Vdairy product manufacturers farms are always well advised to watch their steps. Those inspecting the three dozen dairy cows herded by Minke van Wingerden and her team have more to fear than landing in manure: the whole farm is set up on a floating platform, moored a 20-minute bike ride from the station central Rotterdam. One misstep and you’ll end up sputtering in the Nieuwe Maas, as two cows discovered (firefighters fished them out of the harbour). Forget the views of the peaceful Frisian countryside: these animals spend their days watching tankers and trucks unloading goods in Europe’s largest port. During the day schijt-collecting robots roam the milking area, keeping it clean. On the two lower floors of the barge, the production of the cows is alternately transformed either into cheese or into fertilizer.
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Mrs. Van Wingerden’s floating farm is the culmination of centuries of Dutch thinking about how to grow plenty of food in a crowded corner of northern Europe. Since the days of Rembrandt and Vermeer, land has been reclaimed from the sea and windmills erected to drain the plains. City-sized greenhouses are built to grow tulips or vegetables. A food shortage during World War II convinced the Dutch that they had to cultivate as much as their fields could. Calvinist assiduity has transformed the Netherlands into an unlikely agrarian powerhouse: with more than 100 billion euros ($108 billion) in annual agricultural sales abroad, it is the world’s largest exporter of agricultural products after America, a country more than 250 times larger. Some of that is re-exported imported food. But the Dutch make twice as much cheese per capita as France.
Two questions have plagued Dutch agriculture for a long time. The first is whether the quantity compensates for the quality: after tasting the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers grown in its hyper-efficient greenhouses, one can be forgiven for not being able to tell them apart. The second is whether his approach made sense. The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in the EU tiny bar Malta; officials joke that it is a city-state in the making. As efficient as its farmers are, the sector is a footnote to the modern Dutch economy, employing just 2.5% of workers. Countries usually choose between having lots of farms or lots of people. The Dutch approach was to have their Gouda and eat it. This plunged farmers and politicians into a pile of natural fertilizers.
The limits of the Dutch turbo-farming model have been suspected for decades. Already in the 1980s, the authorities realized that importing a lot more animal feed would lead to a lot more animal excrement. Yet the limits of the land continued to be tested: each acre of Dutch farm supports four times as many animals, by weight, as others in Europe. The result of all these digestive tracts was an excess of excreted nitrogen, a key nutrient for plants but which, in excessive amounts, can destabilize ecosystems. Cars and industry also emit nitrogen compounds. All this has contributed to damaging the soil and polluting the waterways. Flora that feed on excess nitrogen have killed off plants that would otherwise manage to compete for resources. This in turn has ripple effects, which not all scientists understand.
Ernst van den Ende of Wageningen University, a center for food research, says there’s not much wrong with individual Dutch farms, which are often models of sustainability. The problem is, there’s too much of it, pumping out too much nitrogen. For more than a decade, (mostly ineffective) efforts have been made to reduce these emissions in order to meet the EU rules that protect nature reserves. But in 2019, things took a turn for the worse. A decree from the highest Dutch court has given an unexpected bite to tasteless laws. All activities that led to nitrogen production, including the construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure, would now require nitrogen reductions elsewhere. The country suffers from a housing shortage, but new construction has been stifled by the rule. Daytime speed limits on motorways have been reduced from 130 km/h to 100 km/h in the hope that lower emissions could allow other elements of the economy to continue. Schiphol Airport, one of the busiest in the world, has resorted to buying trusses to close them so planes can take off.
The crisis was global. A bastion of market liberalism in Europe has morphed into something akin to a planned economy, with a “minister for nature and nitrogen policy” as chief commissioner. In the end, it became clear that a piecemeal approach would not suffice. Last year, a sweeping plan to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030 was unveiled. The government said it would pay 24 billion euros to buy up to 3,000 large emitters, that is to say mainly farms. The herd would be reduced by almost a third. The era of ever-increasing agricultural exports was over.
Holy cows, over here please
Strangely, even in a country full to bursting, choosing people over cows proves politically heavy. The prospect of takeovers or expropriations has fueled protests by farmers across the country. (Think of the burning bales of hay and nitrogen-rich animal matter dumped on highways.) Last week, revolt hit the ballot box. A new party representing farmers triumphed in local elections on March 15, topping polls that elect the national senate as well as regional governments. The farmers’ party won 1.5 million votes, or 19% of the total, in a country that employs only 244,000 people in agriculture. Townspeople supported him out of nostalgic attachment to farmers and resentment against harassing authorities. Whether the government can enforce its nitrogen cuts is up in the air.
Other countries are also heading for nitrogen crises; Neighboring Belgium, also fairly populated, already has one. But the broader parallel is in carbon emissions, which Europe plans to reduce to “net zero” by 2050. This will require adaptations far beyond what the Dutch have experienced with nitrogen. The Netherlands, a generally well-run place, hastened to adapt its economy to the ecological constraints it had known for decades. This does not bode well for everyone. ■
Read more from Charlemagne, our columnist on European politics:
Europe has led the global charge against big tech. But do we need a new approach? (March 16)
Germany lets domestic squabble pollute Europe’s green ambitions (9 March)
After seven years of Brexit talks, Europe is a clear winner (March 2)
Also: Where does the name of the Charlemagne column come from?
