In the winter of 1944-45, the Dutch government urged its citizens to forage for acorns to avoid starvation. Known as the Dutch famine or Hunger Winter, citizens depended upon a handful of government-funded soup kitchens and the information published in “wartime cookbooks” about wild plants that could be foraged and other famine food sources.

According to Tom Vorstenbosch’s white paper in the National Library of Medicine, cattails, dandelion, curly dock, cherry stems, potato peels, sugar beets, mushrooms, tulip bulbs, dahlia tubers, and the leaves of cauliflower plants are among the foraged menu items survivors recounted to researchers. The famine claimed about 25,000 lives that winter. As the country began to find its footing following the war, the minister of agriculture at the time, Sicco Mansholt, led with food security top of mind. The Dutch agriculture industry built back better successfully, creating a food system that boasts import volumes second only to the U.S. All the more impressive because the country is about half the size of the state of Indiana.

Small farms grew, glass greenhouses were utilized, and dairy farms grew large enough to export about 65% of the milk produced. As farmers neared retirement age, much like the U.S. is experiencing now, older farmers were supported as they sold their farms to younger producers. In turn, the younger producers took financial resources from the U.S. and invested in tractors to ease the country’s heavy dependance on agricultural labor.

The use of milking machines and cooling tanks prompted efficiency gains in the country’s dairy industry that once, like the U.S., consisted of small dairy farms with a need for incredible amounts of labor that were able to provide products only for the local area. Mirroring the U.S., Dutch dairies are models of efficiency. According to Wageningen University, the number of Dutch dairy farms is expected to decline an additional 30% by 2030. Cow numbers are also expected to decline but production is expected to increase 4%. It’s a testament to genetics, nutrition, and technology.

Unlike the plastic or fiberglass greenhouses common here, Dutch greenhouses are glass, making heating more efficient. Vegetables are grown year-round using less space in the greenhouses and Dutch farmers who were once criticized for their heavy use of synthetic fertilizers, have become more efficient while using considerably fewer fertilizers. The Dutch farmers are a well-oiled machine and a picture of efficiency and food security.

I tell you all of that so I can tell you this. The Dutch government wants to slash agriculture production and livestock numbers in the name of reducing nitrogen emissions. One conservative member of Parliament told his peers that the policy has nothing to do with nature but is a land grab.

As part of Agenda 2030, the Dutch government has committed to building wind turbines and over a million residences in the coming years. All of that requires land, something the Netherlands don’t have much of. Agriculture utilizes 2/3 of the land and the government appears to want it.

Critics have pointed out that if agriculture production drops in the Netherlands, it will increase elsewhere in the EU to maintain the balance and keep acorns off the dinner table. To avoid this, researchers led by Hans J. M. Grinsven said this could be avoided through the use of “climate policies or when consumption of livestock products would decrease due to increased consumer awareness or targeted interventions.” It would be a government-led attack on agriculture to drive consumers to see agriculture producers as the enemy. The enemy, mind you.

Dutch farmers are protesting the government’s policies as you read this. The rallying cry of Dutch farmers was once “efficiency and food security” and is now a resounding one — no farmers, no food. Farmers have driven their tractors to cities, disrupting grocery distribution routes and leaving store shelves empty. It is a sight, one farmer said, that will be the norm if Dutch farmers are forced out of business.

Dutch agriculture is an amazing example of efficiency. Dutch farmers delivered when their neighbors were starving, ensuring there wouldn’t again be a hungry day and now misguided climate policy is designed to destroy that. They’re throwing rocks at glass greenhouses in the form of regulations with no regard for the consequences.

To a wise person, this could all serve as a glimpse into a future when climate policy is instituted at the cost of food security. A country that cannot feed its people, cannot defend itself, and cows aren’t the problem.

Rachel  Gabel  writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication. Gabel  is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families, and she has authored children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.

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