Nitrogen 2000

Nitrogen 2000Show more

The Soviet Union 1920s

Historical commentator: A belligerent Stalin addresses a closed party session in October 1925. He declares war on Russia’s farmers. The kulaks are traditional enemies of central authority. He lashes out. Kulaks are the stronghold of counter-revolution. Rise up in arms against the kulaks. Liquidate the kulak class.

Ursula von der Leyen: A little over 50 years ago, the Club of Rome published the Limits of Growth Report. And it came to a drastic conclusion. Stop economic and population growth, or else our planet will not cope.

The Netherlands 2022 − Dutch Cattle Farmers own 70% of Holland − The Government is seeking to forcibly buy 50% of the farms

Anchorwoman: The Netherlands is one of many nations that’s been taking measures to reduce its nitrogen pollution. And a number of farms may have to be closed down.

Tjeerd de Groot, Member of Dutch Parliament
In order to restore nature, we have to reduce the number of animals in the Netherlands.

BBC: Dutch farmers enraged over emissions cuts

Presenter “Sky News Australia”: It’s basically the second largest food exporter in the world, and they’re being told that they’re going to need to cut their production at a time of global food insecurity, to basically follow climate mandates. This seems like complete insanity to me.

‘Al Jazeera’ – anchorwoman: Part of the Dutch plan is to buy out farms, which are being seen as being a pollutant.

Jan van der Wind, Farmer
The minister talking about hugely attractive buy-out packages. That’s a ridiculous statement.

Andy Palmen: Director of Greenpeace Netherlands
The government should force farmers to stop. It has to happen now, and it will be painful. Farmers have to be told, you will need to quit, and we will withdraw your license. We will compensate you, but you have to stop.

Farmers protest in central Netherlands

Anchorwoman: Lots of questions about their future. So they want some answers from the government. What will happen to us? Environmental groups have said more reductions, more cattle has to disappear.

Jos Ubels, VP, Farmers Defence Force
They are using the narrative of nitrogen to get rid of us, but actually we’re doing a very important part. We’re feeding the Netherlands, we’re feeding a big part of Europe. So the population is rising, so consumption is rising, but we want to cut production. This is very illogical.

Sietske Bergsma, Political Commentator (Wikipedia NL: Sietske Bergsma is a Dutch publicist. She is known for opinion columns in ThePostOnline. She also produces video columns and interviews).
They’re taking away the security, and of course they have all these ideas about where we could get our food from in the future, but this is not at all reassuring.

‘Al Jazeera’ - anchorwoman: What if people just were encouraged to eat less meat or to eat less dairy?

Anchorwoman: Bill Gates and big names in Hollywood are pushing to eat bugs as a way to prevent climate change. Bugs are high in protein and could replace the high intake of beef, chicken and pork. Critics against eating meat say raising these animals is adding to pollution.

‘Al Jazeera’- anchorwoman: And as the world tries to cut back on pollutants to save the planet, people’s source of food could be affected.

Rypke Zeilmaker, Environmental Journalist
The intention sounds so great. Everybody wants to save the planet, save the earth. Great, great, great. It’s just like ‘praise God’: praising God is always great. But if you look at the consequence, it just means you make everything so much more expensive that you create abject poverty for − you destroy the middle class, you make the lower class even poorer, and you only have a small elite and their networks.

Professor Ralph Schoellhammer − ‘The Bolt Report’ − Controversial buy-out plan approved by EU

You had a member of the Bank of England who openly said in an interview: “Well, we have to make peace with the fact that we will be poorer in the future”. Now, that’s easy for him to say. But if we look at the history of revolutions, both ancient ones and more modern ones, this is how it starts. People do not accept forever that they’re simply going to get poorer, poorer and poorer and that their children will be worse off than they were. At some point, that anger will turn against the political system.

Anchorwoman: Greenpeace says compensating farmers on a voluntary basis won’t lead to a big enough reduction in nitrogen.

Presenter NL: Ministers and people from large nature organizations, such as Greenpeace, the Bird Protection and Nature Monuments, are going to talk about the nitrogen plans.

NGO Head: The problem is only getting worse, so you just have to do something.

Presenter: Angry farmers are protesting in various places in the country.

Anchorwoman: The farmers are also taking action today. At the moment, the bridge at Rhenen is being blocked…

Tjeerd de Groot, Member of Dutch Parliament
The manure is in the Netherlands, which is ammonia, which is a form of nitrogen which is bad for the environment, bad for nature.

Professor Han Lindeboom, Environmental scientist
And they have declared that nitrogen is the major problem. No. I’m an expert in nitrogen and I dare to say it is not.

