Thieu Bongers, dairy farmer in the Limburg village of Kelpen-Oler, had a visit from Mark Rutte on a Monday in July. Under the old pear tree, next to the stable, they had spent hours talking about the cabinet’s nitrogen plans and farmers’ fear and despair. The stories had touched Rutte, Bongers thought. “Sometimes he didn’t know what to say.” Rutte had eaten strawberry pie, and also cherry pie with whipped cream.
At night Bongers heard a car start and drive away. A sign hung from the downspout: ‘Golden jerk winner!’ In The Limburger he read about the young farmer who had also attended the meeting, but did not dare to put his name in the newspaper. The headline was: ‘Whoever talks to Rutte is an NSB member’.
This Monday, in the kitchen of his farm, Bongers says he had called and texted two people from the Farmers Defense Force in the area. Were the farmers now also intimidating each other? FDF thought that Bongers had given Rutte “a stage”. “Very sorry,” he was told. They promised him that they would call the others in app and chat groups to leave him alone.
Bongers (57), councilor for the CDA, did not hesitate for a moment when an official from the Ministry of Agriculture asked him if he wanted to receive Rutte. “You will never get an opportunity like this to explain to the Prime Minister what it is like to be a farmer.” After that he had hardly slept for a few nights and together with his wife Karin he had spent three days tidying and cleaning. “The image of farmers is that they have been pulled out of the clay,” she says. “And that shit is everywhere. There was no spider web to be seen.”
They had both prepared a story and when Rutte got out of the car in the morning, Karin Bongers wanted to start right away. “But I lost it, I stuttered. Rutte put a hand on my shoulder and said it was okay.” In the garden Rutte asked if she often sat there. “I like to read,” she had said.
There were many journalists. The robot sweeping the feed into the trough in the barn almost knocked out a cameraman. Just before he left, Rutte went to the toilet. Karin Bongers says that he must have walked through the kitchen to her room. At the car he hugged her and said, “I saw Hobbes.” She was Leviathan van Hobbes, but didn’t get a chance to say anything – Rutte was already in the car. Karin Bongers waved and gave him a kiss. “I didn’t think about it.”
They received flowers from the Ministry of Agriculture and a thank you note from Rutte. Thieu Bongers thinks it was worth the sleepless nights and the hassle with the plate. But: only if something changes in the nitrogen plans. “It was different for the stage.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 18, 2022