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Comment by danieldevries | Hacker News Reader

Most comments seem to miss the point that The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world. That the agricultural sector needs to be downsized particularly in NL seems rather obvious. Sadly this goes against populist interests and a handful of very rich private interests in the country.

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It’s not obvious to me. If they are so successful at exporting food, I’d have thought they should do more, not less.

According to EU law it's obvious. But then again let's just put our heads in the sand and ignore climate change. Yes more emissions is what is needed. Face palm

How will decreasing NL’s food exports result in a decrease in emissions? Honest question.

Every country will have a duty to decrease their emissions. Starting with this incredibly large sector in Holland is a step in the right direction imo.

Less food miles. Less cheap availability of dairy will encourage movement to less polluting alternatives. Less intensive farming leaches less nitrogen.

So you’d make milk more expensive for poor people? Got it. I wonder why they voted against that.

False dilemma. People don't need dairy milk (a lot of the world is dairy intolerant anyway) and there are alternatives that don't pollute anywhere as much, don't need as much land nor water and which are inexpensive and getting cheaper all the time.

People don’t need a lot of things. However certain foods, like animal products including milk, lead to optimal health. That’s how the Dutch got so tall. So you can drink your diluted nut or grain water. I’ll stick with bioavailable nutrients from animal foods.

"A lot of the world is able to walk, so people don't need wheel chair access in buildings". "A lot of the world is male/female, so people don't need made up genders and surgery". ... sounds great, huh?

Anyway, where does this "people don't need X" stop, though? You also don't need oat milk, tofu, soy, peas, etc. to survive.

Let's just go back to foraging for roots and berries and see what population size we can sustain!

Technically, is about reducing the emissions, not decreasing exports. Cows produce a lot of emissions, meaning, you could swap for something less polluting. Air quality is also not good in NL, because of this.

In this case it's not about greenhouse gasses (those aren't local, so moving something doesn't change the impact). This is about nitrogen which has a very local impact. So moving farming away from over-farmed areas to other places will improve the environment.

"That the agricultural sector needs to be downsized"

What about the people abroad that depend on Dutch-produced food? Export of food isn't a frivolous activity, but a need; we have 8 billion humans on this planet already and many live in arid or otherwise agriculture-unfriendly regions.

And you think Holland is an agricultural friendly region? You have clearly never seen the amount of glass houses from a satellite photo of Holland. They cover a vast area!

Polluting farms will get downsized in Holland over time.

Compared to many other places of the world, yes, it is, absolutely. You have both good soil and water. Yes, Ukraine is probably somewhat better in this regard, but it is also poor and at war.

Plus Dutch know-how in agriculture is outstanding. From what I know from Czech farmers, Dutch piglets etc. are really the best in the world.

I don't deny we know how to raise delicious veal or piglets. But it's stipulated in EU law that we have to downsize this sector eventually. It's not a popular move at all, and it seems pointless with regards to China or India. Still it needs to happen in the long run.

AFAIK it is not just about taste, but about the fact that Dutch animals gain the most weight per fodder consumed - which is actually pretty nature-friendly.

Dairy is a luxury food, not a staple. No-one is going to starve if they can't get Dutch cheese

You make it sound as if the real intent behind the law was to push veganism on an unwilling population, bypassing normal democratic mechanism.

Cheese is an excellent source of proteins and fat, eating less of it and more of processed and conserved rice/wheat won't probably make you healthier.

Uh, no. I love cheese. That's a weird take

Dutch cheese is delicious. What do you propose to replace it with?

In many cases Dutch-produced food out-prices locally produced food. Even with transport costs.

On one hand, you could say cheaper food is nice. On the other hand, employing local people to keep money in local economy to produce slightly more expensive food is better in the long term...

Will the difference in costs stay slight? Possibly not, if the locals are protected by sufficiently high import duties that they aren't forced to innovate.

We might yet see a similar problem in the space industry. European space industry is likely to fall far behind SpaceX when it comes to rocket costs and especially capabilities, but France won't surrender its independent access to space and will likely subsidize the already-obsolete Ariane models far into the future.

No import duties inside EU. Here in north-east our farmers have a hard time competing with Holland farmers. Mostly because our farms still didn’t catch up after Soviet era. Differentiated EU subsidies discriminating East don’t help either.

I’m happy to pay extra to support local farms. Hopefully playing field will level out at some point.

In terms of dollar value, not in terms of volume. Still very impressive though for such a small country.

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