Nitrogen 2000 − The Dutch Farmer’s Struggle

‘GBN Live’ - anchorwoman: We’re basically going through the new technological revolution, aren’t we? And under the guise of climate change. So they’re being told, change this and that, make it more environmentally friendly, you’re destroying the land. But actually, it’s just more corporatism. And it’s taking away the national identity, I think, of so many people around the world, especially in this case, the farmers.

A BIG PICTURE DOCUMENTARY
Directed by James Patrick

Jos Block, farmer
Everybody who thinks of Holland, it’s windmills, it’s clogs, it’s milk, it’s cheese…

Jos Ubels, VP, Farmers Defence Force
Our country is based on agriculture. We are famous for walking on wooden shoes on clogs. And we are also very famous for our cheese and milk production.

Sietske Bergsma, Political Commentator (Wikipedia NL: Sietske Bergsma is a Dutch publicist. She is known for opinion columns in ThePostOnline. She also produces video columns and interviews).
We have around, I think it’s 60,000 farmers in the Netherlands. Everyone, even if you live in the city, like in Amsterdam or in Rotterdam, after a five-minute drive, you will see cows, you will see farmland. I mean, it’s so ingrained in our society, in our way of life, that farmers are a part of our culture. Everyone has someone in their family who was once a farmer.

Farmer Jos Block: This is my dad. My dad did buy the farm from his father. So his father started in the very early of the last century. After, for 30 or 40 years, the farm, I did buy the farm from my dad. And now I’m the farmer on this farm.

Professor Han Lindeboom, Environmental scientist
The government has taken the stand that we do have a huge problem with nature. And that due to EU regulations, we should save nature. And now they want to solve the problem by simply eliminating a large amount of farms.

Farmer Jos Ubels: The major thing that kicked our movement was when Tjeerd de Groot, one of the leaders of the D66, came up with the idea to shout out loud in the media that the best plan for the Netherlands was to cut half of the animals. So he wanted to get rid of half of the livestock of the Netherlands.

Tjeerd de Groot, Member of Dutch Parliament
Tjeerd de Groot: We are the second biggest party of the Netherlands. And we really have negotiated with other more conservative parties on a new chapter in the Dutch agriculture policy.

Jos Ubels: They said in 2019, they said publicly, that they want to get rid of half of the farmers, half of the animals and half of the farmers. When this injustice is put over the Dutch farmers, a lot of people stood up.

Summer 2019
Anchorwoman: Thousands of Dutch farmers are rallying against the government on their tractors.

Farmer Jos Ubels: They are publicly talking about cutting down half of the farms in the Netherlands because it would be good for nature. But this is total bullshit.

Wybren van Haga, Member of Dutch Parliament
It’s a crock of shit. It’s bogus. It’s... It’s a false ideology.

Tjeerd de Groot: Now the goal is, in order to restore nature, to cut nitrogen with 50% in 2030. And this is huge. This is huge for farmers, of course.

Farmer Jos Block:
From 28,000 animal farmers, they want 11,000 farms closed and another 8,000 to 10,000 farms should reduce their production.

Only 7000 farms left unmolested

Sietske Bergsma: The effects of this nitrogen policy is devastating. I mean, there’s
just no other way to look at it, I think.

A healthy, farmer’s common sense is missing in this country’s politics! − With Rutte and Kaag at the top, the cow’s are in a noose. − Let the farmers be! This cabinet goes over dead bodies!

Sietske Bergsma: It has been put forward so rapidly, farmers had to immediately comply to these crazy, impossible demands, really. And those demands have resulted in them having to give up their farms.
Farmer Jos Block: Why do they need to go − my cows? Why does my farm need to close?

Tjeerd de Groot: Our intention is to explain why this is so important for them and for nature, but not to change the goals of the policy. That’s not the case. It’s not going to happen.

Is nitrogen really bad for nature? 78% of the air we breath is nitrogen.
The Nature Conservancy: What is nitrogen pollution?

Presenter: If nitrogen is most of the air we breathe, then how can nitrogen be pollution?

Sietske Bergsma: It’s not like a toxic chemical that we should eradicate.

Professor Han Lindeboom: Nitrogen is a completely natural compound in nature. Without nitrogen, we would not be there.

Sietske Bergsma: Nitrogen is also necessary for things to grow.

Planet Natural: Know your fertilizer

Presenter: These are the three macronutrients that are essential for plant growth. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogen gets top billing because it’s responsible for keeping plants green, which is why fertilizers for grass tend to have a high N-factor.

Why is the Dutch and EU Government declaring nitrogen pollution?

Simon Upton (New Zealand Parliamentary Commisioner): Nitrogen management is an integral part of environmental policies in quite a lot of countries.

