exporter because it often acts as a middle man importing to export. This part is often overlooked and not mentioned, which has nothing to do with production efficiency.
One thing I would like to add to the statistics you listed 15:24 is, that Dutch produce has an international reputation of being quite shit, but cheap. Die „Niederländische Wassertomate“, would be a rather famous example from Germany.
There are two possible solutions to toxic levels of nitrogen in the soil. 1) Plough sawdust into the soil. It will absorb the excess nitrogen and increase the thickness of the soil - just what Holland needs as sea levels rise with global warming. 2) Scoop up excess manure from inside barns and other buildings and load it onto cargo ships. Haiti, Niger, and other overgrazed countries are crying out for organic fertilizer to restore their soil.
I thought I detected a Dutch accent. Stumbled upon this channel because it was covering the Irish immigration crisis. Nice channel, balanced approach. Fijne reis naar Overijssel!
Great video. I like your content it really educates me alot. Training to be a teacher in Geography and mathematics, its a precise knowledge I scoop from your channel. Kudos
To be honest the video is biased and the whole truth isn't being told. We are the best in the Europe to have the worst water quality in Europe. only 1% or less is okay and that data comes from the University for farming (WUR).
@@jflanegien82 Somehow kinda true when I did Geographical Economy I learnt how Netherlands agriculture sector pollutes the water sources especially cheese dairy farming which contributes to dutch disease due to over specialization in agriculture only. I would like to learn more from you, are you from Netherlands ?
I was just in the Netherlands a few months ago and I had never been. Some of the best parts are the farmlands. I hope you guys can fight this off. We have to keep the cows!
The UK is the same if not worse, even abbatoir s are almost gone been driven out of business No abbatoir No farm animals No dairy or beef industry No farms No food production Everything imported Land sold for building at a reduced rate
Nice story. But you forget that most of the food for the lifestock is imported from countries like Brazil. If you add up the land used to produce this food, which you should, the figures regarding landuse change dramaticly!
Very informative. Modern agriculture is destroying the dutch environment. Overproducing for export, especially meat, is an insurmountable problem. But also tulips are a big source of pollution and increased health risks. It’s not the farmers but the industrial profit organisations that fuel this problem. They need an alternative.
😂like food from gates factories....or Soros propaganda from 230 radio stations he bought last time. Or Gates farms in US producing for all world.??????? Rich won't pollute owing everything...right??????
If you watch the map of emissions it's not just the Netherlands polluting a lot, it's also Germany. They pollute like China or USA with a lot less territory and less people.
Maybe we just don't need cows that produce 12.000 liters of milk each and a sector that is not focused on export of produce and import of food so that farms can shrink a little, so farmers can profit off buying less inputs and earning more of what they produce for a better price.
I'm Dutch and more then 50% of the land in The Netherlands is used for farming. So you are all wrong about that! Then showing Jesse Klaver of the Green Party is just insulting to the average farmer in NL!
I am not Dutch, and I find that making some speculative nature harming guess work about the harm of nitrogen pollution, and on that basis, limiting the proud Nederlanders that have already altered nature by conquering large swaths of land from sea without any known averse effects to be insane.
We do not have a food scarcity problem, we have a waste problem. Over 40% of the food produced does not make it to your plate. Also if we don't address the environmental problems in the air, water and soil, we loose the resiliance of the system through the enormous loss of biodiversity and that will affect our ability to grow food, period. We need more farmers, more diversity in what is produced and much less monocultures. We need to integrate more and work in respect of our environment.
You prefer to treat the environment as a credit card YOU don't have to pay the interest on? Don't forget: the environment is NOT some abstract, woke concept. It's the air you breathe, the water you drink, etc.
I traveled through the Netherlands by train and car in all seasons. I saw many farm fields with Schleswig Holstein flags, indicating that the fields were for agricultural production. But there were no farm animals in sight. This means something very wrong is going on.
Whenever I think about farming, it brings back memories of how my family managed to survive after losing our farm to Hurricane Florence in September 2018 here in North Carolina, thanks to a monthly influx of $36,000.
The facts you use here in your video stating things as facts on emissions, however the Dutch people need to always remember when their country starved. Does the politicians think that other countries are going to feed the Dutch if a world war breaks out ? A famine ? The people need to always own their food security and overproduce their own needs. It is never the politicians that suffer , it’s the sheep who follow them.
The last part of the video could just be rephrased as 'Dutch farming is the most efficient worldwide', no? What is missing from the video is why are the nitrogen emissions actually a problem, and are they evaluated in relation to the production quantity / quality?
i as hobby programmer was always intuitively against artificial nitrogen. cus if u think about it: if u buy nitrogen excess has to come out somewhere, it comes out as nitrogen pollution. if u just use manure from animals everything should stay in balance. ok minimum nitrogen maybe, to replenish what we take away from land with food humans eat, but that is really minimal.
The Netherlands has the most cutting edge farming technology (specially greenhouses) but I'm Not that sure about the efficency of horticulture. Sure you need less water for your tomates but you pump your greenhouses with tons of natural gas making it way more expensive and pollutant than other productive areas such as Almería, Spain. Not to mention artificial light and dehumidifuers.
I do not see or hear a single word about the extreme overproduction of milk in Netherlands, selling it below production costs to completely obliterate milk producers abroad.
@@Simon-dm8zv but china is killong their nature/ climate to give us resource for battery's so wich climate win we have? Only clean air in NL but the planet earth.....
If their is less consumers this would not be a problem . Rich people living a luxury lifestyle and farmers have to break them self to make a living . Manufacturers of farm equipment will go bankrupt and all the people what depend on farmers for food will no more buy and the goverment will fall apart getting no taxes from those export.
The cows remain mostly in 'stallen' (stables). The 'cloud of pollution' is mostly coming from the industry and traffic. The water-pollution is mainly caused by washing-powder, used by households and big laundry-cleaning-centres. After WWll the dutch government in combination with 'Wageningen' urged the farmers to grow big, regulate rivers and others waters, and all the rural roads (straightened). Soon after we got the 'melkplas', the 'boterberg', (manure surplus). And more problems. The farmers were forced to grow big, produce more high-qualified products, more and more (profitable for the government), had to invest for decades large summs of money. And now they are the 'blacksheep'? They have to offer their wealth (land, cattle, greenhouses, plants) on the altar of the government. Who seek a 'green, obedient (to the UN)' look in the EU. No matter the consequencis gor farmers and inhabitants. Do you think our food is cheap? No!!! We have to pay an abundance of taxes (included in the price) to get it.
We have the most regulated farming in all of Europe. Farmers are not just people who till the land either. Most have a batchelors or masters degree. Pollution is a thing. But I cant understand why we as the Dutch have to sacrifice the best high-tech farming system in the world, granting us food independency and a development rate for natural indoor growing thats leagues ahead of any other nation on the globe. People are forgetting the value of food,the abillity to have all foodstuffs grown inside national borders, or the people that do that for us. There is a great deal we can potentialy miss in The Netherlands, but farmers are not one of them.
A cow isn't harmful for environment but a part of circularity. In Holland now 18 Million citizens , more then 400 per km2. This is a real risk and problem for the environment!
They are not circular if a lot of their calories are imported in the form of corn and soy. That is where all that excess nitrogen is coming from. I agree that having a large population density isn't helping. That ,however, means tackling both; no choosing one.
You can grow more tomatoes per acre under glass, but if you’re growing 5 times as many and it cost you ten times as mis that a win? People are finding out greenhouses and vertical farming are prohibitively expensive. Not worth the initial investment
I do not understand the nitrogen problem. There is 80% of it in the air already, the rest being mainly oxygen. And nothing is endangered by it as this is how we and our nature have lived always. So why is it suddenly so dangerous only in the Netherlands?
What a moronic thing to say in response to this issue. If anything the Dutch gov is now filled with idiotic woke leftists who look to Berlin's idiot woke socialists demanding the destruction of Western civilization and achievement because it offends delicate Russian-Chinese sensibilities to be so far ahead in basic development. If only our leaders hadn't been seduced by German crypto-Russians and their endless demoralization schemes, and would be a little more enamoured with the Dollar ie American interests which competition aside broadly align with our own across virtually anything and everything.
