On Thursday afternoon, about 150 farmers demonstrated on the doorstep of the editors of Omroep Gelderland in Arnhem against a so-called Wob request made by the broadcaster. The farmers went to the editors on dozens of tractors, as could be seen on images that Broadcasting Gelderland and daily newspaper The Gelderlander published. The farmers demanded that the broadcaster withdraw the application and spoke to editor-in-chief Sandrina Hadderingh in front of the office. The broadcaster did not agree. The demonstration came to an end around 2 p.m. and the farmers left.
Omroep Gelderland submitted a request to the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) in February on the Open Government Act (Wob) to find out. how many animals farmers in Gelderland keep and at which addresses. Earlier this week, the RVO approved the application. According to Omroep Gelderland, that decision has “caused concern among some farmers (families).
The farmers fear that Omroep Gelderland will make their addresses public and that activists will run away with it. The broadcaster states that it does not want to publish private addresses, but mainly wants to gain insight into issues such as the relationship between animal numbers, public health and nitrogen emissions. Activist Rutger van Lier, one of the farmers who will have a conversation with editor-in-chief Hadderingh on Thursday afternoon, says “not to rely on that”, according to the newspaper. The Gelderlander. “You’re not the police, are you? Are you also going to check whether everyone drives 100?
peasant protests
Earlier this year, Omroep Gelderland made a series of stories about the goat sector in the province, based on animal numbers from Statistics Netherlands. It said that it was criticized by farmers and their interest groups because the figures were based on the number of permits issued and not on the actual number of animals in the stables.
In its own words, the broadcaster “attended” this criticism and then asked the RVO for the actual numbers of animals, linked to the address where they are kept. “We need those addresses so that we can link those actual numbers to the permits. As the media, we can also check whether a company complies with the law and where exactly animals are kept,” Omroep Gelderland wrote in an editorial earlier on Thursday. “Again: we will not publish en masse the private addresses of the farmers in Gelderland. That is not our goal.”
The Gelderland protest is not the first time that farmers have taken to the road with their machines to demonstrate. A series of farmer demonstrations took place in 2019, including on the Malieveld in The Hague, after D66 MP Tjeerd de Groot launched a solution to the nitrogen problem that farmers were dissatisfied with: halving the livestock. Four farmers who were involved in incidents around the provincial government of Groningen were convicted this year for incitement and were given community service. Farmers’ demonstrations continued to take place last summer, although they were generally more relaxed.
Also read: Farmers demonstrate ‘to be heard’
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