{"id":227536,"date":"2023-01-23T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=227536"},"modified":"2023-01-17T05:27:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T05:27:32","slug":"have-we-reached-peak-meat-why-one-country-is-trying-to-limit-its-number-of-livestock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/01\/have-we-reached-peak-meat-why-one-country-is-trying-to-limit-its-number-of-livestock\/","title":{"rendered":"Have We Reached \u2018Peak Meat\u2019? Why One Country Is Trying to Limit Its Number of Livestock"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Jan 2023 – Dutch farms are feeling the squeeze from EU rules and need to make sweeping changes to the farm system \u2013 could a huge producer like the US follow suit?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Cows in a meadow at a dairy farm in Zundert, the Netherlands.
Photograph: Robin Utrecht\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

Ingrid de Sain is one of thousands of dairy farmers in the Netherlands who says she sometimes lies awake at night. Since a court ruling in 2019<\/a> which found the Dutch were breaking European environmental law, her farm of 100 cows in north Holland has been illegal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the other 2,500-plus farmers<\/a> whose environmental permission was suddenly invalid, she wants a future<\/a> where she can earn a living and farm legally again.<\/p>\n

The Netherlands is first to face questions scientists believe will soon come to all intensively farmed areas: how can we balance the needs of the environment with the way we farm and grow? Have we reached \u201cpeak meat<\/a>\u201d, like peak oil<\/a>: so much livestock, so much local pollution, that the only sustainable future is in reduction<\/a>? They\u2019re questions the US, the world\u2019s largest producer of beef, will also soon have to answer.<\/p>\n

In November, the Dutch government announced the first part of a \u20ac24.3bn ($26.3bn) plan<\/a> to buy out up to 3,000 farms and major industrial polluters near protected nature reserves \u2013 if necessary, through compulsory purchase, \u201cwith pain in our hearts<\/a>\u201d. It is hugely controversial and only initial outlines<\/a> have been announced after a year of protests<\/a>, tense negotiations<\/a> and a report in October recommending<\/a> buying out the top 500 or 600 polluters within a year.<\/p>\n

The reason is that the emissions<\/a> of ammonia, nitrogen oxides and nitrous oxide are damaging areas of unique, natural landscape known as Natura 2000 habitats, which the country is bound by EU law to protect. The government says this means reducing local nitrogen compound emissions from between 12% and 70%<\/a>, including slashing the Netherlands\u2019 118 million farmed animals<\/a> by 30% by 2030, according to Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency<\/a> projections.<\/p>\n

Tjeerd de Groot, a member of the house of representatives in the Netherlands and agriculture spokesman for coalition party D66, advocates halving the numbers of pigs and poultry, raising fewer cows and grazing them on pasture, rather than importing grain<\/a> and soy<\/a> for feed. \u201cEverywhere you look, there\u2019s a problem with agriculture,\u201d he said, citing the toll the resulting pollution has taken on biodiversity and water quality. \u201cYes, we have been a big exporter<\/a> but now we are paying a big price in the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n