Beautiful video depicting the farmers history and reception to change. I do however think we have to reduce farmland as well, atleast in terms of livestock. I as well think it is not sustainable. The article that you mentioned from De Groene Amsterdammer is actaully a pretty optimistic view of how we could progress with less farmland. They even alledge we need more farmers in the article! However their proposal is rather radical, I think it's a worthy destination. At the end you once again mentioned that the Dutch use much less resources for harvesting and processing crops. Well, expand that area, and sell knowledge abroad!
The dutch farmers and scientists should sell their expertise to Malaysia and Indonesia landowners diversifying from palm oil trees.....we love dutch agricutural prductivity...
Oh, thanks for making the video. Ive always wondered what is the bigger picture behind the Netherlands farming crisis. I wonder if the agrochemical pollution levels are now in safe limits? Is the ground drinking water good? Just to point out. Livestock nitrogen production is highly dependent on the management style. Some studies say that grazing on the field, while cows can more and are in their natural environment, they only produce 10% of the nitrogen that they would produce when on factory setting. The cows need to move in order to digest.
Search for who has the worst water quality in EU. Only 1 % is clean because there rest is so polluted. Nonetheless since less year we started to have water shortage.
Well, I'm dutch but buying a home here is next to impossible. A small 1 person flat will set you back at least 300k. easily! Biggest housing crisis on global earth and yet more then 50% of land is acres and acres of farmland all for export...
gast, laat je niet bedriegen door statistieken, we zijn ook de grootste exporteur van cacoa en bananen, dat groeit hier ook niet, dat komt door de haven van rotterdam.
The Dutch are not the world’s most efficient farmers, very far from it, because they are utterly reliant on foreign inputs and energy. In effect they are the middle man of food manufacturing, which is very different to farming and shouldn’t be confused with each other.
@@1Waarheid Come off it. The most efficient farmers are from Australia and New Zealand, whereas the Dutch farmers are a lazy lot who suck on the government tit and are completely reliant on imports of feed, fertiliser and energy, that’s not efficiency, nothing like it.
Re. tomatoes: Please try to add real tomato flavor at some point. The color has improved in recent years, they just still taste like water. Worst tomatoes on the planet.
Support me on Patreon: / hindsightyt (starting at $2 per month)
@@HindsightYT I wish I could :(
What for??? The WEF has you well & truly funded already.
@@Frank-bh3cmI don’t get that impression. Why do you say that?
Iron is pronounced EYEan. The R is silent. Thats why u likely feel it sounded weird when u say it with the r.
those sums of money for investments, that you use, are they adjusted to inflation ?
Dutch farmers have been conned by the government, the Wageningen university and the Rabobank. They were forced to take high mortgages in order to optimize production and to abide to the rules imposed by the government as a result from the EU nitrogen production limits. Manure was allowed to be injected into the soil and the rain and gras would solve the surplus. By juggeling with nitrogen figures the university and governement changed the rules so that farmers became the outcast of society. Making reference to the year 1850 makes no sense as the Dutch population was about 3,5 and now 18 million and the knowledge of farming was completely different. Right after WWII the government demanded that the farmers had to supply all the food neccesary to prevent hunger. That created the most effecient farming in the world.
Scientists were planning for a 50 million population by 2010, but are only 18 M in 2024 due to plummeting birth rates. This is one cause of the problem.
@@1964_AMU This is exact the reason why scientists are lousey in forecasting. These same scientists are the root cause for declaring catastrofies for mankind in order to create FEAR (False Expectations Appearing Real) amoungst the less educated to control their thoughts.
Hunger prevention was not the only reason. Farms were all small and fragmented and weren't profitable. With the ruilverkaveling a lot of farmers got larger fields and the landscape was more organised for a profitable farming sector, also lots of farmers stopped then. That was the first step in making a hyperproductive industry now run by a few monopolists further up the product chains. After the big lay-off which will happen in 4 months, again big farming companies will uptake the small farmers just like back then.
I dont think the environment care about how many people there are.
The polution is a problem regardless
you have to know the part that have done that the left socialist part who is like this
do what i say do not the things i do the biggest group travelers by air for meeting
they can do also from there keyboard.
With farms in so many countries under threat, where do all these countries think they can import their food from?
From Brazil and the United States, same places the netherlands imports all their agricultural feedstocks from. Or do you think the netherlands grows any food? They grow flowers and raise animals in concrete buildings, which are fed with american corn and brazilian soy
@@stevewiles7132 Factories. No horizonal growth, but vertical in big ware/storehouses. Allready in business. No more nature. One person/robot/machine can do the trick on a giant scale.
@@kpg1973 dutch corn too in high quantities. There used to be a great variety of plants on the fields, but no more, for a long time. Sometimes you might come across a patch of vegetables, for the neighhourhood-market.
They are getting rid of overproduction.
That normally is sold in China.
@@annemaria5126 you are mentally retarded. Factories do not produce food. They might process food, as in a bakery. Food comes from farms, usually grain or legume farms. Food production requires photosynthesis from sunlight, which you cant get inside a building. Idiot.
I bet you saw some greenhouse with grow lights producing lettuce at 15 dollars a head. Try to grow 2500 million tons of grain like that, idiot.
Good video, I miss some points in the discussion though:
- The Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB) is not born out of the farmer communities, but the food processing industries. In NL we have a few humungus slaughterhouses, livestock fodder industries, but also pet food factories and other similar processing plants. They fully paid the farmers uprisings and the BBB party. It's even that intertwined that the party office is next to that of the Farmers and Garden Organisation (LTO). They have all reasons to keep the sector growing, it's in their interest.
- The same slaughterhouses make quota for farmers to deliver certain amount of produce for set prices. That puts pressure on farmers to make enough products.
- The banks don't have a shining role in this story either. They want to lend money to make the industries bigger, as long if it makes enough money to pay back the loans in time. The requirements to get the funds sufficient enough to do the investments are rising through the years and only make it harder to do so. To compete though, it is neccecary to stay growing. It's getting harder and harder by the year.
- The same banks (mostly the Rabobank) were founded by the farmers of the end of the 19th century to make a financial group to pay for the investments themselves. The 'Boerenleenbank' (farmers loan bank) is a product of this. Sadly most farmers got overruled when it made a fusion with the Dutch branch 'Raiffeisenbank' from Germany. It became the RaBobank from then on. Although it had farmer origins, it's now more a business bank. This dispowered the farmers even more financially.
- The constant upscaling is outcompeting farmers themselves. More production of one farmer, makes prices go down, ending bankrupting another. Until the next one that outcompetes the other, etc. This phenomenon is part of the 'Pig Cycle'. Since the 1950s there is a constant cycle of extra production --> dropping prices --> farmers going bankrupt --> max production quota to stabilize --> dropping of quota --> extra production, etc. Every cycle, half of the farmers is disappearing and the farm size is doubled. We had 4 cycles now since WWII and the 5th is now underway.
- Climate has its impact as well. The weather patterns aren't as stable anymore as they were in the past. That makes farming also a lot tougher. More droughts means less water and hotter weather in summers means more cattle dying.
- In the end a terrible thing: only last year alone almost 200.000 animals died of barn fires across the Netherlands. 200K! You read it well. It's mainly because of lack of fire protection, budget cuts and overcrowded buildings, full of chickens, pigs and cows. If it were people, the world would be outraged. Now it's just a statistic.
There is more to this topic than it seems. But then again I think of my grandpa. He always said: "A farmer that doesn't complain, is dead." He came from a farmers family. He became a ship builder instead.
Thank you for actual perspective and information.
The infamous Boerenbond in Belgium is nearly built on the same actors and big farm system. Animal wellbeing and soil preservation are not into their plans neither. Thanks for these infos.
You may do your homework and stop watching tv..
@@1WaarheidIk heb mijn huiswerk gedaan, dat zie je toch?
@@joehoe222 Wat er werkelijk achter veel genoemde zaken zit, lees ik niet in je verhaal. Ik merk dat bv. ook aan de reden die je geeft voor de stallen die afbranden.
This should be entitled, “The Dark Side of the Dutch Government” …
How about the problem with your sort of medieval thinking?
You can't demand everyone else to shoulder the burden of a intense polluting agricultural sector!
No other industry are allowed equal destructive behaviour..!