Anna Engleryd (UN Chairwoman): Political agreements since 1990 have substantially reduced nitrogen oxide emissions from the European part of our region.

Simon Upton (New Zealand Parliamentary Commisioner): Local nitrogen pollution hotspots will require a cap. They’ll actually require a reduction below the current level.

What is the issue with nitrogen?

Dutch woman: What damage can nitrogen cause? What damage can nitrogen cause?

Harm? − Cow manure is high in nitrogen − and makes plants grow

Dutch woman: Nitrogen enriches the soil. As a result, plants that don’t need a lot of nitrogen are being repressed by plants that grow a lot because of nitrogen. Think of orchids, for example, that are overgrown by stinging nettles. Nitrogen enriches the soil. As a result, plants that don’t need a lot of nitrogen are being repressed by plants that need a lot of nitrogen. Think of orchids, for example, that are overgrown by stinging nettles.

Jos Block, Farmer: The nitrogen is only a problem for a few plants.
And there are certain plants that don’t like it, and they disappear. Other plants like it, and they appear. So basically what you’re doing is changing nature.

Anchorwoman: Because some plants grow extra well here, they overgrow the more vulnerable, rare plants. Nature is suffering from, amongst other things the precipitation of nitrogen. Because some plants grow extra well here, they overgrow the more vulnerable, rare plants.

Interviewer: When is something nature?

Man: When it can grow freely on it’s own, to a large extent.

Interviewer: Yes.

The Dutch government wants to garden little plants… at the expense of their farmers.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
But instead of prolonging these debates, I want today to concentrate on one point. And that is a clear message, that a growth model centered on fossil fuels is simply obsolete.

Professor Ralph Schoellhammer: We are governed by incompetent people. But we have to face the fact that in the past, previous generations made us so rich that we could afford to be stupid. But gradually, we are no longer that rich to afford to be that stupid.

Hilde Anna de Vries: If we look at the Netherlands, livestock is actually the biggest source. It’s responsible for about 65% of all the emissions that precipitate on our protected nature area.

Wybren van Haga, Member of Dutch Parliament
A couple of hundred years ago, we chopped down all our trees, and what was left was sand dunes. In Holland, we are a densely populated country, and we don’t have nature. We’ve got a big garden.

The Nitrogen Policy focuses on “Nature 2000” areas

Tjeerd de Groot, Member of Dutch Parliament:
In Europe, we have special protected areas, which we call Nature 2000. They were selected according to the special species or habitats which were there.

Spokeswoman of the EU: Nature 2000 is the largest network of protected areas in the world.

Nature 2000 covers 18% of EU land. There are 162 “Nature 2000” areas around Holland.

Anchorwoman: In the Nitrogen Approach System, all protected natural areas are ‘Nature 2000’ areas, where organisms live that don’t like too much Nitrogen. This applies to 118 of the 160 ‘Nature 2000’ areas in Holland.

Wybren van Haga: You have to go back, maybe 25 years, when some silly civil servants went to the European union and they said: ‘Well we’ve got nature, but our nature we call it sand dunes. And if you have nitrogen-oxide deposited on sand dunes, eventually you end up with a forest. Which I think is not bad. But we promised the EU it will stay sand dunes, so we will maintain it like that.

Jos Block, farmer
We had a lot of problems with the nitrogen rules because our farm is near to and in “Nature 2000”, and that is really a problem for us. This is my land, I’m the owner, but this is also nature land, Nature 2000. In this area, the government says we need to reduce 95% of the nitrogen that is coming out of the stables.

Professor Han Lindeboom: The government is picking on the farmers much too much. That is absolutely not necessary to save nature.

Historical commentator: Thousands of Kulak families are rousted from their homes. Their land, grain, implements and livestock are plundered.

How long has the government regulated farmers?

Jos Ubels, VP, Farmers Defence Force
After the war, they started to build up agriculture, they started pushing agriculture to produce more. First it was a good thing because they gave money to grow bigger and better, but now they are using the money to control us. For example, I can’t choose the crop that I want to grow. I need to change my crops accordingly to the plan of the government. And they have no clue what they are doing. The 15th of May of every year, the Dutch farmers have to give up how many cattle they have, how many fields they have, what they grow in the fields, when they harvest, how they harvest. They have to tell which kind of cows they have, they have to tell how many cows they want to have in the nearby future, how many calves were born, how many of them are male, how many of them are female. Yes, it’s as crazy as that. It’s never ending. They want to know everything.

Erik Luiten, Farmer and Spokesperson for Agractie

Interviewer: So you have to test the manure.

Erik Luiten: You have to test the manure, yes.

Interviewer: Every time?

