A series of protests by Dutch livestock farmers, characterised by the use of tractors to block roads and occupy public spaces, have been ongoing since 2019. The protests were initially triggered in October 2019 by a proposal in parliament to halve the country's livestock in an attempt to limit agricultural pollution in the Netherlands, but protesting farmers have frequently told media that they are motivated by a perceived lack of respect for their profession by the Dutch populace, media and politicians.
The protests combined several action groups and an amalgamation of larger goals, which included less government regulation for farmers, more air time for pro-farmer sentiments, and more policies to punish Shell and Tata Steel for their part in the emission crisis.
Public understanding for the farmers has remained high for the duration of the conflict, but actual support began to waver by the end of 2019. By July 2020, 55% of people responding to a survey polled by EenVandaag did not support further protests, but just over half of the respondents remained sympathetic to the farmers.
Public understanding remained high through the summer of 2022, while public support for the protests was polled as low as 39% by I&O Research; particularly low support was found among people living in urban areas.
Background
The Netherlands has a significant agrarian and livestock sector, which produces and transits large quantities of agricultural exports. As such, the country is the second largest exporter of agricultural produce in the world after the United States when the exportation of imported agricultural goods, such as cattle and soybeans are included. Large imports of cattle fodder cause an imbalance in the nitrogen cycle. Since the mid-2000s, climate activism and animal rights activism have become more commonplace in the Dutch House of Representatives and general political discourse of the Netherlands, especially with the emergence of the Party for the Animals as a political force. Policy proposals by parties such as the Dutch green party, GroenLinks, and the social liberal D66 have since emphasized the need for farmers to transition into sustainable farming. These policy proposals were consistently met with opposition by farmers and their representatives. Between 1990 and 2010, considerable progress had been made in reducing agricultural pollution, during a series of coalitions between centre-left and centre-right parties. In 2010 however, the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal and People's Party for Freedom and Democracy formed a minority cabinet with the support of the far-right Party for Freedom. Pollution reduction projects were largely put on hold, while existing regulations were no longer strictly enforced. Even though this First Rutte cabinet proved to be short-lived, it led to a trend break in environmental policy. In reaction, environmental activists began to sue the Dutch state, demanding that the laws would be upheld.
In 2019, the Netherlands entered a nitrogen emission crisis when on 29 May the Council of State, the highest Dutch administrative court, ruled that the existing emission policy violated Dutch law and European regulations protecting vulnerable nature reserves and biotopes. In principle no further emission critically impacting such areas was allowed, which threatened to halt a significant part of Dutch building and infrastructural projects, unless their nitrogen output would be compensated by a reduction in agricultural emissions. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) reported that the severely damaging effects of nitrogen on Dutch soil could only be halted by direct action. The institute found that farmers were responsible for 46% of the country's nitrogen emission, mostly due to cow dung produced by the livestock industry. This situation led Tjeerd de Groot, a member of the House of Representatives for D66, a party in the ruling coalition, to propose new policy to halve the current Dutch livestock on 9 September 2019. The RIVM's findings coupled with De Groot's policy proposal led to resistance by Farmers Defence Force, a farmer activist group. It claimed that the institute had used "shady methods" to "portray" farmers as big time polluters. They claimed that their unfair portrayal as polluters is caused by the governments desire to let the real big time polluters go free. They claimed their fundamental rights were threatened by legislation aiming to lower emissions and demanded that any new legislation would not threaten agricultural undertakings with elimination. They also demanded more research to be undertaken before new legislation be proposed. The government repudiated the accusations of using "shady methods" being used by the RIVM and claimed the numbers were correct.
In addition to the nitrogen emission crisis, Dutch news media have reported that farmers have felt disrespected or threatened in their existence because of increased government regulation on the agricultural and livestock sectors, as well as the popularity of animal rights activism among the Dutch population. An incident that occurred on 13 May 2019, in which up to 200 animal rights activists occupied a pig farm in Boxtel, North Brabant, sowed fear among livestock farmers and motivated them to organize into collectives such as and Agractie, which later became key players in the farmers' protests.
Protests against halving industrial livestock production (2019–2020) October 2019
1 October was one of the days with the most intense protests. Thousands of farmers went to The Hague to protest, their tractors causing over a thousand kilometres of traffic jams. This made it the busiest morning rush (hour) in the history of the Netherlands. When arriving at designated location, the Malieveld, the protesters damaged the area, driving through fences and signs and destroying the landscape. Afterwards farmers offered to assist in repairing the damage.
