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WE need three things to survive: oxygen, water and food,’ said Caroline van der Plas, leader of the Netherlands’ Farmer-Citizen movement, in her address to the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) last), ‘and we provide the food’. Farming is a huge contributor to the Dutch economy and the party, which has four parliamentary seats and dominated last year’s provincial elections, was set up in protest against government plans to reduce farmed land in an effort to curb nitrogen emissions. It must be said that not everyone, including some British farmers, would agree with all of Farmer-Citizen’s views, but it shows what can be done in bringing the importance of this basic human need to the forefront of public debate.