Erik Luiten: Every time, every time. Every time we have to test the manure for how much phosphate is in it, how much ammonia is in it.

Interviewer: So that’s crazy. You can’t take manure to your neighbor’s farm?

Erik Luiten: No.

Interviewer: Without a laboratory test?

Erik Luiten: That’s correct, that’s correct.

Interviewer: And since how long have they been doing that?

Erik Luiten: Well, that’s probably 20 years now. It’s so complicated. It’s not any more possible for me as a farmer to report this. We have to put it by an administration who has to do it (testing) for us. And well, it’s about somewhere between 5000 or 10,000 euros a year costs, which − we don’t get anything back for it. It’s no use, it’s only more costs and less income for me as a farmer.

Historical commentator: In the search for contraband, every home is ransacked. The scavengers miss nothing. Every last kernel is gleaned and carted off.

Farmer Jos Ubels: And this is what they’re using to provide as a narrative for what they’re doing. But actually our Ministry of Nitrogen − yes, we really have a Minister of Nitrogen in the Netherlands. It’s funny, but we have.

Professor Han Lindeboom: Yeah, we have now recently a Ministry of Nitrogen.

Wybren van Haga: You’re laughing. This is the first time in history that we actually have a Minister of Nitrogen. But she doesn’t have a clue about nitrogen.

Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink − Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Policy

Wybren van Haga: She doesn’t have any education on nitrogen, she’s not a chemist. She just has a mission that we should have 50% nitrogen reduction. Why? She doesn’t know. I asked her in the House (of Parliament) and she doesn’t have a clue. Which is funny in itself, if it wasn’t for the fact that people’s lives depend on it. Farmers’ lives depend on it.

Rabobank − The farmers bank

Wybren van Haga: The role of the Rabobank is really weird, because the Rabobank was the farmers’ bank. They used to support and finance the farmers.

Farmer Erik Luiten: This bank apologised for loaning money to farmers. So a farming bank, raised by farmers to loan money to farmers, put excuses for loaning money to farmers. So that’s ridiculous.

Wybren van Haga: But a lot of farmers are getting letters now from the Rabobank, saying, sorry, if these are the plans the government is going to implement, then your land is worth absolutely zilch. It’s a scary collaboration between the government and the banks and other entities.

Who is behind this?

Rypke Zeilmaker, Environmental Journalist
I’m Rypke Zeilmaker, I am a science journalist who investigated on this government scheme of buying up farmland in the name of nature protection for like 10 or 15 years. And so I discovered − which interests are behind this whole scheme. I used to be a real greenie, a conservationist, but I turned more into a supporter of the fishermen and the farmers because I saw what interests are now also behind so-called conservation. I studied the role of the NGOs, especially here in Holland. Who are these NGOs? If you move in closer, you see that − who is their largest funder? The government. So actually, it’s not NGOs like ‘non-governmental organisations’, but they are governmental extensions.

NGOs Lobby to remove farmers… and then become custodians of the land

Jos Block, Farmer
I do the same as the nature organisations do in Holland. Why do my cows need to go? Why does my farm need to close? After that, there are coming some other cows back in this area. Not from a farmer, but from a nature organisation, and they need to eat the grass. So what’s the difference? I think it’s very strange that a farmer is not allowed to do it, and a nature organisation can do the same as I do, and they have no − and then there is no nitrogen problem.

Rypke Zeilmaker: But what do these NGOs do for these people? They make a political issue constantly of something that is only in the interest of the 1%. They use NGOs, they pump them full with money to promote policies that, well, 99% of the population does not care anything about. All subsidies to NGOs need to end.

The Government made a 25-Billion Euro Fund to buy farmers’ land… all funded by taxpayer’s money

Rypke Zeilmaker: There’s this notation of the government that they want to convert another 150,000 hectares of farmland. They will use 25 billion euros of taxpayers’ money to buy up farmland again under the flag of nitrogen.

Wybren van Haga: Yeah, we’ve got a nitrogen fund which is 25 billion, and we’ve got a nature fund which is 35 billion euros.

Interviewer: How is that going to be spent?

Tjeerd de Groot, Member of Dutch Parliament
Well, it’s going to be spent by buying out farmers who want to stop, by helping them with technical aids, so you can have innovations to reduce ammonia emission. But also to better care and better manage our nature areas.

Wybren van Haga: And now suddenly we’re wasting billions and billions on a nightmare.

Tjeerd de Groot: Because of the huge amount of animals on a very small surface, we have this ammonia problem. And so the idea is now that our nature has to be restored due to regulations, European regulations.

Professor Han Lindeboom, Environmental scientist
The real reason is there are EU regulations. We have to stick to those. Whether we have translated them in the right data is another story. But there are regulations.

