21–26 of 26 posts
Sure they use nutrients for industrial farming but I remember in the past we uses to farm just fine without nitrogen.
> Justifying the move earlier this year, Christianne van der Wal, minister of nature and nitrogen policy, said that the Netherlands had to cut nitrogen emissions from farms to build new housing and produce green energy. Closing farms to build more housing seems backwards. Where will the food to feed the people in that new housing come from? Per square meter, the total nitrogen/CO2 impact of a house+inhabitants is cer…
The Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world. And we are a small nation. Farms account for over half of all nitrogen emissions though. We need to make some sacrifes. Just like we did in all other sectors already. At the moment highway speeds have been lowered nationwide, building permits can't be given out and more. This is crippling a lot of sectors right now.
To the point where shutting down some farms will mean the new ones (in other countries) then opened to make up for it are almost guaranteed to be less efficient?
If that's the case, then the concept seems kind of... dumb? :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world. And we are a small nation. Farms account for over half of all nitrogen emissions though. We need to make some sacrifes. Just like we did in all other sectors already. At the moment highway speeds have been lowered nationwide, building permits can't be given out and more. This is crippling a lot of sectors right now.
I don't understand the reasoning here. People still need to eat, so that food will still be grown—somewhere else—and the nitrogen will still be emitted—somewhere else. So the net impact on global nitrogen emissions should be zero. It seems to me that all this is doing is making some poorly thought-out national emissions statistics/targets look better.
Secondly, having it be more distributed would also reduce the concentration of nitrogen at a local level (which doesnt have to be said the inpact it has on the local environment). So all in all its actually a relatively sound plan, how the Dutch government is going about it is maybe another story. But the fact still stands that this centralised agriculture system is just environmentally inefficien.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world. And we are a small nation. Farms account for over half of all nitrogen emissions though. We need to make some sacrifes. Just like we did in all other sectors already. At the moment highway speeds have been lowered nationwide, building permits can't be given out and more. This is crippling a lot of sectors right now.
Why does the Netherlands have to make such deep sacrifices?
We salute your sacrifice.
The language in this article is kind of vague, are the farmers being forced to do this or is this a voluntary thing?
...isn't vague in the slightest.