Btw, yearly billions of EU subventions to this spoiled sector still isn't a blessing to our national economy, health or environment!
Just a few facts to enlighten your outdated knowledge 🥱✌🏻
Exactly!
@OmmerSyssel Bs
@@adrianabonitaaziz Your opinion is so well thought-out and eloquently expressed..! Kudos!
@adrianabonitaaziz spot on! 👏👏👏
Credit for colling him out on his support for the woke agenda.
I am a retired market gardener and I grew up on a dairy farm. The problem of nitrogen pollution MUST be solved although the ham-fisted strategy and tactics of the Dutch government has made it worse. I favor ending all farm subsidies in the EU. Then we will see how "efficient" industrial agriculture really is. Of course food prices will rise but they are going to rise anyway. Re-balancing the agricultural system will not be fun for anyone.
Yes you made your millions out of farming and now all of a sudden a change in mindset . Goverments get taxes from export and the farmers build the countrys worldwide and now farmers become the bad guys .
Why should it be "solved"? Was it a problem to begin with? According to whom? This is just government control trying to liquidate a reactionary working class.
Maybe subsidise (or tax less) the food itself to the consumer?
i dont think that would do us any good. people with lower incomes spend more on food than those with higher incomes. about 15% of the dutch kids face food poverty right now and 10% of adults. i fear that if we let food prices rize even more it might cause even worse problems
@@FDk-or2lnsubsidies come from the taxes that are paid by everyone... including the poorest of us. The idea that subsidies make food cheap is faulty. The subsiding of agriculture makes you pay partially for the food that you might not even eat.?
Ps
Cut off subsidies and cut down taxes.🤷
Ps
Through subsidies even the rich buy food that is partially paid by the poorest of people. How the heck is that helping the poorest?🤷
Control the food = control the people.
Not really. India ks there.😂
They push feminism and mass immigration of unskilled people who can’t speak English and different cultures. They want chaos.
Your immature conspiracy nonsense isn't relevant!
Poisoned drinking water is a tremendous problem!
Try deal with reality instead of deflecting ...
If you export it globally. It is no longer food, it is capital.
@OmmerSyssel your perfidious woke agenda won't pass.
Please read the whole thing:
Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of agri-food products, but is the fourth largest IMPORTER.
What's going on? It imports products and then resells them. In short, more than a producer it is a trader.
Import Export Balance : 2023 imports 94 billion , but exports 135 billion. (Eurostat source)
Here is a BETTER explanation of the matter.
The Dutch have historically been very good international traders for at least 400 years.
"The Dutch have historically been very good international traders for at least 400 years." More like almost 1.000 years. Going back to the Hanseatic League.
Very good observation. 👍
@@Chan-Lin-Tao They mostly import grains, corn and soy, to feed cows and pigs.
Je must come from china.....stay out
@@adranscyth1556 Simple man easy man domestic man
The Netherlands are not alone. Here in Canada is a similar process going on. Meanwhile there are dozens and dozens of counties that do not produce food enough for there growing population. The consequence of our woke idiotism will be famine and it won't be far off.
I think that’s their intention.
Incorrect. Downsizing animal farming creates zero thread to food availability.
@modero6370 "their" growing population !
That's intentional. This is how socialists cling to power. First to artificially create scarcity and then offer a "solution", ie. redistribution.
We saw this in the Soviet Union, China, Sri Lanka, Venezuela. Today in all "progressive" countries - Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Germany...
Then those countries are overpopulated...
"Nitrogen pollution" is about nitrogen compounds such as ammonia (NH₃) or different nitrates (NO₃⁻), not gaseous nitrogen (N₂) in the atmosphere. The former mainly pollutes the air, while the latter mainly pollutes the water. The related nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a strong greenhouse gas and therefore an additional problem.
In the video the term "Nitrogen" is used for nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) in general, but mostly nitrates (NO⁻₃).
Just in case you were wondering 😅 (Information without guarantee).
Not to mention other related or intermediate chemicals as nitrite (NO₂⁻), urea (CH₄N₂O) or ammonium (NH4⁺).
There are simple Measures for the water born compounds. Restoring buffer zones of natural vegetation along waterways, or even creating new ones on site. Wetland species are very good at stripping nutrients. Then there are bio digestion pits were bacteria do the same job. Australia's sugar cane industry has employed these measures with good results. And nobody had to give up the farm.
@@raclark2730converting nitrogen too methane just moves the problem elsewhere ?
@@andrewtrip8617 Nitrogen is easier to deal with than methane.
@@andrewtrip8617 Converting nitrogen to plant material is easy. Savy.
@@andrewtrip8617 Converting nutrients to cells is what I am talking about. Netherlands cant grow all of a sudden.?
What they fail to realise - or refuse to acknowledge - is that the expulsion of Nitrogen (N2) is a linear function of population density.
Nitrogen expulsion is expressed in mass/hectare. The Netherlands is top of the "polluters" when regarded according to that standards at 45 kg N2 per hectare. However, when considering the per capita expulsion of N2 the Dutch are below European average.
If agriculture is "responsible" for half the expulsion, let's imagine getting rid of all of it; the Dutch expulsion will then reduced to 22.5 kg N2/hectare, which will be the absolutely lowest per capita pollution in Europe at 5,1 kg N2 per person, but still being the fourth most polluting country in Europe after Luxemburg, Germany, and Belgium, so we still can't build homes or roads; it just will no longer be producing food or flowers. Other countries will have to take up the slack, and I can almost guarantee they will expel MORE N2 to get the same output as few agricultural land around the world will be as fertile as Dutch clay - never mind animal welfare and health - but the world needs to be fed.
I can hear the vegans already whine: "we should stop eating meat" ... No we shouldn't; our digestive track has developed over hundreds of thousands of years to digest animal products. You can fool yourself by eating only veggies - never mind all the non-huggable animals that the production of such kills - and using manufactured (chemical) supplements to compensate for the shortfall of your diet ... brilliant; replacing biology by chemicals and there's nothing like giving control of food to corporations that manufacture those indispensable supplements.
Or you could accept the situation as is and let technology be developed that can solve some of the issues.
Excellent comment, it's ridiculous how our entire country is in a chokehold due to these measures that are based on bureaucracy rather than a realistic view of nature. Our future and economy is being destroyed by a non issue.
> If agriculture is "responsible" for half the expulsion, let's imagine getting rid of all of it;
Every complex problem has multiple solutions. Not targeting the primary cause because that in itself will not be sufficient doesn't seem very productive.
> Other countries will have to take up the slack, and I can almost guarantee they will expel MORE N2 to get the same output
Probably true but not really relevant. Nitrogen emissions are a regional problem. If emitters move and spread out over a larger are that is still a solution.
> Our digestive track has developed over hundreds of thousands of years to digest animal products.
That doesn't in itself prove that there isn't a more efficient way to get what meat provides us, but even taking it as a given, humans have never in their history eaten as much animal products per capita as we do now. We could still significantly improve the situation by eating *less* animal products.
> replacing biology by chemicals
If there is a more efficient way to produce food that doesn't involve animals, what's the problem? We're using animals as small chemical factories on legs anyway.
> Or you could accept the situation as is and let technology be developed that can solve some of the issues.
The idea that the future will solve the problems is how we got here.
The nitrogen emission problem has been known for decades. For decades the agricultural industry in cooperation with the government has done the bares minimum*. Now that that doesn't fly anymore the agricultural industry reacts like a victim rather than the primary cause. I probably agree with you that that trying to solve a problem that has evolved over decades in 5-10 years does more harm than good, but the victimhood complex of the agricultural sector is annoying. Concrete steps rather than vaguely gesturing towards magical future solutions would be helpful.
* The agricultural industry has significantly reduces emissions, but that's like reducing your speed from 200kmph to 100kmph when you should be driving 30.
They fail to realise or refuse to acknowlege it is because it is complete cowdung.
It depends on the economic activities. It is not "if", or "responsible" between aanhalingstekens. The agriculture IS responsible for almost a thirth of the nitrogen deposition. And it is not all of agriculture: it is the enormous livestock. The Netherlands has the highest livestock density of the world. We produce 4 times as much meat and dairy than we consume. So if the population declines, it doesnt matter for the nitrogen emission: we will just produce 5, 6, 7 times our own consumption.
