About thirty people gathered on Thursday evening in room 1 of the Pathé cinema at the Rotterdam Kuip. The film documentary is showing there Boerocracy, occupation of the Binnenhof. Central theme: the power of the agricultural lobby that is able to prevent stricter legislation on nature conservation, climate and pesticides.
What few visitors in that Rotterdam hall know is that the film has a connection with the Party for the Animals (PvdD). Idea and financing of the project is from the Nicholas G. Pierson Foundation and that has been the scientific bureau of the animal party since 2007. That connection was not known to any of the cinemagoers contacted on Thursday.
You would expect that any publicity in the run-up to the elections at the end of this month would be welcome, but the documentary is not mentioned on the PvdD website. And therefore not where the film can be seen. “I was also surprised by that,” says chairman Niko Koffeman of the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation (NGPF) in a telephone response. “As far as we are concerned, it would be a great vehicle for the Party for the Animals, even during election times.”
Koffeman has been in the Senate for the PvdD for eighteen years. “I have quite a lot of campaign experience and as a campaigner I would say make use of it. Particularly because we have chosen a production company with independent journalists, to avoid it having a high ‘us from the toilet duck’ aspect.”
Earlier this year, Koffeman came into conflict with the party leadership about possible additional defense efforts that the First Kramer faction is against. Would this conflict play a role in this? “You’re asking the wrong person. I make the documentary available and we find that the party does not use it.”
Tractor in the Binnenhof
The Senate faction was present – three people strong – at the premiere of Boerocracy at the beginning of October in Tuschinski in Amsterdam. “They were very enthusiastic,” says Koffeman. Some candidates on the PvdD’s list for the elections were there, but the members of the House of Representatives were not. “I also noticed that. And also that the PvdD had not invited its members out.”
As far as Koffeman is concerned, no conclusions need to be drawn. “Yes, it is strange. We have expressed our surprise about this to the party board.”
The chairman of that party board is Zwanny Naber and she says in a response that the PvdD regularly used films in the election campaign in the past, but that this mainly attracted its own members. “We want to reach a larger audience with the campaign. That is why it was decided – also in previous campaigns – to focus a lot less on film screenings. Apart from this, it is certainly an important subject that is highlighted in the film.”
The Boerocracy film poster is prominently displayed on the NGPF website: a cartoon drawing with party leader Caroline van der Plas of the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) behind the wheel of a tractor speeding across the Binnenhof. Van der Plas and BBB do not play a leading role in the film: the establishment of the farmers’ movement is mainly highlighted, with the often-remembered role of the communications agency Remarkable. The further rightward movement of BBB is also analyzed. The BBB declined to comment to the filmmakers.
Intimidation
The documentary highlights, among other things, the lack of sustainability in richly subsidized agriculture. “People don’t want it at the moment,” says Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, emeritus professor of rural sociology at Wageningen University, in the film. “Agricapital wants the wheels in the countryside to continue to run as they do now. Namely guzzling nitrogen, guzzling diesel, guzzling pesticides, guzzling water. Because that is the revenue model of big industry.”
According to a number of speakers, these large agricultural companies (animal feeders, meat processors, chemical producers) play a major role in agricultural policy, including in the European Union. The intimidation at the house of former minister Van der Wal is also mentioned, as are the violent riots of farmers in The Hague and Brussels. The uprising in the Belgian capital in early 2024 was quickly rewarded: while clouds of smoke still hung above the city, President Von der Leyen of the European Commission and then Prime Minister Rutte sat around the table with representatives of the farmers.
“You are dealing with a serious socio-political problem here,” says Van der Ploeg about the violence. “Every time violence rears its head, you have to draw a drastic line [als politiek]. The more you fail to do that, the other side becomes radicalized because you can get away with it anyway.”
Amidst intense images from slaughterhouses in Latin America and the ongoing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Boerocracy also has an eye for a positive development. As mayor, Aurélie Mézière is the driving force behind the greening of agriculture in the French rural municipality of Plessé (more than 5,000 inhabitants). 44 percent of the agricultural area in Plessé is now farmed organically. “A belle histoire“, Mézière calls it, “as a counterbalance to the extreme right that mainly arouses fear.”
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