Netherlands to Reduce Factory Farming

[Jamie in Chile]

This is the first country that I am aware of where the government is trying to reduce factory farming, good for them. It is because of the manure.
However they are doing this because they are a big meat exporter, so presumably this doesn´t require them to reduce their own meat consumption.
The tactic is just to pay the farmers off to stop producing meat.

Hopefully this will be the beginning of some further discussion on the impacts of meat that could lead to other governments planning to reduce factory farming in the coming years.

The Netherlands Will Reduce Farm Animals’ Numbers Because of Manure

The Dutch government has announced a €25 billion plan to reduce the number of farm animals in the Netherlands due to excess production of manure. After the agreement of a new coalition government in…

veganfta.com

Netherlands announces €25bn plan to radically reduce livestock numbers

Programme to tackle pollution crisis caused by an overload of manure faces fierce opposition from farmers

www.theguardian.com

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Update/ related story:
A farmers' party has stunned Dutch politics, and is set to be the biggest party in the upper house of parliament after provincial elections.
The Farmer-citizen movement (BBB) was only set up in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmers' protests.

Farmers' protest party win shock Dutch vote victory

The movement was only set up in 2019 and is on course to become the biggest party in the Senate.

www.bbc.com

This sentence has me concerned "its appeal has spread rapidly beyond its rural heartland, on a populist platform that represents traditional, conservative Dutch social and moral values". It would be a shame if the backlash to the attempts to reduce meat led not only to such policies being cancelled, but to political power shifting to people who will be worse on other issues as well.

It´s got me thinking about whether it makes sense to go full throttle for ambitious change (potentially risking backlash and a swing in the other political direction) or whether to go for steadier change.

I´m wondering if the answer is to focus on the things where more people are in favour than against, but not try to regulate without enough support from the population?