Reducing the lifestock does solve the issue. Than we can still farm, as there is still arable farming. And there is even a place for some lifestock, as a halving of lifestock is sufficient.
Regarding your argument that others will produce it...and then? A bit nitrogen deposition does not have to be a problem. It is a problem when there is a huge concentration like in the netherlands of nitrogen emissions.
So please, stop whining.
What you fail to realise is that the components referred to as " nitrogen pollution " are NH3 and different nitrates (NO3-).
One pollutes the air while the other pollutes water.
There are pockets where there is so much nitrogen that the ground has become sterile
The solution is very simple....
Dutch start working 40 hour weeks :D, stop importing workforce en masse, reduce number of foreign workers and other immigrants and thus reduce the price of housing and pollution but at the same time take a hit at the living standard and understand there is a cap at how much things can work efficiently in a limited space with certain amount of people without sacrificing something.
Something has to give and certain future will be chosen.
I cheer for the future where Dutch will keep the farmlands. Let's hope it will happen.
The afrikaans people of south africa are of dutch descent. They are great farmers and have been for centuries . I guess its in their blood.
Best farmers in Africa i have seen them convert rock strewn land into flourishing farms and dust bowls into productive farm lands. I don't know how they do it and if it is something that comes naturally to them.
Yes, just more colonialism. Like now our veggies come from Kenia while 1 out of 3 people there starve.
@@michaelotieno6524 with cheap labor, enough water and fertiliser and a good amount of perseverance almost anywhere can there be productive agriculture. It goes south when locals realise they're being exploited, like back in 2001 with the burning of white people owned lands in SA.
@@michaelotieno6524 stop lying, they never did any of that
@zolanidingaan2511 Literaly the history of South Africa. Dutch farmers moving to unoccupied uncultuvated land and making it fertile and productive. What happens when the SA government sizes farms and give them to the blacks? The farms fail and go barren again.
Bro I swear, all the good UA-camrs are from the Netherlands😂
Care to list a few? i would love to check them out
@@stan9682 ofc
1. Hindsight (ofc lol)
2. Blaza plays
3. Bief
Haha Jup:
- Lynn Everly ✨👌
Cuz they speak better English than most people in the UK
@@kerby132 lol
The Dutch are brilliant at adapting, and have been doing so for centuries. The problem is that greed plays an integral part in the over-production of certain products which results in major pollution. Scaling back EVERYWHERE is the answer. Profits, yes, but not at the expense of everything else. Give the land time to recover. Give the air time to improve. Give wildlife space to exist. The Netherlands is an amazing country. Let's keep it that way. x
This is such an interesting video. You put everything in a good historic perspective. As a Dutchman I learned a lot.
A wealth of insights in Dutch efficiency in farming. The tragedy is - the more efficient they are the more they are penalized.
Meat and dairy production is never efficient.
The more efficient the more polutant
You forgot about the 1% clean water that we have left.
That is the absolute goal and function of any competitive system.
They drive efficiency with the ruthless destruction of any model of enterprise that fails to decrease the cost of production.
@@tammekremer2138 do you like all your cheap food? All your variety?
Thats how its possible you child.
How much of your food is imported? Clown
There were a few people like Lubach, who warned the country that the BBB is there to support the big corporations and not individual farmers, but the people didn't listen. And neither did the government. Not all of it is the farmers' fault, though some of it is. They had to keep growing and growing, when actually organic, small farms should be made profitable. I still find it hard to sympathise with farmers who have to be forced not to abuse their animals though and not to poison the ground and water. Anyone with a soul wouldn't have to be forced, but do that on their own.
iam in new zealand we have the exact same isssues with farmers will they pay to clean up the mess they have made no way
🤢🤮 professor Lubach bedoelde je ?
Of die van de NPd66O
Beetje kortzichtig als je het mij vraagt.
Yup. I for one knew about the BBB connections to pharmaceutical giant Bayer as an example. Nonetheless, too many Dutch famers ended up believing in the tales and movement of the BBB. Ignorance is bliss.
Lubah😅😂😂 groen links activist...
Why shouldn't they?
Aren't we all blind as bats to the fact that all organisations and institutions can and will be incorporated by other interests??
This video's author either didn't do his homework, or is quite biased. The massive Nitrogen emissions mean that Dutch agriculture is not as efficient as it could be. Land efficient, but not chemically efficient. Also, the only reason the Nitrogen crisis became a crisis is that the Dutch government failed to act for over 10 years, knowing that they had to comply with EU law within that deadline but not doing anything until the last minute. If the VVD had done proper policy planning, it would've been smooth and easy, no need for "crisis".
He's biased and badly educated in history; or he acts in bad faith. See my earlier comment on WWII.
".... knowing that they had to comply with EU law within that deadline but not doing anything until the last minute." Sounds like just another day in politics and the kingdom of bureaucracy. When you look at the past 60 years or so. Yay!
“Overproduction”? Doesn’t that just mean lower prices for the consumers? What’s wrong with that?
It means the plebs will riot and overthrow the rich if they keep increasing prices in the billionaire owned supermarkets too keep increasing their profits. Got to pretend there's a scarcity and someone else too blame for the public being fleeced for every penny
We like our diary, but not thaaat much. Prices did drop a lil bit, but the market was already saturated. Too much supply for a very perischable base product and no where to send it too isn't great
"Melk de witte motor" (milk the white motor) and other marketing tricks have led us to believe we need to drink milk. But it was only to get rid of surplus. Like our desert habits. Why do we need highly sugared dairy after our meals? It's plain stupid. We've been brainwashed.
It ruins their artificial scarcity schemes.
@@Ardour_of_A_Leopard definitely
Unaliving your most advanced and efficient industries for spurious reasons. No way this is done out of sheer stupidity.
The progressives hate the West. This is just another way to hasten the destruction of what they despise so much so there will be room for their utopia. I think this was tried before but where?... Oh yes! It was Mao and it was called the cultural revolution! Why not try that again, it worked so well last time.....
It is out of stupidity . Its the woke mind virus. It affects evil people and renders them completely stupid and removes all logic from their brain because it is a cult. The satanic cult.
Control the food control the people. Invent some environmental lie to hide it.
It is done out of sheer stupidity. We don't need farmers we need houses. There are some cities that people think that milk comes from a factory
It's true and it's happening all over Europe
they want to reduce the number of Dutch farmers by half because because "that food is for export anyway" forgetting that other countries pollute way more to produce the same food than the Netherlands . so the Dutch are actually saving the world.
@@AspectRatioPolice In reality, they export at such low costs that they have ruined several agricultural sectors in Morroco, Algeria, Poland, France, Germany....The Dutch farmers are not happy, they would like to sell at higher prices. The Dutch State Dept. does not want, it is controlled by the BBB.
@@1964_AMU
How do they afford to? Is it by having subsidies?
@@1wun1 yeah you have cheap food if you live in europe and others have a terrible agro sector
@@1964_AMU their reasoning for reducing farmers is strictly environmental, not economic.
The dutch government is blaming farmers that they produce too nitrogen but the crops take that nitrogen away.
The government is blaming farmers because they need the land for houses, industry airportexpansion so they blame farmers for more than 20yrs. The entire agricultural sector is almost export. For example we send pigs to spain to get slaughtered we export all the crops and get the bad crops from other countries but the biggest problem the gevernment is destroying nature without even knowing it. In the largest naturepark they spreading liquid manure because it won't grow otherwise
What does nitrogen pollution even mean? You talked about it the entire time and didn't explain. Nitrogen is the main component of the atmosphere, how does that can be a pollution?
Hi thank you for the video. I am missing a big part of the impact of pesticides, fundicides and other toxic chemicals used in intensive farming that lead to the worst quality of water in Europe.
Dankje wel
This must be why their vegetables are often cheaper than home grown British and they even manage to out compete Spain.
It's because the Dutch have bastardise there food rubbish tasting food from chicken to veggies
Hmmmm you don't suppose it has anything to do with the minimum 25% tax rate on a small business built into the sale price right out of the gate, do you? The garden tax. The Swiss do it smart. No taxes on their gardens (counting small potatoes is extremely expensive), and a barter system in the community so everyone growing gets a balanced diet beyond their own growing skills. Whatever is overly abundant goes to the soup kitchens/ Church. Talk about intelligent designs!
