Glimpsing Armageddon in Dutch cow culling

By John Klar Dcember 9, 2022

A bureaucratic scheme to eliminate some 3,000 small farms in the Netherlands foreshadows increasing efforts by technocrats and global food interests to dominate food production at the expense of local culture, local economies, and family cows.   In the name of “saving the planet,” such grand delusions will doubtless destroy it, and humans in the bargain.  Perhaps that is the plan.

If so, the Netherlands is the best place to start.  The rationale is chiefly that the region is home to numerous fragile ecosystems that must be protected, notwithstanding that the Dutch government has for decades encouraged farms to increase production.  “Closing farms” does not entail relocating their bovine denizens to idyllic preserves, but to abattoirs – they are to be slaughtered by the thousands to terminate their flatulence and enteric fermentation (burping). 

But why Dutch cows?  Because Dutch cows must be slaughtered to rescue insects for the diet of wild birds.  Farms there produce 60% of the nitrogen deposits in conservation areas:

Excess nitrogen deposits in these so-called Natura 2000 areas are the proximate cause of the crisis. They cause some plants, like grass, to grow faster, but others to wither and die. ….That can wipe out entire ecosystems. When plants die, so do the bugs that feed on them, which in turns kills the birds and ducks that eat the bugs — and a major impetus for the whole Natura 2000 program in the 1990s was to protect European bird species.

This rash rush to ration ruminants is spurious.  Once destroyed, Dutch agricultural economies and systems cannot be reclaimed, and there is no plan to replace either the lost income to the Netherlands, or the lost food supplies to the humans that “feed on them.”  Dutch farmers are some of the most productive – and efficient – in the world.  Indeed, the tiny land of windmills is the second largest exporter of agriculture products (especially dairy products and meat) on the planet.  Ag products constitute fully one-seventh of Dutch national exports.............To Read More...