Vogelaar: 'The Dutch are so eager to be good'

Wanting to be good is bothering the Netherlands. Forum for Democracy asks the Dutch again what they really want. While Drees and Den Uyl thought the Netherlands was already full and the former pursued an active emigration policy after the Second World War, we now threaten to build a city like Leiden every year (120.000 inhabitants, 20.000 hectares). Windmills look bad, replace them with a nuclear power plant.

That and more says Jan Cees Vogelaar in a conversation with Foodlog.nl about his co-candidacy as chairman of LTO Nederland, his possible ministerial position for agriculture on behalf of Forum and the lost connection between farmers and farmer administrators that he wants to restore.

Goes well with nature
The Netherlands is suffering from the nitrogen crisis. Nature suffers and construction is flat. According to Vogelaar, however, Dutch nature is doing well. It looks nice and green and that's what the public wants. We no longer have real nature here, because just about everything is cultivated. Even our forests have been planted.

He is actually right about that. He connects that truth with a verdict: Then why be so fussy about nitrogen that threatens a few rare species of plants, insects and birds that were there in 1750, when we are now living in 2020? And to those who claim that construction in the Netherlands is at an end, Vogelaar says: "Didn't you see how many construction cranes are busy working every day on your way here?" According to him, the construction problem is also a reality in The Hague.

The core of the conversation is about what Vogelaar will do as co-chairman - together with Jaap Haanstra - of LTO Nederland. He first dives into the processes. He wants to restore the connection with the grassroots by asking the farmers what they want. Only then does he go to The Hague. Won't that create a clash with politics, except in the case of a cabinet all over the right? Which cabinets can be created and what are the opportunities for farmers?

Arrange quickly
Vogelaar's most striking statement in the conversation: we have to talk about the country we want to live in and ask the public about it. The picture that emerges: administrators in The Hague and Brussels have taken over reality and make theoretical choices without sufficient understanding of practice and the choices that people who deal with it on a daily basis would make. In a parenthesis in the conversation, Vogelaar remarks that it would be ideal from an administrative point of view if he were to be minister and Jaap Haanstra would be chairman of LTO. "Then it was quickly arranged."

Recently, a group of representatives of farmers' organizations at the Ministry of Agriculture heard that the government will be strict with their nitrogen emissions unless they come up with a plan quickly. Vogelaar has to operate in that reality in The Hague when he becomes chairman of LTO. As Minister of Agriculture, he would make short work of it. Rightly so as far as he is concerned, because it is time for common sense and, he says, the Dutch should not want to be so 'good'.

Vogelaar's solution for the farmer and the Netherlands can perhaps be summarized as a recipe for a process: ask yourself what you want, use your common sense, don't make those frightened good choices and just talk about it.

This article is part of the content collaboration between Boerenbusiness en foodlog.

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