Dragging monster tractors are ‘an outlet’ for the annoyed farmers

Last time, three years ago, it was great. So now Melchior van Munster is back with some friends: the Lochem tractor pulling competition. Not that he knows much about tractor pulling, in terms of international competition and such. “But it’s just nice to see.”

The son of a dairy farmer is at the bar getting some beers. The conviviality is also an important reason to be here. Matter of getting away for the weekend, something else. “We talk a lot about nitrogen among ourselves, which eventually becomes a bit of a depressing story.” Three of his friends are also dairy farmers, and Van Munster doubts whether he will succeed in taking over his father’s company, near Olst in Overijssel – that is a big topic in his life. He’s not thinking about that this weekend.

On a 110-metre sand track, seeing how far a souped-up, shiny tractor can pull a heavy cart: that’s tractor pulling, also known as tractor pull. It is an activity that a large part of the Netherlands is hardly aware of, but which attracts a lot of attention in some regions. Saturday was near Lochem, in the Achterhoek, one of the country’s biggest tractor pull festivals – a spectacle (entrance fee: 30 euros) of smoke, a lot of noise and thousands of visitors. Mainly men, of all ages, but also complete families with young children.

A small farmer’s handkerchief on a tractor is a rare sign of the nitrogen crisis

Trekking days traditionally attract many people from the agricultural sector. But Saturday’s event may not be what an outsider would immediately expect, given the current situation in the agricultural world. While Farmers Defense Force threatened last Friday with the hardest actions ever and mediator Johan Remkes spoke of a crisis of confidence between farmer and cabinet that runs deeper than nitrogen, references to this are scarce at this ultimate agro event.

There is one banner with #trotsopdeboer at the entrance. But there are no inverted flags – which can be found on practically every lamppost on the roads around Lochem. You even see more correctly hanging flags: those are painted on the tractor teams’ tearing tractors and trucks. However, many tractors have a small farmer’s handkerchief subtly hanging on them, also a sign of the farmers’ protest.

“These are farmers among themselves,” says a driver of one of the trucks. “They all find the same thing here.” At a farmer’s event, farmers don’t have to explain to each other that they are proud of the farmer. “This place seems more like an outlet to me,” says Mark Tombergen, who is watching a team install an extra engine in a tractor. He is more of a techie than someone from the agricultural world, loves motorcycles. According to him, those enthusiasts also like to come to trekkertreks. Tombergen also sometimes watches them on TV.

Brutal Violence

For agricultural visitors, this mainly seems to be a day when nitrogen pressure is not an issue for once. no one who NRC speaks openly about it, they are here for the ‘brutal violence’, as Richard Brugman, himself raised on a farm, puts it – he is more or less the only one wearing a shirt with ‘proud of the farmer’ on it. But the event is certainly full of farmers who are concerned, and sometimes also participate in actions. The teenage son of a contractor says he thinks about nitrogen almost every day, he says at the stand for model tractors.

Melchior van Munster has hope that he can continue his father’s business at Olst, a few other farmers have already stopped in the area. He says he reads NOS and sometimes NRC. “I also read what happened on Friday. I then again miss the vision after such a consultation. This problem has been pushed forward 15 years, what are we going to do now?” Van Munster says he wonders what the countryside will look like after many farmers have stopped.

Some are more fierce. At a picnic table, a dairy farmer who retired seven years ago (name known to the editors) is chatting with two acquaintances. After talking for some time, he says that he recently participated with a few “comrades” in blocking the A50. He was so past the blockade, the adrenaline was coursing through his body.

But it can’t be, right? “Yes, there may not be more.”

Thousands of horsepower

Around four o’clock the time for the race to start is approaching. A lot of nitrogen will go into the air, the son of a contractor already predicted at the beginning of the afternoon.

When the first tractor leaves, the organization’s warning to bring earplugs turns out to be justified. A souped-up tractor may be small, but it sounds like an airplane taking off. Calls are interrupted. Black exhaust clouds move over the sloping terrain at the foot of the Lochemse Berg. Teams such as Let’s Try and IJsseldeltaPowerr compete with their machines, full of sponsor images from companies such as Stok Dakkapellen and oliehandel.nl. Often the vehicles have all kinds of adjustments several thousand horsepower.

High in the stands is a 62-year-old man from Amersfoort who does not want his name in the newspaper under any circumstances. He sat down early, wants the best view of the entire track – then you can see the tractors getting away and where they end up. He does not wear earplugs, as a hobby he likes to shoot, so he says he is used to it.

He finds the nitrogen policy ‘cool’, the farmers are an easy victim. Does he also feel that these kinds of events are under pressure if many farmers have to stop? No, not that. “This will stay anyway.” In a sense it has little to do with ‘normal’ farmers, they are half professionals. “This is an incredibly expensive sport.” Hence all the sponsors.

Richard Brugman, also involved in the organisation, does see a parallel between the challenges for farmers and those for tractor treks: more and more rules. You used to just put up a fence and then it was settled. Now that fence has to be so and so many meters away from the track, and the municipality comes to check everything. Don’t get him wrong, he understands that too, that’s the way things go. But he is curious how that will go on. “Also with emissions and such.”