In last month’s provincial elections, the right-populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) took Dutch politics by storm. It took fifteen seats out of seventy-five, making it the single largest force in the country’s Senate. While the breakthrough had been expected, it was a major blow to Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal-conservative coalition government.

The party was established in 2019, following a series of farmer protests. The immediate cause was a ruling by the Dutch Supreme Court that led the government to enforce European Union standards, according to which nitrogen emissions have to be reduced in protected natural areas. The ruling was the consequence of years of campaigning by environmental NGOs, which have filed countless lawsuits against the government for its neglect of ecological matters. Because building work emits nitrogen, construction permits were suspended — a major problem in the ongoing Dutch housing crisis. Yet the agricultural sector is responsible for the highest national emissions. Although the Netherlands is a small country, it is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products, exporting especially to neighboring EU countries such as Germany. Intensive livestock farming is responsible for the highest nitrogen emissions in Europe, causing, among other things, soil acidification. In order to reduce emissions, livestock numbers need to be halved.

The ruling led, from October 2019, to waves of protests. Farmers headed out with tractors to The Hague (the country’s political capital), blocked highways and supermarket distribution centers, and intimidated politicians. These protests soon became a cause célèbre of the global conservative movement, making it to Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. This March, on the brink of the elections, a demonstration was held in The Hague, heavily curtailed by restrictions imposed by city hall (of the announced one hundred thousand protesters, only a quarter as many were allowed to participate). The same day, Extinction Rebellion blocked a major highway.