Rape of Europa, Statue outside EU building

Han Lindeboom:
If we don’t do that, we get fines from the EU and we have big problems.

Wybren van Haga: Because we made this holy promise to the EU, we now are in a situation where we actually have to hunt down our farmers.

Tjeerd de Groot: The government has to do what the government has to do sometimes, which is painful. But there is also 25 billion euros for small countries like the Netherlands to help farmers to get a better life, to help nature.

Presenter: Factory workers, 25,000 of them, are enlisted as enforcers. They’re given a pistol and a crash course in the forcible collectivization of farms. Stalin’s mouthpiece, Lazar Kaganovich, exhorts these so-called 25.000ers, setting their goal at 100% collectivization.

Sietske Bergsma: They had a law that stated that 49% of the nitrogen emissions should be reduced by farmers. But our parliament hasn’t even decided on this yet. But they actually increased that number up to 75%. This law isn’t even democratic.

Wybren van Haga: Nobody in the last elections voted for this.

Sietske Bergsma: It’s been clear for a couple of years that the government wants to reduce nitrogen emissions and especially wants farmers to step in, in reducing it and not the industry.

Professor Han Lindeboom: If you have the building activity, you’re also producing nitrogen.

Farmer Jos Block: There you see two pipes. Those two pipes are from brick fabrics. We need the brick fabric because we want to build some houses. When you need to reduce nitrogen, and you say we need to reduce nitrogen a lot, you must look where can we reduce nitrogen. When you build a new house, you need bricks.

Landwirt Jos Ubels: The purpose of the measures, the legislation they are trying to push on us now, is they are using the narrative ‘to cut down emissions’, but actually they want our soils, they want our land.

25% of the earth is used to graze livestock
PBS: Peril and promise − The challenge of climate change

Anchorwoman: Lots of people love eating beef, but it also has the biggest environmental impact of nearly any food we eat. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a cow up close, but they’re massive. It takes a lot of cow food to make that much cow.

Most cows eat grass, not grains

Anchorwoman: And a lot of land to make all that cow food. More than a quarter of all land on earth is devoted to feeding those cows.

CNN interview with Bill Gates

Bill Gates: Nobody knows how to get rid of …

Interviewer: … How to get cows to stop farting?

Bill Gates: Exactly.

TRT World: Cow farts and climate change

Presenter: Cows burp and fart. A lot. And it’s impacting climate change.

Bill Gates: What we have to do, which is zero. If it was a 50% reduction, then you could ignore, OK, leave the cows alone. We’re trying to avoid the temperature continuing to go up. You do need to go to zero. Otherwise, you’re continuing to have temperature increase.

Is all the anti-cow propaganda a way to control land?
Mark Moss: Bill Gates secretly buying farmland

Presenter: Bill Gates has been secretly buying up all the farmland across America and is now the largest farmland owner in the United States.

Investing in farmland
Profit from leasing
Philanthropy or monopoly?

CNBC: Why Bill Gates is buying up U.S. farmland

Anchorwoman: In 2020, Bill Gates made headlines for becoming the largest private farmland owner in the U.S.

2021 Forbes: America’s Biggest Owner of Farmland is Now Bill Gates

Wybren van Haga: The farmers are targeted. And why are the farmers targeted? Because they have land.

Erik Luiten, Farmer and Spokesperson for Agractie
They need to build houses. They need to build factories. They have to build highways. And they need, therefore, the farmers’ land. And they want to get it as cheap as possible.

Wybren van Haga: We need one million houses. To solve this problem, the state needs land. And what is easier than to kick out our farmers?

Is this really about nitrogen?
If so, there are “solutions”
Cargill Agriculture: Capturing cow burps

Anchorwoman: Agricultural food giant Cargill plans to start selling wearable devices designed to curb methane emissions from cattle.

‘Hanskamp’ Presenter: Cows produce Nitrogen emissions. But how can we reduce that? Among other things, and we are talking about ammonia emissions. A lot of companies are working on the floor with air scrubbers, etc. There’s a way that if you rub the nerve like this, when you rub here, then the cow spontaneously urinates − a natural nerve reflex which causes the cow to urinate immediately. We have developed a unique product: The Cow Toilet, from Hanskamp.

Professor Han Lindeboom: We have a problem. And we have to solve it.

Farmer Jos Block: There are a lot of solutions for reducing nitrogen.

Professor Han Lindeboom: If we change the food for the cows and the chickens, for example, and also for the pigs, but that’s a little bit a different story, then we can easily bring down the amount of ammonia that they are producing back by 30, maybe even 40 percent. So what we need is innovative farming. And not immediately saying, we can’t do it. Yes, we can.

