Farmers’ protests in Europe herald the next big political challenge in global climate action: How to grow food without further damaging the Earth’s climate and biodiversity.
On Tuesday, after weeks of intense protests in many cities across the continent, came the clearest sign of that difficulty. The European Union’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, has abandoned an ambitious bill to reduce the use of chemical pesticides and watered down the European Commission’s next set of recommendations to reduce agricultural pollution.
“We want to make sure that in this process, farmers remain in the driver’s seat,” he told the European Parliament. “Only if we achieve our climate and environment goals together will farmers be able to continue to live.”
Farmers say they are being hit from all sides: high fuel costs, green regulations, unfair competition from producers in countries with less environmental restrictions.
However, agriculture accounts for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions and it is impossible for the European Union to meet its ambitious climate targets, enshrined in law, without making dramatic changes to its agricultural system, including how which farmers use chemical pesticides and fertilizers. as well as its huge livestock industry.
It also has political significance. Changing Europe’s farming practices is proving extremely difficult, particularly as parliamentary elections approach in June. Farmers are a powerful political force and food and agriculture are strong markers of European identity.
Agriculture accounts for just over 1 percent of the European economy and employs 4 percent of its population. But it gets a third of the EU budget, mostly in subsidies.
Why are farmers protesting?
For weeks, a number of farmers’ groups have taken to the streets across Europe, blocking highways with tractors, throwing firecrackers at police and erecting barricades that have caused major transport disruptions in Berlin, Brussels and Paris.
They are angry about many things. Some frustration is directed at national leaders and proposals to reduce agricultural diesel subsidies in France and Germany. Some of these address proposals at EU level, such as cuts in the use of nitrogen fertilizers (which is produced from fossil fuels).
Farmers are also angry about trade deals that allow agricultural products to be imported from countries that do not have the same environmental protections. And some farmers want more government help as they reel from the effects of extreme weather exacerbated by climate change.
The protests epitomize the failure to win farmers over to more sustainable agriculture, said Tim Benton, head of the environment program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “This is a broader case of how, if we want to transition to sustainability, we need to invest more in ‘just transitions’ to bring people together and allow them to feel better, not punished,” he said.
How did the leaders react?
In Germany, the government backtracked on some key policies, including delaying a cut in diesel subsidies for farm vehicles.
In France, the government offered a 150 million euro, or $163 million, aid package to livestock farmers, temporarily halted a national plan to reduce pesticide use and banned the import of foreign produce treated with a pesticide banned in France.
But on Tuesday, Ms von der Leyen announced the scrapping of an EU-wide bill to reduce pesticide use because, she said, it had become a “polarising symbol”.
Later in the day, the Commission released its proposed 2040 climate targets. Although they will not be formally proposed or voted on until a new Parliament is elected this summer, they send a clear message about the political priorities of Ms von der Leyen’s incumbent European People’s Party. The goals aim to reduce total emissions by 90 percent by 2040. But they do not recommend anything specific to reduce methane emissions from agriculture, a powerful greenhouse gas that comes mainly from livestock, or to limit nitrogen fertilizers.
Both methane and nitrogen must be significantly reduced to meet the bloc’s climate targets, according to scientists advising the European Union.
After Tuesday’s announcements, a European farmers’ lobby group known as COPA-COGECA declared victory. “The EU Commission finally recognizes that the approach was not the right one.” said the team at X.
Why is it politically dangerous?
The centre-right European People’s Party, which is the largest group in the European Parliament, has long had the support of rural voters. Lately, some of her environmental and trade policies have drawn the ire of this voting bloc. Far-right groups, rising in many countries on the continent, have seized on this discontent.
“The upcoming election creates an opportunity for populist parties, which use it against the European green agenda,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank that studies European energy and environmental policies. “We all have someone in our family trees who was a farmer and food is an important part of European identity.”