BS, are you morokkan?😂@behrouzvossoughi5465
@behrouzvossoughi5465 better than a german bomb...
@Lilygirl283 or a german shower...
Reading these comments one may think farmers are part of the poorer part of the population but farmers in NL are really rich. They have controlled the government at the expense of other people's interests for so long.
Cargo ship burns 4000l crude diesel fuel an hour and the farmer is to blame for pollution
@@NexLevelBacon you are right. Much of the veggie food has to be transported thousands of miles because it cannot be grown locally. We can't eat what a goat can!
@@NexLevelBacon the most polluting persons are just the people, using (dish-)washing soaps.Farmers only produce a fraction of all bad stuff.
Cargo Ships is the cleanest way of transport search up on how much your ship transports in containers. And then look up how much a truck does that. 1 container is about 1 truck
@@dutchskyrimgamer.youtube2748 cleanest 😂?? You are not living in this world aren't you
@@dutchskyrimgamer.youtube2748a tremendous amount of what gets transported doesn't need to be. World Trade is an abused system.
Don't get me wrong though there's infinite fuel and carbon isn't bad for the environment.
We are delivering huge amounts of high tech grown food, but the food is empty. Its appearance is great, but its without minerals and vitamins and taste. It grows too fast, not even in soil anymore, under artificial light and temperature control, sprayed with chemicals to look good and not be eaten by critters.. and that makes us sick! The air is polluted, yes, but the farmers are not the only ones. What about the airplanes spraying chemtrails, the cars, the industry? We are at the end of Europes rivers that are polluted, so now we are the problem!? 🤬
You've lost a subscriber in me. This is a very nuanced topic and your oversimplified portrayal of left wing media versus the BBB is egregious. You basically disguised a political ad as an informative video while leaving out many important details, such as that the BBB is not at all for farmers but only for big agricultural corporations who themselves are squeezing out every last bit of money they can from these farmers. Or how our agriculture sector is the main cause of the many droughts we are experiencing (just think about how insane that is). The quality of swimming water is the worst in the continent, and we are killing all biodiversity among plants, animals, etc. You also failed to mention how despite our efficiency gains, the impact of innovation on our emitions has been negligible. This means farmers have invested a lot of money into things that were promised to them to reduce emitions only to find that it had little to no impact. Now you're suggesting we just keep going down that road instead of facing the music.
Our agricultural sector is amazing and something to be very proud of. Yet, is has grown to be far too big for us to sustain and we have been ignoring that for way too long. I understand that farmers are upset, because they've been lied to for a long time and government policies have been swinging back and forth way too often. However, the solution is not to continue lying to them and ignoring the problem. The solution is to cooperate with them to find a new perspective where their passion, innovation and adaptability are better suited. We used to be a country that looked to the future and made strategic moves. Now we just look back and yell at eachother.
Good lord are you ignorant....
The same people who forced them. To set up this type of an industrial system are the same. People who are trying to get them to stop it now, and those people themselves will not suffer any type of an economic downturn. Large-scale industry. Such is the production of automobiles is where most of the pollution is coming from? We need food, weakening your production of food. It's just going to shift fertilizer usage, someplace else they're not going to stop it. Most of Africa wouldn't be viable app. As productive land without massive amounts of fertilizer. You stop using fertilizer, you're going to end the green revolution and millions and millions of people will starve none of your solutions.
Do not involve reducing people to poverty
You're mostly missing the point, however, you summed the essence of the issue with this one sentence: "I understand that farmers are upset, because they've been lied to for a long time and government policies have been swinging back and forth way too often." If you "actually" understand this... then you wouldn't write much more. If "they lied to them" to get to this problem (under the guise of "solving" those issues, apparently)... what's to say what "they" implement to "fix" such "problems" (very nebulous in itself) won't make the issue worse, yet again... and yank and pull the farmers around for no reason, yet again, in the process? What's your solution anyways? Reduce production levels? Reduce profitability? Reduce inputs/fertilizers? Ban something? Put people out of business? Incentivize more people into the business? Or what?
i was not aware of the problems that the agricultural sector causes! thank you for sharing.
To be top 2 in grain exports world wide is insane for such a small country, though! that can only be done under extreme circumstances.
i think probably the main culprit will be big industrial farms and the ones who have to shrink because of policies will be small local farmers, but yea it is a difficult topic to handle, especially in the outrate times we live in.
Reduce nitrogen emissions by exporting the agricultural sector? So they are exporting nitrogen emissions to another production area because people keep eating the same amount of food. I’m not sure how that is reducing nitrogen emissions. It’s really quite bizarre.
@@clarencebosma7182 its a reduction of nitrates, not "Nitrogen".
Fair enough, replace nitrogen with nitrates. Same difference.
@@clarencebosma7182 its not the same.
Nitrogen is a gas, nitrates are a salt and they have a local effect in the environment.
Nitrogen comes in various forms. Any local effect could be mitigated by matching crop inputs to crop outputs.
@@clarencebosma7182 it cant be matched. The production of nitrates is far higher than the local capacity to absorb it.
500 tonnes of tomatoes per hectare of greenhouse is phenomenal. That's 50kg per square metre. Surely the clever dutch could invent some way of recapturing Nitrogen effluent.
Please go back to school!
@@MrLeen62 Sorry mate, I accidentally wrote Kg instead of tonnes'/ha , a late night typo error. I'll edit it to fix. Have a fun day.
It's not about nitrogen, it's about control
OK, I'm going to ask a simple - possibly stupid question, but it is fundamental. What is wrong with nitrogen?
Assuming there is minimal waste in the Dutch food production methods, let's say it all gets eaten - even if the Netherlands stops producing food, the same amount of food is going to be made somewhere else in the World, so won't the same amount of nitrogen be produced anyway? isn't this just more virtue signalling by European states, exporting production so they can say how clean they are, the same way Germany decided it wouldn't have nuclear power stations and it would cut down on coal mining so it looks like a very clean country but it still needs all the power, it just imports it from Poland especially now someone cut off it's Gas from Russia? The same way Britain says how little pollution it has because all the stuff we used to make here now comes from China?
We have to start somewhere. Getting meat and dairy products from farther away will eventually make them more expensive, decreasing demand. In the end other countries will follow with decreasing animal farming too.
@@Simon-dm8zv start what somewhere?
@@MrVorpalsword decreasing meat and dairy production and consumption
@@Simon-dm8zv why would you want to do that? Since the hunger of war in the Netherlands the Dutch are now the tallest strongest people in Western Europe, what's wrong with being tall and strong?
@@MrVorpalsword has nothing to do with dairy and meat consumption
Nitrogen oxides are the problem not nitrogen which is 80% of the atmosphere. It seems to me that the Netherlands should export manure and other nitrogenous “waste” products. I’m sure there would be ready market for these given how expensive fertilisers are.
This is done. The Netherlands already exports as much manure (and concentrated industrial products from manure) as can be sold and transported.
@@JonathanMaddox Thanks for the information 👍
Way to go. All this rich organic fertilizer would be most welcome elsewhere in the world.
If this was as profitable as it seems then it would have already been done deal.
@@destindh it's being done.
It’s clear that bio industry, keeping animals in an industrial way should end. Both in favor of environment and animal welfare. That doesn’t mean that animal farming has to disappear. It should be scaled down so that the number of animals is in balance with the land available. This won’t lead to famine.
Induatrial farming is awesome. It provides large quantities of inexpensive food for the world.
@@gregorymalchuk272 no, it is the problem with our food system. it is cruel and inhumane. chemicals are never the answer.
What represents a "balance" of land use? Please explain the calculation.
@@robisverybad75Which part of farming is inhumane? Please elaborate.
@@joewoodchuck3824 any animal that is born on a concrete floor, that is inhumane. factory farms are inhumane. google one, please
There is no such thing as a free market. There are always limits and this is political. Productive farmers are doing their job properly. Malfunctioning markets are partly the responsibility of administrators and, more generally, politicians.
And then EU is saying Finland needs to stop cutting down forests that grow back to stop climate change! Central Europe was cut down to last tree already thousands of years ago so maybe they should first grow their forests back.
Just abolish the EU. Europe would save HEAPS of emissions (and money) from all the junkets/conferences they fly everywhere for and the vast bureaucracies pay packets!
