Can the Farmer Speak? The History, Class Politics, and Discourse of Dutch Agriculture and the Nitrogen Crisis

Abstract

This thesis examines the politics and history of the 2019 Dutch Nitrogen Crisis, which saw an immense number of Dutch farmers participate in mass protests over proposed environmental regulations that would threaten their livelihoods. I contend that, while farmer-protesters are right to claim that their livelihoods are at stake, the main threat lies not in the environmental regulations imposed by the national government, but rather in the economic organization of the agricultural industry and its reliance on a mode of production that prioritizes profit over social needs. The modernized agricultural production process, whose primary economic prerogatives are that of production increase and upscaling, has caused a multifaceted crisis from which farmers, consumers, and the environment have suffered. In the future, farmers will lose their farms due to an increasingly competitive economic environment wherein only the largest agro companies are able to survive. Nonetheless, the farmers’ protests opposed major agricultural reforms, instead defending the current status quo of intensive agriculture. Considering also that the farmers’ protests were sponsored by large agricultural companies, it is my contention that most protesters incorrectly identified their own class interests and therefore conflated their interests with those of large agro-companies. Furthermore, when mass protests are sponsored by large agro-companies, whose class interests are essentially in direct opposition to the majority of protesting farmers, it problematizes the notion of self-representation. This thesis explores the class politics and the politics of representation of the 2019 farmers’ protests by drawing on the theories of Michel Foucault about the power of discourse; Antonio Gramsci and Karl Marx about class consciousness and ideological resistance; and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on the politics of representation. Through these theories, this thesis argues that the politics of the Nitrogen Crisis are deeply embedded in the history of both rural populism in the Netherlands and the modernization of Dutch agriculture. Furthermore, a class analysis of the contemporary farmers’ protests raises questions about the possibility of representation in this current political landscape. How can farmers meaningfully enter the public debate, if their ability to enter is decided by agro-companies? Finally, this thesis proposes two organizations that move beyond dominant discursive formations, instead providing a critical, systemic solution to the Nitrogen Crisis.