Wybren van Haga: Some of the farmers have even said: “OK, if nitrogen is the problem, if nature is the problem, then I will get rid of my cattle. But you will not get my land”. And the state has said: “No, no, no, no, no. That’s not the point. We want your land”.

Famer Jos Ubels: Farmers are in their way. And they want to get rid of us. But we won’t let them.

Sietske Bergsma: They are really suffering. They’re really feeling like they have absolutely no other option anymore.

Wybren van Haga: I believe six farmers have actually hanged themselves because of this new policy.

Sietske Bergsma: What I’m hoping to see is that more, you know, Dutch civilians, also from the cities, will join in on their actions and protests so they don't need to do it by themselves.

Farmer Jos Ubels: Every day you read in the newspaper that some media is trying to say − mainly the governmental media − is trying to say that we are losing the support of the people. And I think if you go into the center of Amsterdam and you see the people that only read the propaganda that is produced by the government, yeah, then they have nothing to do with farmers because they buy their food in the shop and that’s it. So they have no binding with farms.

Proud to be a farmer

Farmer Jos Ubels: But if you ask the rest of the Netherlands that live in rural areas, they support farmers very much. You can see that with all the flags upside down, it’s a distress call. We turn the Dutch flag upside down. And if you drive through the Netherlands, you can see this everywhere.

Sietske Bergsma: They wanted to show their distress. So it’s like a symbol of distress. And they put them up on lantern posts. They put them outside of their doors. I think this is about the people showing each other that they have to connect and stay together in order to fight this tyranny.

Interviewer: What is the significance of the upside down flag, sir?

Tjeerd de Groot, Member of Dutch Parliament
It’s a flag which indicates that there is an emergency situation. It’s from the ship, the vessel sector. It’s from the maritime sector. That’s a better word.

Interviewer: Oh, you’re supposed to do that with the vessels in distress?

Tjeerd de Groot: Yeah, that’s the traditional form of saying there’s an emergency.

Interviewer: Do you think there’s a distress?

Tjeerd de Groot: There is certainly distress, yes.

Interviewer: But I guess you guys have different opinions on this?

Tjeerd de Groot: We have different opinions.

Jos Ubels, VP of Farmers Defence Force
They use false pretense to force their own agendas and force their own ideological ideas.

Sietske Bergsma, Political Commentator
Under the guise of democracy and liberalism, they are taking away rights. And most people are fine with it because they feel this, sort of responsibility maybe, because it’s so progressive − to care about the climate. So they’re willing to actually sacrifice their own well-being.

Wybren van Haga: Even well-educated people very often don’t actually have the common sense to sit down and relax and think; well, what this government official, what this minister is saying, is it true? Well, very often: No, it’s not true.

Sietske Bergsma: Our minister of climate, he has said in a TV show, he has said: “Nitrogen is like a toxic blanket that is covering nature and that makes it impossible for plants to grow.” That is not a scientific explanation of nitrogen.

Wybren van Haga: It’s all made up to create an atmosphere of fear. And then once the people are frightened, you can do whatever you want with them.

Sietske Bergsma: Many people, the masses, I would say, like to be told what to do in order to be safe. So we’ve paid a really, really high price for this because we gave up all our freedoms to feel safe. And obviously this safety is also very fake because you can’t be safe without being free. It’s not about saving the planet, it’s about government control because that’s in effect what is happening.

Wybren van Haga: Our basic values were all built around the fact that an individual determines his or her own life and is responsible for his or her own children and his wife and his house. You determine your own life, whether you die or live, you determine that yourself. And the transition that we’re making is from this freedom of the individual to a collectivistic or Marxist or communistic or socialistic sort of structure. We’re sleeping and we’re in this transition, we're in this silent revolution and I think it’s very scary.

NOS: Dutch broadcasting foundation
Nitrogen 2030 Plan
The Nitrogen Plan 2030
less nitrogen

Presenter: The nitrogen plans state that in 2030 there must be much less nitrogen in the Netherlands. Too much nitrogen is not good for nature.

Teo Wams – Director of ‘Natuurmonumenten’
The nitrogen emissions policy is that it must be reduced, considerably reduced. Perhaps some farmers need to give up their businesses, but many more farmers will simply have to change their business to make them more nature friendly.

Sietske Bergsma: A lot of farmers, but also just Dutch citizens, are realising that this nitrogen crisis or the climate crisis in general, is based on fraudulent models.

The nitrogen policy is based on computer models

Dutch woman: Nitrogen comes in several compounds and ammonia is one of them. There is lot of ammonia released by agriculture and animal manure, that is spread in the air and then falls back into nature.

(according to computer models)

Anchorwoman: Nature suffers among other things from the precipitation of Nitrogen.

