Netherlands to close up to 3k farms to comply with EU rules

Unfortunately, yes. It seems like it. For a long time nitrogen had been a problem but politicians have delayed action. Banks have even encouraged expanding farms after milk quotas were undone a few years ago by granting large loans. I am sympathetic to this..

The buyouts of top polluters are part of a targeted effort to comply with rulings to make sure nitrogen excesses do not occur near specific nature sites. The alternative is (probably) to instead scale down a lot of other farms as well. The former option makes more sense to me. Seemingly random voluntary opt-in buyouts were also offered some time ago as an option but some news cycles showed farms with elderly owners and no inheritors or really small farms wanting to be bought out.

Its all stil rather vague and complex what is and what is not happening which I hope gets rectified in the near future.