38 The Netherlands

Tullis

In the 1950s, the Netherlands was still recovering from five years of Nazi occupation and the famine that gripped the nation in the final winter of the war. Many of the population were subsistence farmers, with a few cows, a few chickens, some crops, and maybe a pig. Sicco Mansholt, the agriculture minister, decided that the Netherlands could leave behind poverty and hunger by producing enough food to feed itself, rather than relying on imports. Under his proposals, a certain number of farmers would specialise in one product and expand their business, while the government would pay other, smaller farmers to quit. This would mean both that more food could be produced and that the remaining farmers would earn more.

Mansholt’s policies did not pay off immediately. In 1960, GDP per capita still barely exceeded $1,000, nearly 40% less than in the UK. But gradually the plan began to work. The number of Dutch farms plummeted – in 1950, there were 410,000 farms among 10 million Dutch people, while today there are only 55,000 in a population of nearly 18 million – and those that remained became increasingly productive. Since 1984, for example, the number of cows per farm has more than doubled.

By 1990, the environmental effects of Mansholt’s policies were also becoming clear. Nitrogen reductions would create a drop in income for dairy farmers: a typical farm would lose 10,000 guilders a year (about £3,900 today), or about 20% of per capita GDP at the time. No one wanted to hear this. Since the 1980s, the Netherlands’ coalition governments have almost always included the Christian Democratic Appeal party, which has particular support in rural areas. The party’s leader would almost reflexively be appointed to head the agriculture ministry, which was heavily staffed by the sons of farmers. Despite the 1990 commission, the Christian Democrats successfully kept the issue off the table, and the government continued to encourage farmers to invest and expand.

Dairy production jumped further between 2008 and 2015, as the EU phased out its limits on the amount of milk that individual farmers could supply. By 2020, the Netherlands was home to 3.8 million cows, 11.9 million pigs and 90.2 million chickens in an area one-quarter the size of England, giving it the densest livestock population in Europe by far.

Whoever wins, the next government will face a host of challenges that have become linked to the nitrogen issue. The Netherlands has 122 job openings for every 100 unemployed; the tram service in Amsterdam has been reduced due to staff shortages, and signs outside virtually every shop seek employees. Migrants are eager to take these jobs, but the government doesn’t have the capacity to process their applications to stay – and there are few places for them to live because of a nationwide housing shortage, exacerbated by the fact that 18,000 construction projects have been halted, because the government wants to restrict their nitrogen emissions. What seems to be a solution to one problem aggravates the others.

This might seem like so much local politics, but the broad contours can be recognised in political trends elsewhere, from the US to Britain to central Europe to the Indian subcontinent.

The drop in social cohesion in the Netherlands, with public services, public transport and healthcare provisions whittled away in many rural areas.

Tullis (2023) Nitrogen wars: the Dutch farmers’ revolt that turned a nation upside-do
wn