Farmers warn rising beef prices and regulations threaten farms and food affordability

Dutch farmers are warning that rising beef prices and regulatory pressure are threatening food affordability and the survival of livestock farms.

Farmers’ group Agractie said regulatory burdens, uncertainty, and environmental measures are forcing many farms to close, leaving remaining operations to face higher production costs.

“The rising beef price is no surprise. More and more livestock farms are disappearing due to an accumulation of regulations, uncertainty, and environmental measures. The farms that remain face increasingly high production costs,” Agractie said.

The organization reported that in the first half of 2025, Dutch beef production dropped 13 percent compared with the same period last year.

Agractie stressed that food security and affordability are essential for everyone. In recent years, thousands of agricultural businesses have ceased operations in the Netherlands.

Farmers Defence Force (FDF) has linked the rising meat prices to the growing exodus of farmers. “The older generation of farmers says: ‘figure it out,’ and the younger generation doesn’t want to work eighty hours a week and be looked down on,” FDF leader Mark van den Oever said in March. He called it “the beginning of the exodus of farms and the start of the large price increases.”