In the Netherlands, the government is putting out of business thousands of livestock farmers it describes as “peak polluters.” The goal is to reduce the number of farm animals in that nation by more than 35 million by 2030.

The Netherlands provides most of western Europe’s meat and produce. Without those farmers, Europeans will have to import more food and pay higher prices for it.

Also in Europe, about 800 French farmers last week drove their tractors to Paris, France’s capital, to protest the European Union’s ban of neonicotinoid pesticides. The farmers depended on those pesticides to protect their sugar beets from a serious virus that aphids spread.

Neonics have been an important tool in protecting crops in Europe and elsewhere, including the U.S.

Slice by slice, the EU is dismantling a highly efficient and successful food system and replacing it with a government-designed and -operated system. Such an undertaking is folly. It puts the continent’s farmers at risk and, worst of all, it puts Europeans at risk.

Already, the same rhetoric has infected political “leaders” in the U.S. Activists target animal agriculture and pesticides, and unknowing legislators do their bidding. The welfare of wolves takes precedence over ranchers. Livestock is blamed for all sorts of transgressions, from accelerating climate change to muddying the water.

And neonics are banned in some states at the expense of farmers.

Which brings us to a question: If U.S. and European farmers — the most efficient in the world — are not allowed to produce food and fiber, who will do it? Russia? China? India?

Farmers feed nearly 8 billion people on the planet. If the U.S. and EU put the best farmers out of business, the result will be catastrophic.

Already, more than 340 million people go to sleep hungry every day, according to the World Food Program. Less food will only mean more tragedy.

It’s clear these “leaders” have failed to look ahead and see the impact their mandates and laws will have on the people who can least afford it.

The rich will never come up short. They can afford all the food they want at any price.

It’s the poor of the world who suffer when the supply of food gets tighter.

When politicians put other goals above feeding those in need, more people will die.

That’s a guarantee.

Genetically modified crops aimed at multiplying yields and other advances in agriculture have been targeted by those who only know a dogma of fear that will eventually lead to more hunger, and more deaths.

The EU has declared war on pesticides and agriculture, and will pay the price.

Our hope is the U.S. won’t ever follow suit. To feed the world, we need the make sure all farmers and ranchers continue to have the tools they need.