Dutch farmers block the border with Germany amid increasingly harsh protests
Protests by Dutch farmers against the extreme conditions imposed by the government, which would like to limit the production of nitrates from farming in a large part of the country, continue. There have been large border blocks between the Netherlands and Germany, with very long queues on the highways.
Very angry Dutch farmers block border between Holland and Germany. Harsh protests in many Dutch cities after politicians' decision to closes dozens of farms and cattle ranches to reduce nitrogen by 30% – 70% to comply with EU regulations on nitrogen pollution. pic.twitter.com/uKYXj0gvD8
– RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) June 30, 2022
The situation will continue also in the next few days, indeed the organizers foresee an intensification of the demonstrations up to a peak which should be reached on the next 4th July. The protests also had moments of violence and clashes with the police when the home of the "Minister for Nitrogen" was stormed in charge of applying these frankly extremist legislation and regardless of the economic survival of companies.
Let's talk clearly: what would you do if, by law, overnight, your income was reduced by 30%, thus condemning you not only to earn less, but probably to fail and end up in the middle of a road losing everything? I think you would be a little upset even by Italian sheep accustomed to shearing. Dutch farmers evidently have no intention of going bankrupt and have decided on these extreme forms of protest. The legislation would limit breeding in large areas of the country due to the organic emissions of the livestock that "pollute", without the banal consideration that manure is pollution, but also wealth, in a world poor in fertilizers, and no one has, obviously, thought about the possibility of reusing this animal product. So it's better to make the farmers fail to make Greta happy
The Netherlands is also the fifth largest exporter of agricultural products in the world so the move, not offset by an increase in production elsewhere, would jeopardize food security in large parts of the world and lead to an even greater inflationary push. This does not seem to interest the Rutte government, which has strongly criticized farmers saying that they can protest, but "in a civil manner". The Dutch media almost ignore the fact and, to explain the huge blocks to the motorway system, speak of " Unreliability of the road system ". It almost looks like an Italian media …
The police made a dozen arrests as part of these protests which, however, risk spreading further.
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The article Dutch farmers block the border with Germany amid increasingly harsh protests comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/gli-agricoltori-olandesi-bloccano-il-confine-con-la-germania-fra-proteste-sempre-piu-dure/ on Fri, 01 Jul 2022 08:00:18 +0000.