Sicco Mansholt

Who was Sicco Mansholt?

Sicco Leendert Mansholt was the fourth President of the European Commission in 1972–1973. He was the European Commissioner for Agriculture from 1958 until 1972.

Mansholt came from a socialist farmer's family in the Dutch province of Groningen. Both his father and grandfather were supporters of early socialist leaders such as Multatuli, Domela Nieuwenhuis and Troelstra. His father, Lambertus H. Mansholt, was a delegate for the socialist SDAP party in the Groningen provincial chamber. His mother, Wabien Andreae, daughter of a judge in Heerenveen, was one of the first women to have studied Political Science. She organised political meetings for other women, usually in their own homes. Mansholt attended the HBS-school in Groningen and after that went to Deventer, to the School of Tropical Agriculture, where he studied to become a tobacco farmer.

He moved to Java in the Dutch East Indies, nowadays Indonesia, and started work on a tea plantation. He returned to the Netherlands in 1936, unhappy with the colonial system. He wanted to become a farmer and moved to the Wieringermeer, a polder, reclaimed in 1937. There he started his own farm.