Suffers? The Models assume Nitrogen moves from one farm to another

Wybren van Haga: The people who really know something about it, the professors in this field, they said, let’s scrap the model. The model should be out of the window as fast as possible.

Professor Han Lindeboom, Environmental scientist
So this is my office. I’ve done a lot of work on the North Sea, over there. I’ve worked on the Antarctic. And there you see me with the king and queen, although they were prince and princess at that time. And there you see me with the former queen, getting a Medal of Honor for Arts and Science.

Interviewer: And what is your specialty?

Professor Han Lindeboom: I’m a marine ecologist. I’m a marine ecologist, so studying the system as a whole. And my main thing is humans and the sea. When I retired, I became a member of a Dutch political party. And, well, I started working on the nitrogen there. And I said, OK, the data are not right, and we should do something. And besides that, I think that you’re overdoing the damage that nitrogen is doing to nature. There is a problem, but it’s not as bad as you are claiming all the time. The idea of these people is: There is a problem everywhere, so we have to solve it everywhere. And there is this holy belief that if you release these nitrogen compounds at a certain spot, it will go across the whole country. But that’s not true.

And so then you have a different view. And then there is a model. So they have built a model, which is rather shaky. They state that the nitrogen model is not suited to calculate the things you would like to calculate with.

You can use it for analyzing where the problems might be and as a scientific tool to understand the processes better. But it’s absolutely not capable of calculating the data on which to base your measurements against the farmers. It’s bullshit.

A few other people, besides myself, have written a chapter in here that this model is not suited for the calculations they are doing. And that the data, even in some spots, have a variation of 95%. And then you use those data to tell a farmer that he has to disappear. And that’s something where I think this is not the way to approach this.

Enviromental models are notoriously faulty

Professor Han Lindeboom: If the outcome of a model coincides with what I see there out in the field, that’s coincidence, because the next year it will be completely different.

Interviewer: Why do we even use the model, Sir?

Professor Han Lindeboom: Because it gives us the knowledge on the different ways the system can develop. So basically what it can show us is how do processes work. These models are fairly well suited to test theories. If you put crap in, you get crap out. That’s something that we have said. There are already big question marks. And the major issue is that the government is believing the data that comes out of the model and is using those data to make the policy, including getting rid of the farmers.

Sietske Bergsma: We are actually discussing, you know, waving goodbye to our farmers. I think this is a really, really sad and worrisome time.

Wybren van Haga: I mean, these are hard-working people. They’re paying taxes. They’ve worked their land for sometimes 10, 15 generations. And now everything seems to have changed. The farmers are bad. They’re producing waste. They’re killing our nature. They’re treating their animals badly. And suddenly they have to disappear. 20 years ago, you would not have dreamt that this would have happened. We were proud of our farmers. The Dutch farmers were the best in the world, and they still are.

Farmer Jos Block: I believe it’s very important that people like journalists are looking at all sides of the story. Not all of the Dutch journalists tell the right story or tell the total story. They’re just cherry-picking. And because they are cherry-picking one part of the story, the people in Holland do get a wrong image of what is going on.

Sietske Bergsma: It’s absolutely insane that we would actually sacrifice the knowledge of our Dutch farmers. They are one of the best in the whole world.

Erik Luiten, Farmer and Spokesperson for Agractie
When governments are going to buy out farmers from their fields, from where they live, they’re never going to come back. And therefore they’re making a big mistake. And I would think that in maybe 10 years or so, politicians will say, what happened in 2022? Why are all farmers gone? And nature hasn’t changed.

Farmer Jos Ubels: We get rid of this. If we only have our famous good quality cows on pictures, we will break down the backbone of our country. And eventually everybody will get hungry and go bankrupt.

Tjeerd de Groot: We also want to change the economy, so that farmers can earn a better income with less animals. Meat is much too cheap.

Interviewer: The policy would raise the price of meat and milk?

Tjeerd de Groot: Probably.

The Economist: Will you be eating insects soon?

Anchorwoman: By 2050, there will be 10 billion human mouths to feed. So will farming and eating insects help solve one of the 21st century’s biggest challenges?

Vanity fair: Nicole Kidman eats bugs

Nicole Kidman: I am here to reveal my hidden talent, eating micro-livestock, corn worms. They’re still alive. Here we go. Some mealworms. I’m telling you, I’d win ‘Survivor’.

(American TV series)
Survivor is the American version of the international Survivor reality competition television franchise, itself derived from the Swedish television series Expedition Robinson created by Charlie Parsons which premiered in 1997.

