Agricultural workers around the world are up in arms about a multi-layered “lasagne” of problems. To some extent, they look to be winning the fight. Simon Wilson reports
Briefing
What’s happened?
The farmers’ protests in almost every country across Europe in recent weeks show no sign of abating, and have begun to turn more violent. Last week in Paris, the annual Salon de l’Agriculture – a major farming trade fair attended by the president, Emmanuel Macron – descended into clashes between riot police and angry farmers. On Monday this week, Belgian farmers clashed violently with police in the European quarter of Brussels as the EU’s agriculture ministers met to discuss the crisis. The protestors, who were joined by fellow-farmers from Spain, Portugal and Italy, blocked roads with 900 tractors, sprayed officers with liquid manure and set fire to mounds of tyres. The current wave of protest began in earnest in France in mid-January, with union-organised rallies and road blockages in protest at low food prices, proposed reductions in state subsidies for farmers’ diesel fuel, and a planned trade deal with the South American trade bloc Mercosur that they fear will encourage cheap imports. But similar protests have been seen across the continent.
Such as where?
This week saw major protests in Madrid, and on the German-Polish border. Recent weeks have seen the biggest protests in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Greece. But protests have also been seen recently in almost every other EU country (except in Scandinavia), and have spread across the Channel to Dover and South Wales. A common theme has been farmers dumping manure or hurling eggs at government buildings; others have used farm vehicles to blockade ports and roads. Protests by Europe’s farmers are nothing new. In 2012, for example, farmers sprayed milk at the European parliament in protest at cuts to EU milk quotas. In 2022, Dutch farmers brought parts of their country to a standstill with months of direct action over the threat to their livelihoods posed by new EU rules on cutting nitrogen emissions. “But the demonstrations in recent weeks are unprecedented in how far they have spread, and the range of issues at play,” says Alice Hancock in the Financial Times.
Why exactly are farmers angry?
Some triggers have been country-specific: a German plan to phase out tax breaks on agricultural diesel
