A slumbering final blow for the farmer?

In most countries outside Europe they do not have a fragmented farming landscape consisting of many independent family businesses, but so-called 'food integrations'. Mainly in dairy, poultry and pigs.

A large part of these animal food chains - from genetics and rearing to processing and sale - is under our own management. State-owned, wealthy private individual or finance company. Via a battery of our own veterinarians, nutritionists and animal caretakers (not a farmer!) the 'lumps of meat' roll straight from the stable to the slaughterhouse. Then, in slick consumer packaging, they end up on the plate of Turkish, Egyptian or Israeli consumers via an army of their own marketers.

green conscience
No eye for integration into the surrounding landscape, no eye for the surrounding nature and no eye for CO2 footprint, animal welfare, methane/ammonia emissions, cycle, biodiversity and climate neutral energy. In short, no burden of the green conscience because this is not actively pointed out. These well-oiled, intensive food superpowers are seen as any other industry with job security for the common citizen.

Craftsmanship
A greater contrast with our situation in the Netherlands is unimaginable. Our farmers and ranchers are free-spirited, highly educated, self-sufficient and independent. Rather not be dictated to by the law. More than 50.000 Dutch agricultural entrepreneurs make their own choices every day.

Our SME arable farmers, horticulturists and livestock farmers are doing really well. With the free life in nature, craftsmanship is exercised on one's own company in order to arrive at a high quality and quantitative food supply. And each farmer employs about 10 people. Most of it is produced for foreign countries.

Imaging
No one in the big city knows a relative or acquaintance who is a farmer. There is talk of a gap between farmer and citizen. The bridge to be built over it has become almost an impossible construction. People really have no idea how much is involved in growing Brussels sprouts, carrots, potatoes, lettuce, onions and cucumbers. And they have absolutely no knowledge of what is involved in raising pigs and chickens. Let alone having knowledge of the process from grass to milk.

Unfortunately, it's about creating an image. Only through imagery by (left-wing) media and anti-agricultural organizations, something is created on the retina of the consumer-citizen. Green lobbyists know better than anyone how to 'frame' and put agricultural entrepreneurs in a bad light as polluters and animal abusers. Lately, the farmers themselves have put their best foot forward and are going to war, the nitrogen dossier as 'sword of Damocles' over their own survival. And the protracted nitrogen situation with continuous farmer actions does not contribute to the positive picture.

last push
The hard-won free life and entrepreneurship of the farmer are under heavy pressure. Free market or contract, farmers never even receive a decent, fair price. I am increasingly getting the impression that Dutch farmers are 'keep alive'. On the drip. Until the water is at your fingertips. If only it were clear and clear, but it is slow, slumbering, calculating, poldering.

Farming on the financial edge is an art. But the edge is getting thinner and thinner. In addition, dossiers such as nitrogen, phosphate, animal welfare and biodiversity deliver the final blow, so that our primary food producer can no longer stand on the edge and plunges into the ravine. All green NGOs and green-colored politics give that last push. Little frog country for the frogs! Because soil must return to nature.

Big nonsense. There is simply less room for agricultural land. All those self-willed farmers are a pain-in-the-ass for housing and road construction. And living next to one nuisance-causing farm that also grows food for German, Romanian, English and Spanish fellow citizens is not an option. Not in my backyard. Because everything has to be good for the environment. My environment!

Pascal Phillips

Pascal Philipsen is regional manager for the South of the Netherlands and fertilization specialist at Timac Agro Nederland.

© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.