Late on Tuesday evening, farmers in the Frisian town of Heerenveen wanted to advance onto the A32 to protest against the government's plans in The Hague to reduce nitrogen emissions.

The police blocked the access with several vehicles.

A video shows how one of the tractors swerves and drives past the barrier on the oncoming lane.

As another tractor follows, two officers pull out their pistols and aim at the vehicle.

Two shots can be heard.

Two young men film this, both surprised and excited.

Shortly thereafter, they put their recording online.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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No one was injured in the use of firearms.

Three people were arrested, including the driver of the tractor that was shot at.

It is said to be a 16-year-old boy.

Shortly thereafter, the police wrote on Twitter that a “threatening situation” had arisen.

“Warning shots were fired and targeted shots were fired.” The tractor drivers tried to “drive into police officers and service vehicles”.

Nothing of that can be seen on the video.

It only shows a part of what happened, which is now being investigated by the Rijksrecherche, a special unit of the public prosecutor's office, like every use of firearms by officers.

The incident was the latest escalation in farmer protests, which have been mounting for the past two weeks.

Death threats for a minister

Farmers are up in arms against the government's plan to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030.

The four parties agreed on this in their coalition agreement, albeit under the pressure of a supreme court ruling at the end of 2019. It has already led to the speed limit on motorways having to be reduced to 100 kilometers per hour during the day.

Now the government wants to tackle an even bigger problem: emissions from agriculture, mainly ammonia, which ends up in nature via manure.

Ammonia accounts for 65 percent of all harmful nitrogen compounds, while road traffic releases only 12 percent.

The reason for this is the highly intensive livestock industry.

Despite its small area, the Netherlands is the largest meat exporter in Europe.

It has been clear for three years that this has to change.

Farmers' associations have protested against this on several occasions.

But now the anger is particularly great because the government has specified its plan for the first time.

A map shows how ammonia emissions are to be reduced in order to achieve the national savings target.

This affects the agricultural regions inland, especially those Natura 2000 protected areas that the government has designated in accordance with an EU directive.

In the future, agriculture will no longer be possible in these areas, and emissions are to be halved in many other areas.

Companies that have to close are compensated;

billions are available for this.

The twelve provincial governments have one year to explain to the government in The Hague