In a speech, sheep farmer Bart Kemp said that politicians lack the intelligence of farmers and claimed that the protests were the biggest ever undertaken by farmers in all of history. Minister Carola Schouten promises in a speech that as long as she is minister of agriculture to regulate the amount of legally allowed livestock, part of the livestock will not be halved, a measure which parties like Democrats 66 supported in order to shrink nitrogen emissions. When proponents of the nitrogen measures got to tell their side of the story the farmers turned their backs to the stage and drowned out their arguments with curse words. The farmers again used unlawful actions, one such example is when a microphone was taken so as to prevent proponents of the climate measures from talking, making necessary the intervention of security personnel.
On 11 October, farmers protested against the new nitrogen emission legislation in the provinces of Friesland and North Brabant. As a result, the Frisian province revoked the law.
At 12:00 on 14 October, employers’ organisation LTO Nederland's protest action began, having called on its 14,000 members to begin protesting in Gelderland, Overijssel, Drenthe, Groningen, North Holland, South Holland, Flevoland and Utrecht. In Groningen the farmers stormed the provincial government building. This was condemned by LTO Nederland.
Farmers from Limburg protested in front of the provincial government headquarters in Maastricht on 15 October. In Zeeland farmers began negotiating instead of holding protests.
On 16 October, protests were organised by Farmers Defence Force, and started at the RIVM building in Bilthoven, later moving to the Binnenhof in The Hague as well as the central train station of the city. During these protests a leader of Farmers Defence Force threatened civil war, claiming that the government using the military was “a cowardly retreat behind a wall of intimidation and violence”. Soldiers were employed to block off streets in order to prevent escalation of the protests. This was a reaction to the violence the farmers employed in Groningen during previous protests.
17 October began with the farmers preparing a free breakfast for the inhabitants of The Hague before they hit the road again, using their tractors to dump used paper at government buildings.
November 2019 On 25 November, many farmers and builders parked next to the exits of major roads throughout the country, threatening to block access to them. One farmer declared “we want to come out on top”, insinuating this meant “better policy.”
December 2019
Farmers Defence Force planned to block food distribution throughout the country in the week before Christmas. FDF frontman Mark van den Oever stated that he wanted to refresh Dutch citizens' memories of the Dutch famine of 1944–1945, during which thousands of citizens travelled to the countryside to beg local farmers for food due to shortages in the densely populated western parts of the Netherlands. Next to that, Van den Oever stirred great controversy while comparing the situation of the Dutch farmers to that of the persecution of Jews during World War II. These statements led to both support as well as anger. Out of 4,955 farmers who filled in a survey by agricultural organisation LTO Nederland, 71% did not support potential blockings. 15% did not want any more protests at all. The potential blockings were quickly denounced as illegal.
On 13 December, in a surprise protest, Farmers Defence Force blocked the roads to Eindhoven Airport for several hours, leading to severe traffic jams throughout the eastern part of Brabant. That same day, farmers also held protests in both Amsterdam and Den Bosch. Farmer Defence Force called the surprise protest in Eindhoven a teaser for the 18 December protests.
On 17 December, a court case ruled that the farmers were not allowed to block the food distribution on their planned protest date on 18 December, but were allowed to protest at the locations. The farmers announced protests at 45 different locations, including the Media Park in Hilversum. However, blockings still occurred after all. In Bergen op Zoom, farmers blocked a chemicals company. Several border crossings between the Netherlands and Germany were blocked, sometimes in collaboration with German farmers. The protests led to several fines and several people were arrested by the police for throwing fireworks.
"De boer dat is de keerl" Top 2000 voting campaign Team Agro, one of the collective farmer groups, announced their intention to vote Normaal's 1982 single "De boer dat is de keerl" to the top of the annual NPO Radio 2 marathon Top 2000. "De boer dat is de keerl" (Achterhooks for "The farmer, that is the man") is an adaption of a Fiddlin' John Carson American country song and tells the story of the hard-working and undervalued farmer who is deprived of his money. On 7 December, it was announced that "De boer dat is de keerl" was the ninth most voted song, and the top voted song in rural areas such as Twente, Weststellingwerf and Normaal's native Achterhoek region.
February 2020 Farmers Defence Force announced a new protest, but canceled it in advance. Talks had been planned for 5 February, between the minister of agriculture Carola Schouten, prime minister Mark Rutte and the different protest groups. The reason the protest was canceled was allegedly because of new calculations of nitrogen emissions of the RIVM and the FDF wanting to wait for a better moment to organize a protest.
The first protest in 2020 was on 19 February. Just like previous protests, this one was also organized by Farmers Defence Force. However, the protest did not take place on the Malieveld in The Hague, because the city of The Hague and Staatsbosbeheer kindly asked them not to. The FDF reached out to the farmers and asked them to adhere to the rules. They protested on the Koekamp, a small park next to the Malieveld instead.