Yep. The good news is that our Dutch neighbors whose country has a similar setup to us, have cut their pig production by a third recently and the plan is to further cut into it. That is what we need to do in Denmark too. Cut it down until it is phased out entirely and continue to promote sustainable farming.

In time I also hope we will be able to take a look at lobbying because the farm lobbying is the most extreme case we have here. We just had the election here in Denmark and Venstre has had their worst election result EVER. The party is over a 100 years old and used to be one of the biggest parties in Denmark. They ruled my country all the way up through the 2000s where means were given to farmers, tax money, given to them, special agreements that gave farmers carte Blanche to pretty much do whatever they wanted and even the smallest attempt at putting restrictions on them by left leaning governments had them throw temper tantrums. This is the general case for all European industrial farmers.

Back then it worked because farming is a cultural heritage type of thing and part of the Danish identity so these industrial farmers (and the politicians who support them) who actually helped kill the old farming culture have used the image of the wholesome farmer as a shield against all criticism towards farmers.

The anti-industrial farmer movement in Denmark is huge and multifaceted. A lot of this is also paving the way for Danes to sort of grieve over the identity we have lost which is reflected in fiction and art. There is a lot of authors writing about the shift from farming culture to the modern middle class and the effects it has had on the Danish self image. The fact that this is being reflected in art at the same time as the pig issue has exploded is almost poetic.

It was a matter of time before we would have to recon with all of this and the fact that we are finally here is pretty exciting, because it has really gotten out of hand. I legit remember my dad as early as the early 2000s and maybe even the 90s talk about how farming was going to destroy our country if it wasn’t regulated so I grew up with a pretty intense disgust for big farming while also growing up right next to one of legit, romantic old timey farms where the farmer knows and loves his animals and treats them well. A dying breed. So yeah, I have a complicated relationship with farming, but I hope for an support sustainable farming and want Venstre to actually support those instead of helping indsturial farmers climb to the top and hoard their wealth for themselves while legit farmers end up having to sell their land to the big farms so they can destroy my country for no reasons because it’s not even a profitable industry for anyone but the few hundred pig farm owners in my country. It’s fucking ridiculous.