Actually most of central europe has already been re-wooded a lot since the high middle ages.
France, germany, Italy, poland all where far less wooded in the time of charles the great than they are now.
Archeologica lakebed drill core pollen analysis cant be faked.
And the documented wood-area is currently growing in germany and france at least. Has been since WW2 when it was decimated all over.
Dont know exactly what "EU demands" you actually cite, but rewooding has been a goal for nearly half a century and much has been done in most member countries.
O čom píšeš,moja krajina má najviac lesov v EÚ podľa percent. Máme medvede,zubry, rysy a vlky a myslíš si že sedia na lúkach???? Zvolili ste si liberála Rutteho, diktátora ktorý vás likvidoval . Prečo nepodporujete odchod z Únie ktorá je tiež diktátor?????
WEF wants to control food
🤡
Ah, daar hebben we weer een "klok/klepel/'t is allemaal de schuld van het WEF"-wappie.
@@johndavies-qt6sh Dig a bit deeper and follow the $$$ and you may get to the same opinion.
They already control 90% of it. That's why they're starting to go after home produce, starting by forced registration of backyard chickens. Once all registered, there'll be "an outbreak" that will "justify emergency powers to slaughter privately owned birds".
Already been massive forced evictions off allotments and selling those sites off.
The ruling elites have gotten greedy and want the poorest too own or produce nothing but have to continuously lay them to survive
@@johndavies-qt6sh Beter een WEF-wappie dan een deugkneus.😄
Dutch agriculture takes a considerable toll on the environment and nature. This is partly because people have to work extremely efficiently to make any money out of it. However, the previous government used all kinds of false calculations etc. to halve agriculture, so to speak. This is now being reversed considerably by the current government. However, something does need to change. The Dutch soil is becoming enormously acidic and we have a huge mountain of manure that we need to get rid of. In addition, a lot of pesticides are being used and it is becoming increasingly clear that this has a major impact on the health of the population and nature. We cannot continue in this way, that much is clear. Dutch agriculture must become more sustainable for the future. This will be at the expense of a part of export, but we do not have to produce for half the world. In return, we will incur much lower costs in all kinds of other areas. The point is that farmers must be able to earn a decent living.
We know what happened with farmers due to p. tics since about the sixties.
What about the food exported from the Netherlands? People who are buying it MUST eat. In Britain, our farmers are under the same pressure. Who will be growing OUR food? ( and our population, like Netherlands, ) is rocketing!🇬🇧
End d66 groen links pvda pvdd. To hades with them
@@andrewwilson6085 obviously the point is to eat much less meat and dairy. Problem solved.
@@Simon-dm8zv "YoU wIl eAt Ze BuGs"
How about no!
How can you pollute air with nitrogen, when nitrogen is literally 80% of the air.
Only the brainless sheep believe any of the climate crap.
It's nitrogen in the form of ammonia and nitrogen oxide
@@davidw8668the fun thing is that NOx and ammonia makes nitrogen and water again. So acid rain from industry neutralize ammonia in the farmland. No one meantions this, because it’s not about the nitrogen at all. It’s about controlling the food supply.
Cuz science! Listen to the exoerts!
@@888_p3t3r nah buddy
Politicians are detached from farming reality.
Just bunch of 🏳️🌈 communists
We should *all* become detached from life stock farming reality.
@johndavies-qt6sh *you* go for it! I love my steaks and chicken drumsticks.
Hi,
NItrogen loss is a problem, but much of this can be overcome with the use of biochar which balances the nitrogen : phosphorous ratio in the soil. It also absorbs ammonia is faeces of livestock reducing nitrogen pollution.
We can produce at the moment 200 tons of biochar to combat pollution and increase the health of livestock to be more productive.
From a purely objective point of view, it is most efficient to have at least a portion of agriculture dedicated to livestock. Animals can create valuable resources from land that isn't suitable for growing other crops.
However, livestock is disproportionally affected by intensification, for instance, more cows in a smaller space, what will they eat? Especially in the winter months, Hay is a bit part of that diet, sure, but also grains, legumes, soy etc. for protein. Now, save for hay which is largely a local waste product, growing the other feed in the Netherlands is expensive, and more importantly, more valuable as products for human consumption. So, the feed, primarily soy, is imported, feed which is high in protein, protein which contains a large amount of nitrogen. Some of that nitrogen gets turned into delicious delicious meat, a big part of which is exported again. Yet a large portion of the nitrogen just goes in on one end of the animal and exits out of the other, which will eventually find it's way into nature.
The Netherlands is, quite simply, importing nitrogen in the form of animal feed. The scale of the livestock industry just cannot be supported by grazing and local agricultural waste such as hay alone. And both in terms of energy/inputs, financially and perhaps even a moral point of view it cannot be justified to domestically grow crops fit for human consumption, only to feed them to animals, to later eat the animals or animal products.
I think the financial gain achieved by the Netherlands supplying the world with high quality animal produce can't possibly weigh up to the environmental toll that is being put on the country.
The Dutch landscape is beautiful now with intensive agriculture, and it was beautiful too over a hundred years ago with less intensive agriculture. The idea that scaling down the amount of livestock will suddenly and drastically change the landscape for the worse does not seem like all that sound of an argument.
Excellent video shame about the highly irritating background music/noise
Livestock farming isn’t just destroying the Netherlands - it’s destroying the entire globe. Read George Monbiot’s ‘Regenesis - Feeding the World without devouring the Planet’. By the way, your summary of the history of Dutch agriculture could have included a remark about the loss of biodiversity as a result of the consolidation in the industry in the 1950s: if I’m well-informed, some 225,000 km of hedges were destroyed, that’s 5,5 times the circumference of the planet.
Exactly
No it's not. Livestock farming has a much lower impact than monocrop agriculture. Pasture raised cows are even a net carbon sequestor into the soil. My cows live in wildflower meadows along with the bees, butterflies and birds, grazers build ecosystems.
@@quillo2747 Incorrect. Animal products are far worse, even in case of grass fed.
Could you name me a few countries where the biodiversity has gone up in the last 100 years? Now you make it seem as if this is only in The Netherlands…with nothing to compare it to…
Thanks for this historical overview. Nicely done. What is not being discussed here, is the soil crisis. The soil gets pourer each year. What is being done about that? Are we as a community in the Netherlands (not only the farmers) willing to adapt even further?
Writing From New Zealand. We are getting the same rubbish against NZ farmers who have the lowest carbon footprint in the world. An example, we can grow, process and export lamb to the EU with a lower footprint than lamb grown in the EU. Yet the Greenies want to shut down our farming to achieve "bugger all" regarding greenhouse gases.
La plus intéressante et la mieux documentée HISTOIRE CONTEMPORAINE DES PAYS BAS que j'ai pu entendre depuis 1975. 17 minutes d'informations sourcées présentées factuellement. 🌷🥚🐄🧀🍺Travail remarquable 🇳🇱. Bravo 🎉👑
I really doubt that the Netherlands can keep this level in agriculture. Climate change will also hit Netherlands and I don't think that anyone will adapt to this properly. Livestock Farming is besides the nitrogen problem, a big contributor to climate change due to methane generation by enteric fermentation. The Germans don't want to give up their combustion engine, you don't want to keep your livestock Farming and all argue with their cultural inheritage. But mother nature will just process its laws by heavy floodings, heat waves and sea level rise. We changed the world too quickly and not sustainable...but we all will pay the price now whether you're farmers consider it fair or not.
Climate change is a complex issue with uncertainties: Flooding largely can be managed. that’s also the reason you saw less problem of flooding in the Netherlands compare to Belgium and Germany. Yes CH4 is a greenhouse partially emitted from farming industry but the efficiency in total CO2 equivalent/ liter of milk production is much higher else where. Moving this industry abroad just shift the problem, which is really an European approach. Rising sea level: we are already under 0m for so long…. Ps rice production also generates huge amount of CH4. Try to tell the enormous Asian population stop eating rice and see what’s happen. In a grand scale how important is the contribution of Europe? Plus extra uncertainty from cooling effect on Europe from slowing down of North Atlantic deep water formation. My guess would be with technology and some gov support, it can last quite long.