Rypke Zeilmaker, Environmental Journalist
It’s not about nature protection. Only the ones who in this process have acquired the most money will have the ruling power. It comes down to control of resources in the hands of the few. Look at the power of the NGOs. Who do they really support? Who’s pumping money into them? It’s always government and billionaires doing it.

Female politician: A wishlist from the NGOs appeared to be at the basis of the Nitrogen map. The minister wrote about this today, that she did some scouting in order to find the best possible locations for the Nature 2000 areas. In a WhatsApp message it was revealed that the minister had a confidential request from LNV, an NGO.

Freelance Journalist Rypke Zeilmaker: So this is the relation between the government and NGOs. To an extent, you can buy the public opinion. Buy these NGOs. This is what really happens in Holland, but also in the US.

Bloomberg: EU Approves Dutch Plan to Buy Out Farmers to Cut Emissions

Michael Heaver: We’ve now seen Brussels approving these plans for the Dutch government to forcibly buy out livestock farms to cut nitrogen emissions.

Speaker: But get this. As part of the deal, the farmers would not be able to ever farm anywhere in the EU again.

Sietske Bergsma: It begins with speaking out and organizing and reaching out maybe even to people in other countries. Because it isn’t a Dutch issue, it’s a global issue.

SkyNews anchor: Canada is now apparently going down the same route. The Canadian government under Justin Trudeau, well now, he wants to impose drastic climate change restrictions again on farmers, again using the nitrogen excuse to crack down on food production. This just seems like complete insanity to me.

RTC News anchor: No less than the future of Irish farming is on the line. The move towards cutting emissions by 51%.

Speaker: There’s a lot of politicians out there talking about carbon targets and that there’ll be no compulsory cull, but we don’t see that happening. We see them culling through the back door, be it through the nitrates regulation.

Kevin O’Leary: I don’t know how we got politicized when it comes to two of the most important things you have to have for prosperity. You got to have food and you got to have energy. Nobody disputes that and yet they become very partisan issues.

GB News: We are in the grip of a common psychosis which is expressing itself primarily in; we want to turn against everything that makes civilized life possible.

Speaker (John Kerry): Agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world. We can’t get to net zero. We don’t get this job done unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution.

Global News anchorwoman: There is a dire warning tonight about a greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide.

Nitrous oxide accelerating climate change

It has hundreds of times more warming power in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. It comes from the nitrogen in agricultural fertilizer which is used around the world to increase crop yields.

‘Al Jazeera’ – anchorwoman:
Nitrogen Pollution
Emissions rose by 30% in the past 40 years
UN experts concluded the world.

Nitrogen Pollution Emissions must be cut by 50% to avoid climate harm
needs to cut the amount of nitrogen emissions in half to avoid disastrous consequences.

Rypke Zeilmaker: It’s all about fear. It’s about making people fear for the future so that they would agree with policies that if they are sober they would never agree with.

Dutch Farmer Protests − Campaign continues against government proposals

Professor Ralph Schoellhammer: In the Western world we are increasingly at war with everything that makes modern life possible. It’s farmers in the Netherlands. It’s cows in Ireland. It’s mining in Great Britain. It’s nuclear power in Germany. This is part of a bigger picture. We’re kind of under the guise of the climate movement, the green movement. Pretty much everything that makes modern life possible is under attack.

But instead of trying to fight back as a unified front we are split up in these smaller battle groups that never unify to take on the broader ideological issue that I believe would have significant appeal all over the West if we could find a way to frame it in exactly this kind of way.

GBNews.UK
Dutch farmer protests
Campaign continues against government proposals

Farmer Jos Ubels: We will protect our farmers to every extent and we will do it on every level. On a European scale, on a worldwide scale. I will protect farming. I will protect our free living because I want to give my children the same free life that I had. And if we let this happen to our Dutch farmers the next thing will happen to the civilians. They will take their houses. They will decide about where you can live, how you can live and how you should live your life. And this is very dangerous and I don’t want a country like that and I don’t want a world like that. So I fight for this.

This is just the beginning − Social control − In the name of the environment

Historical commentator: For the remaining farmers anything is preferable to what they have witnessed. Many volunteer for the collectives surrendering cattle and implements home and land to the state. Stalin himself conceives the scheme of subsidizing collective start-up costs with the worldly goods of new members.

Directed by James Patrick
Produced by: Kelly Gallagher
Edited by: James Patrick, Matt Low, Paul Demonte
Sound: Ingmar Beyer

“Nitrogen 2000 − The Dutch Farmers’ Struggle”
A Big Picture Documentary

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Sources/Links:
“Nitrogen 2000 – The Dutch Farmers‘ Struggle”
A „Big Picture“-Documentary Film
https://bigpicture.watch/product/fund-nitrogen-2000/

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