Femke Wiersma, a former agriculture lobbyist, was recently sworn in as the Netherlands’ minister of agriculture.
DUTCH POWER PLAY:
Protests pay off as farmers are now inside new Netherlands gov’t
Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum
OTTAWA — The militant Dutch farmers’ protest movement has produced its first agriculture minister. Her name is Femke Wiersma.
She and the rest of the Netherlands’ new right-wing coalition cabinet were finally sworn in at the beginning of July — six months after Dutch voters ousted the old national government.
Wiersma is an agricultural lobbyist who married a Dutch dairy farmer after competing in the Dutch reality TV show Farmer Wants a Wife. She divorced after a few years and was among the founders of the Farmer-Citizen Movement party, also known as ‘BBB’ in Dutch.
The BBB grew out of the headline-making Dutch farmers’ dramatic pushback against overbearing environmental and climate policies emanating from the EU and the Netherlands government.
The Dutch farmer revolution really exploded in 2022. Tens of thousands of Dutch farmers routinely took to the streets with their tractors to protest an impending clampdown on nitrogen fertilizer. They were also incensed by a government plan to buy up thousands of farms, to supposedly improve the environment. However, many saw the buyout gambit as a land grab for new housing amid a surging migrant influx. A BBB member was handed responsibility last month for the housing ministry in the new Dutch cabinet.
The farmers’ protests garnered considerable public sympathy in Holland, and BBB captured just under 5 % of the national vote last November. That may not sound like much, but it was an important ingredient in the new governing coalition of four parties, which hold 88 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. Geert Wilders’ populist Party for Freedom is the largest player in the group.