Livestock farming does not contribute to climate change. Pasture raised cattle are net carbon sequestor into the soil. Its misinformation, the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle is just that, a cycle, from the air to the cow to the ground to the cow to the air. Very different to burning fossil fuels.
They lie about water consumption as well as 99% of the water cows need comes from rain and the grass they eat.
The only cattle farming that contributes is indoor only industrialised farming and deforestation, neither of which occurs in the Neatherlands.
I'll worry about sea level rise when the billionaires stop building seaside mansions.
I think you need to mention the import of soy from the Amazon and the surplus of dung as a result.
Also, the production of meat for food is very inefficiënt if you consider feeding the global population because for that you need to feed the animals first.
well...comparing water use efficiency in greenhouse tomatos vs. field tomatos is much like comparing apples to oranges, while yes, you can do it, you really shouldn't try to make a point out of it...
Yes, 500 T of tomatoes grown in greenhouses,... and they do not taste as tomatoes at all, actually just watery red balloons.
At 5:05 sec you can see a parachutist falling behind the trees with a parachute failler
Looked more like one of their leg dufflebags...
Via Rotterdam harbor, agricultural supply companies imports cheap food components to Holland. Pigs en Fowl is raised in big sheds by this stuff and shit out most of the Nitrogen in the process. The animals are slaughtered and 2/3 of the pigmeat is exported . The excess, so the shit with nitrogen has to be brought in or on the land. Sheds and land leak the nitrogen.
can you make a video on how only 9 liters is used to grow a kg of tomatoes
Greenhouses put all resources inside under quarantine effectively. As fluids evaporate, they are collected, filtered and reused to grow crops whilst sunlight, lamps and natural gas are used for heating. It doesn't take 9 kilograms of water to make 1 kilograms of tomatoes. It only takes about a kilogram of water. Greenhouses are usually equipped with sluices to prevent the loss of moisture and scalability helps to offset costs. What it doesn't say though is that the greenhouse sector of the dutch farming industry is the biggest user of natural gas in the country and thus a major contributor to greenhouse emissions.
@@MarijnRoorda Most of the CO2 produced by the WKK's (very big natural gas engines) is pumped into the greenhouses for the plants to consume and grow.
This isn't always the case but under perfect circumstances a WKK will burn the NG to create hot water, the engine turns a generator that powers the lights and the CO2 powers the plants.
And newer greenhouses will digest the plant remains after clear-out into biogas that helps fuel the WKK for the new crop.
Love your videos. Short and informative.
Amazing channel, very well made and informative journalism!
Food security becomes ever scarcer.
NL is not even in the top 10 of CO2 producing countries.
You are blessed with fertile lands, I live here too and farming is a world apart from my home country of Norway.
Dutch Farming now and forever.
Sustainability above housing investments.
Much of the weiland (pastures) is not suitable for building as it is situated in Polders and or on very soft ground.
@AskTorin there is Zero journalism. You forgot about the part that The Netherlands has the worst water quality in EU. Only 1 % is clean. Just saying.
Oh yeah and even the land is infertile because of excessive use.
The Netherlands is a big exporter because it often acts as a middle man importing to export. This part is often overlooked and not mentioned, which has nothing to do with production efficiency.
One thing I would like to add to the statistics you listed 15:24 is,
that Dutch produce has an international reputation of being quite shit, but cheap.
Die „Niederländische Wassertomate“, would be a rather famous example from Germany.
You forgot about tasteless too.
@@jflanegien82 Maybe you have long covid and your tastebuds don't function anymore
There are two possible solutions to toxic levels of nitrogen in the soil. 1) Plough sawdust into the soil. It will absorb the excess nitrogen and increase the thickness of the soil - just what Holland needs as sea levels rise with global warming. 2) Scoop up excess manure from inside barns and other buildings and load it onto cargo ships. Haiti, Niger, and other overgrazed countries are crying out for organic fertilizer to restore their soil.
I thought I detected a Dutch accent. Stumbled upon this channel because it was covering the Irish immigration crisis. Nice channel, balanced approach. Fijne reis naar Overijssel!
Are we talking about adding fertiliser to land because the soil quality is so low? In that case can cattle feed be grown in glasshouses?
Great video. I like your content it really educates me alot. Training to be a teacher in Geography and mathematics, its a precise knowledge I scoop from your channel. Kudos
To be honest the video is biased and the whole truth isn't being told. We are the best in the Europe to have the worst water quality in Europe. only 1% or less is okay and that data comes from the University for farming (WUR).
@@jflanegien82 Somehow kinda true when I did Geographical Economy I learnt how Netherlands agriculture sector pollutes the water sources especially cheese dairy farming which contributes to dutch disease due to over specialization in agriculture only. I would like to learn more from you, are you from Netherlands ?
I was just in the Netherlands a few months ago and I had never been. Some of the best parts are the farmlands. I hope you guys can fight this off. We have to keep the cows!
The UK is the same if not worse, even abbatoir s are almost gone been driven out of business
No abbatoir
No farm animals
No dairy or beef industry
No farms
No food production
Everything imported
Land sold for building at a reduced rate
Sounds great to me.
@@Simon-dm8zv I bet you are unemployed, or a student. If you like other people telling you what to do so much, why not just live in the CCP :)
@@Simon-dm8zvWhat's great about concreting over the countryside to house the world and getting all your food imported from India and Brazil?
Nice story. But you forget that most of the food for the lifestock is imported from countries like Brazil. If you add up the land used to produce this food, which you should, the figures regarding landuse change dramaticly!
Very informative. Modern agriculture is destroying the dutch environment. Overproducing for export, especially meat, is an insurmountable problem. But also tulips are a big source of pollution and increased health risks. It’s not the farmers but the industrial profit organisations that fuel this problem. They need an alternative.
😂like food from gates factories....or Soros propaganda from 230 radio stations he bought last time. Or Gates farms in US producing for all world.??????? Rich won't pollute owing everything...right??????
If you watch the map of emissions it's not just the Netherlands polluting a lot, it's also Germany. They pollute like China or USA with a lot less territory and less people.
When the farmers disappear who will own the land I wonder. Throughout the World the same agenda who wins from this agenda I wonder?
The Jews
Sometimes the government buys it, sometimes the farming keeps it for other activities.
@@Simon-dm8zvthey want to build more and import more people...
What agenda? Be specific as possible.
@@JohnDorian-j7xTo use tue terms directly quoted from the UN and WEF, globalisation and globalhomogenisation.
Maybe we just don't need cows that produce 12.000 liters of milk each and a sector that is not focused on export of produce and import of food so that farms can shrink a little, so farmers can profit off buying less inputs and earning more of what they produce for a better price.
I'm Dutch and more then 50% of the land in The Netherlands is used for farming. So you are all wrong about that!
Then showing Jesse Klaver of the Green Party is just insulting to the average farmer in NL!
I am not Dutch, and I find that making some speculative nature harming guess work about the harm of nitrogen pollution, and on that basis, limiting the proud Nederlanders that have already altered nature by conquering large swaths of land from sea without any known averse effects to be insane.
@@anchormax3597 I fully agree!
We do not have a food scarcity problem, we have a waste problem. Over 40% of the food produced does not make it to your plate. Also if we don't address the environmental problems in the air, water and soil, we loose the resiliance of the system through the enormous loss of biodiversity and that will affect our ability to grow food, period. We need more farmers, more diversity in what is produced and much less monocultures. We need to integrate more and work in respect of our environment.
Environmental concerns lead to micromanaging lives. Higher food prices etc.
Poverty, unrest, riots, dictatorship, war.
The left is very clear with their undermining strategy
Which is fine. Products with a lower impact will be cheaper.
@@Simon-dm8zv micromanagement is ruining privatelifes = violation of human rights
It also enhances education, skills, technology and management practices
You prefer to treat the environment as a credit card YOU don't have to pay the interest on?
Don't forget: the environment is NOT some abstract, woke concept. It's the air you breathe, the water you drink, etc.
I traveled through the Netherlands by train and car in all seasons. I saw many farm fields with Schleswig Holstein flags, indicating that the fields were for agricultural production. But there were no farm animals in sight. This means something very wrong is going on.
Whenever I think about farming, it brings back memories of how my family managed to survive after losing our farm to Hurricane Florence in September 2018 here in North Carolina, thanks to a monthly influx of $36,000.
