2023-08-02 06:35:34
Tractors challenge socialists and conservatives. That could be the summary of the current political situation in the Netherlands less than four months after the general elections. After sweeping the provincial elections last March, the Peasant Citizen Movement of Netherlands, the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), is practically tied in voting intentions with the socialists (PvdA-GL) and the popular (VVD) according to the polls. It is not surprising that many wonder how a peasant party has managed to seduce more than one and a half million Dutch in a country that barely has about 113,000 farmers and ranchers.
He BBB was born in the year 2019, shortly after the Dutch Government of Mark Rutte (VVD) announce its intention to reduce by 50% the nitrogen emissions by 2030, a gas emitted by fertilizers and livestock manure (among other sources). To do this, the Executive has proposed reducing the cattle herd by a third and is willing to buy land from farmers to relocate them or even expropriate farms close to protected natural environments. “The reality is that not all farmers will be able to continue with their business,” the government said in June 2022.
As representatives of “the voice of and for the countryside”, the BBB has heard the discontent of Dutch farmers and breeders, who have been blocking highways, demonstrating with their tractors and protesting in front of the houses of politicians. They have also posted thousands of inverted national flags along the country’s roads and highways, becoming a symbol some have compared to France’s yellow vests.
“We don’t really feel heard, sometimes we don’t even feel welcome in our own country.“Erik Stegink, national president of the BBB and also a pig farmer, has once declared.
The ‘kBBBoem’ of the provinces
Holland is one of the major world powers in the agri-food sector. In addition, its meat industry and its dairy sector play a fundamental role in global supply chains. These figures are much more surprising considering that the Netherlands occupies an area similar to that of Aragon and barely 1% of the workers (113,000) work in the primary sector, according to data from the Central Statistics Office as of the third quarter of 2022.
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The success of its productivity is due to greenhouses, research and development of new techniques, but also to the use of nitrogen as fertilizer. While Spain consumes almost 61 kilos of nitrogen per hectare of crops, the Netherlands exceeds 99 kg/ha, according to figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The economic weight of agriculture and livestock, together with the discontent of the citizens of rural areas towards the current Dutch government, were the cause of what The Telegraph baptized as the “kBBBoem” (BBBombazo) of the provincial elections. The peasants’ party won the elections with 1.4 million votes, almost a fifth of the electorate. he also got fifteen senatorswhile the government coalition led by Rutte was left with 24 seats in the Upper House, which has the last word on legislative initiatives.
Triple tie according to the polls
In early July, Rutte decided dissolve your government over “unbridgeable differences” over immigration policy with his coalition partners. After thirteen years in office, the prime minister also announced that he will not run again in the general elections on November 22.
In this troubled context, although not unknown to the Dutch, the BBB peasant movement has established itself as the third force of the country with a 15.3% intention to vote, just one point from the Socialists and two from the Liberal Conservatives, according to the latest Ipsos poll. According to this same survey, the VVD conservatives would get 28 seats, the socialists (PvdA-GL) would get 27 and the BBB 24.
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