a bit of background (Dutch national, living currently in France) - the Dutch are the second largest agricultural exporter (in absolute terms! it's a tiny p

a bit of background (Dutch national, living currently in France) - the Dutch are the second largest agricultural exporter (in absolute terms! it's a tiny place, look it up) - this intense agricultural activity generates a lot of "nitrogen", which causes ecological issues - the Dutch have known of this issue for decades (I remember talking about it in the 90's) - the Dutch are bound to nitrogen limits by international treaties (like for CO2) Recent governments have decided that they could exceed agreed limits, because "future technologies would fix everything". A recent judgement by the supreme court has ruled that, no that is not credible, and no it doesn't work like that. So now they are in a bad spot. If they would have managed this 30 years ago, maybe it would have been possible to find a solution. Now they only have bad options. They have already reduced the maximum speed from 130 km/h to 100 km/h. They have already reduced house building activity, etc. The problem is, the biggest emitter of nitrogen is the agricultural sector. There is no way that they can make up for lost time without forcing some farmers to stop. The farmers, like the rest of the Netherlands, knew about this issue for decades. But every time something about farmers is under discussion, they protested heavily(we're not talking quiet marches here) So nobody dares touch the subject. So the whole thing continued for decades. And given the current zeitgeist, these protests are worse than before. We're talking criminal activities, threatening MPs, etc. I sympathize with the farmers, and do believe that they deserve some compensation. But I'm not convinced that it's a good thing that the political arena is swayed by violence. Europe's had it's dose of that, and it finished poorly for Europe, and the rest of the world.