Great post friend
That's a major hit and must have been heartbreaking
How do you get so much in that period of time??
That's an outrageous figure for a month. What do you do?
Great video! Thank you so much for sharing! Take care 😊❤
The facts you use here in your video stating things as facts on emissions, however the Dutch people need to always remember when their country starved.
Does the politicians think that other countries are going to feed the Dutch if a world war breaks out ? A famine ?
The people need to always own their food security and overproduce their own needs.
It is never the politicians that suffer , it’s the sheep who follow them.
The last part of the video could just be rephrased as 'Dutch farming is the most efficient worldwide', no? What is missing from the video is why are the nitrogen emissions actually a problem, and are they evaluated in relation to the production quantity / quality?
i as hobby programmer was always intuitively against artificial nitrogen. cus if u think about it: if u buy nitrogen excess has to come out somewhere, it comes out as nitrogen pollution. if u just use manure from animals everything should stay in balance. ok minimum nitrogen maybe, to replenish what we take away from land with food humans eat, but that is really minimal.
I had heard that the dutch grow a lot of strange stuff in greenhouses
The Netherlands has the most cutting edge farming technology (specially greenhouses) but I'm Not that sure about the efficency of horticulture. Sure you need less water for your tomates but you pump your greenhouses with tons of natural gas making it way more expensive and pollutant than other productive areas such as Almería, Spain. Not to mention artificial light and dehumidifuers.
what if the polution of nitrogen is part of the reason why it is so efficient in the first place.
I do not see or hear a single word about the extreme overproduction of milk in Netherlands, selling it below production costs to completely obliterate milk producers abroad.
So wat i see is that the agro sector is the only one making gains in lower of pollution the rest just keep going more cars, airplanes etc..
Not really. A lot of effort is put into electrification of vehicles (this is already paying off) and discouraging flying.
@@Simon-dm8zv but china is killong their nature/ climate to give us resource for battery's so wich climate win we have? Only clean air in NL but the planet earth.....
If their is less consumers this would not be a problem . Rich people living a luxury lifestyle and farmers have to break them self to make a living . Manufacturers of farm equipment will go bankrupt and all the people what depend on farmers for food will no more buy and the goverment will fall apart getting no taxes from those export.
The cows remain mostly in 'stallen' (stables). The 'cloud of pollution' is mostly coming from the industry and traffic. The water-pollution is mainly caused by washing-powder, used by households and big laundry-cleaning-centres. After WWll the dutch government in combination with 'Wageningen' urged the farmers to grow big, regulate rivers and others waters, and all the rural roads (straightened). Soon after we got the 'melkplas', the 'boterberg', (manure surplus). And more problems. The farmers were forced to grow big, produce more high-qualified products, more and more (profitable for the government), had to invest for decades large summs of money. And now they are the 'blacksheep'? They have to offer their wealth (land, cattle, greenhouses, plants) on the altar of the government. Who seek a 'green, obedient (to the UN)' look in the EU. No matter the consequencis gor farmers and inhabitants. Do you think our food is cheap? No!!! We have to pay an abundance of taxes (included in the price) to get it.
The nitrogen comes from the poop the cows generate. So reducing the amount of cows helps a lot to fix the issue.
We have the most regulated farming in all of Europe. Farmers are not just people who till the land either. Most have a batchelors or masters degree. Pollution is a thing. But I cant understand why we as the Dutch have to sacrifice the best high-tech farming system in the world, granting us food independency and a development rate for natural indoor growing thats leagues ahead of any other nation on the globe. People are forgetting the value of food,the abillity to have all foodstuffs grown inside national borders, or the people that do that for us. There is a great deal we can potentialy miss in The Netherlands, but farmers are not one of them.
A cow isn't harmful for environment but a part of circularity. In Holland now 18 Million citizens , more then 400 per km2. This is a real risk and problem for the environment!
They are not circular if a lot of their calories are imported in the form of corn and soy. That is where all that excess nitrogen is coming from.
I agree that having a large population density isn't helping. That ,however, means tackling both; no choosing one.
You can grow more tomatoes per acre under glass, but if you’re growing 5 times as many and it cost you ten times as mis that a win? People are finding out greenhouses and vertical farming are prohibitively expensive. Not worth the initial investment
Sounds like we should send the Dutch farmers to Mars in case we try to colonize that planet.
We have in the golden century
🤦
@@BarbaraJikai Actually, YES, send them all there.
@@1964_AMUyou first
I do not understand the nitrogen problem. There is 80% of it in the air already, the rest being mainly oxygen. And nothing is endangered by it as this is how we and our nature have lived always. So why is it suddenly so dangerous only in the Netherlands?
The Netherlands leaders are in love with the USD paper currency more than their own people and their own country.
Boo frickin' hoo.
What a moronic thing to say in response to this issue. If anything the Dutch gov is now filled with idiotic woke leftists who look to Berlin's idiot woke socialists demanding the destruction of Western civilization and achievement because it offends delicate Russian-Chinese sensibilities to be so far ahead in basic development.
If only our leaders hadn't been seduced by German crypto-Russians and their endless demoralization schemes, and would be a little more enamoured with the Dollar ie American interests which competition aside broadly align with our own across virtually anything and everything.
Sure, buddy. Sure.
The title makes a bait and switch between livestock farming and the agricultural sector as a whole.
Beautiful video depicting the farmers history and reception to change. I do however think we have to reduce farmland as well, atleast in terms of livestock. I as well think it is not sustainable. The article that you mentioned from De Groene Amsterdammer is actaully a pretty optimistic view of how we could progress with less farmland. They even alledge we need more farmers in the article! However their proposal is rather radical, I think it's a worthy destination. At the end you once again mentioned that the Dutch use much less resources for harvesting and processing crops. Well, expand that area, and sell knowledge abroad!
The dutch farmers and scientists should sell their expertise to Malaysia and Indonesia landowners diversifying from palm oil trees.....we love dutch agricutural prductivity...
Not if you eat there food tasteless rubbish not healthy food at all
Oh, thanks for making the video. Ive always wondered what is the bigger picture behind the Netherlands farming crisis.
I wonder if the agrochemical pollution levels are now in safe limits? Is the ground drinking water good?
Just to point out. Livestock nitrogen production is highly dependent on the management style. Some studies say that grazing on the field, while cows can more and are in their natural environment, they only produce 10% of the nitrogen that they would produce when on factory setting. The cows need to move in order to digest.
Search for who has the worst water quality in EU. Only 1 % is clean because there rest is so polluted. Nonetheless since less year we started to have water shortage.
Let me fix that for you "How the Dutch socialists are attempting to destroy agriculture". Farmers will win.
You completely failed to illustrate the influence of Rabobank; how it went from a farmers cooperative bank to a greedy multinational corporation.
Well, I'm dutch but buying a home here is next to impossible. A small 1 person flat will set you back at least 300k. easily! Biggest housing crisis on global earth and yet more then 50% of land is acres and acres of farmland all for export...
It's not land but regulation that limits houses being built.
That says more about cutting down on immigrants than building even more in such an overpopulated country already...
gast, laat je niet bedriegen door statistieken, we zijn ook de grootste exporteur van cacoa en bananen, dat groeit hier ook niet, dat komt door de haven van rotterdam.
You know, saying „nitrogen” is kinda misleading. In air there is about 76 perc nitrogen. It's nitrogens compounds, that are harmfull.
The Dutch are not the world’s most efficient farmers, very far from it, because they are utterly reliant on foreign inputs and energy. In effect they are the middle man of food manufacturing, which is very different to farming and shouldn’t be confused with each other.
Do you have any data to support your claim? I'm honestly very interested.
Yes, we are.
@@1Waarheid Oh really? Well why do Dutch farmers rely on subsidies, tariffs and handouts then?
@@seanlander9321 Do your homework and you'll know.
@@1Waarheid Come off it. The most efficient farmers are from Australia and New Zealand, whereas the Dutch farmers are a lazy lot who suck on the government tit and are completely reliant on imports of feed, fertiliser and energy, that’s not efficiency, nothing like it.
Re. tomatoes: Please try to add real tomato flavor at some point. The color has improved in recent years, they just still taste like water. Worst tomatoes on the planet.