Plenty of cattle would be slaughtered by the Dutch for environmental reasons

The Dutch government is considering a 30 percent reduction in its cattle herd for environmental reasons. The Dutch Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, has submitted a radical proposal to the government to reduce the cattle herd by 30 percent, theguardian.com writes. The proposal was dictated by the situation of constraint, as the small and densely populated Netherlands has too large a herd, which pollutes the environment close to the upper limit of tolerability. Therefore, there is an urgent and significant need to reduce pollution, especially for nitrates. Animal husbandry is associated with manure production and forms a nitrogen compound with the urine of cattle, which causes serious damage when it enters living waters, including stimulating algae growth and depleting the oxygen content of surface waters. The so-called “nitrogen crisis” began with a 2019 decision by the Dutch Supreme Court, which ruled that the Netherlands had violated EU law by ...