When the Dutch government announced plans in June to reduce certain greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 70 percent, farmers erupted in protest, saying the move would in effect, force them out of business. They clogged traffic on highways with their tractors, dumped manure in the streets and set bales of hay on fire.The demonstrations were covered extensively by the conservative news media in the United States, with outlets like Breitbart and Fox News describing how the farmers were staging their own versions of this year’s “freedom convoys” of Canadian truckers who were opposed to mandates for coronavirus vaccines and other Covid-19 policies.But beneath the headlines, in some of the darkest corners of the internet, disinformation researchers and State Department officials who monitor online propaganda saw the Dutch protests as feeding a troubling new conspiracy theory: Western nations are trying to impose mass hunger, and induce submission, by restricting and hoarding the world’s food …
