Dutch Farmers Promise Fresh Protests After Govt Backs Plan to Forcibly Seize Farmland

Dutch farmers’ organisations have vowed to launch more protests in the Netherlands in response to advice from the government’s mediator, who has called for the forceable relocation of farming firms and the seizure of up to 600 farms deemed to be the heaviest nitrogen emitters.

Farmers Defence Force leader Mark Van den Oever announced this week that Dutch farmers will once again take to the streets after the government expressed its intentions to adopt the plan presented by former deputy prime minister Johan Remkes to meet the nitrogen standards demanded by the European Union.

Remkes, who has been serving as the chief mediator between farmers’ organisations and the government in the ongoing dispute over nitrogen emissions, laid out a plan last week that would see farms located close to protected environments forcibly relocated and a scheme for the government to seize up to 600 farms that emit the most nitrogen.

In response to the plan, Van den Oever said that the scheme was “completely wrong” and that the farmers of the nation would “give the old-fashioned gas again, count on that” — in reference to the widespread tractor protests by farmers over the summer.- READ MORE