Femke Wiersma

Femke Marije Wiersma (born 29 December 1984) is a Dutch agricultural lobbyist and politician of the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB). She has served as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature in the Schoof cabinet since July 2024. Previously, she was a member of the Provincial Executive of Friesland.

Early life and career
Wiersma was born in 1984 in Dokkum, located in Friesland, and she was trained in the Royal Dutch Navy. She completed training in social work in 2007, and she worked as a civil servant.

When farmers were increasing their livestock population in anticipation of a phosphate rights system, Wiersma started a campaign on social media platform Facebook in 2015 to protest this incentive. The abolition of a European milk quota that year had led to the Netherlands exceeding its phosphate limit. Wiersma subsequently became a lobbyist for Netwerk GRONDig, which had recently been founded to represent extensive dairy farmers. Starting 2016, she consecutively served as a policy advisor for the Vereniging Behoud Boer & Milieu (circular agriculture) and the Dutch Dairy Farmers' Union.

Politics
When the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) was founded in 2019, Wiersma became a board member. She participated in the 2021 general election as the BBB's second candidate, behind party leader Caroline van der Plas. Wiersma received 25,588 preference votes, and she was not elected, as the BBB secured one seat in the House of Representatives. Wiersma subsequently served as a staffer of the BBB's parliamentary group in the House.

She helped establish the BBB's Friesland chapter starting in 2021, and she was on the ballot in the province in 2023 provincial elections, when the BBB won fourteen council seats. In July 2023, the BBB presented its coalition agreement with the Christian Democratic Appeal, Christian Union, and the Frisian National Party. Wiersma joined the provincial executive and was responsible for agriculture, the Frisian Rural Area Program, and heritage. She halted the province's nature and nitrogen policy in June 2024, weeks after a coalition agreement had been reached nationally by the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB.

Wiersma was sworn in as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature on 2 July 2024 as part of the Schoof cabinet. The ministry was simultaneously renamed, having previously been called the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

Personal life
In 2010, she was a participant of the Dutch version of Farmer Wants a Wife, where she met dairy farmer Gijsbert Bakhuisen from Abcoude. They were married from 2016 until 2019. After their divorce, she became a single mother of four children.