ANDEREN, Netherlands | Inside the barn on the flat fields of the northern Netherlands, Jos Ubels cradles a newborn Blonde d’Aquitaine calf, the latest addition to his herd of over 300 dairy cattle.
Little could be more idyllic.
Little, says Mr. Ubels, could be more under threat.
As Europe seeks to address the threat of climate change, it’s imposing more rules on farmers like Mr. Ubels. He spends a day a week on bureaucracy, answering the demands of European Union and national officials who seek to decide when farmers can sow and reap, and how much fertilizer or manure they can use.
Meanwhile, competition from cheap imports is undercutting prices for their produce, without having to meet the same standards. Mainstream political parties failed to act on farmers’ complaints for decades, Mr. Ubels says. Now the radical right is stepping in.
Across much of the 27-nation EU, from Finland to Greece, Poland to Ireland, farmers’ discontent is gathering momentum as June EU parliamentary elections draw near.
Mr. Ubels is the second in command of the Farmers Defense Force, one of the most prominent groups to emerge from the foment. The FDF, whose symbol is a crossed double pitchfork, was formed in 2019 and has since expanded to Belgium. It has ties to similar groups elsewhere in the EU and is a driving force behind a planned June 4 demonstration in Brussels it hopes will bring 100,000 people to the EU capital and help define the outcome of the elections.
“It is time that we fight back,” said Mr. Ubels. “We’re done with quietly listening and doing what we are told.”
Has he lost trust in democracy? “No. … I have lost my faith in politics. And that is one step removed.”
The FDF itself puts it more ominously on its website: “Our confidence in the rule of law is wavering!”
In March, protesting farmers from Belgium ran amok at a demonstration outside EU headquarters in Brussels, setting fire to a subway station entrance and attacking police with eggs and liquid manure. In France, protesters tried to storm a government building.
In a video from another protest, in front of burning tires and pallets, FDF leader Mark van den Oever said two politicians made him sick to his stomach, saying they would “soon be at the center of attention.” The FDF denies this was a threat of physical violence.
Across the EU, over the winter, tractor convoys blockaded ports and major roads, sometimes for days, in some of the most severe farm protests in half a century.
Farmers and the EU have had a sometimes testy relationship. What’s new is the shift toward the extreme right.
Destitute after World War II and with hunger still a scourge in winter, Europe desperately needed food security. The EU stepped in, securing abundant food for the population, turning the sector into an export powerhouse and currently funding farmers to the tune of over 50 billion euros a year.
Yet, despite agriculture’s strategic importance, the EU acknowledges that farmers earn about 40% less than non-farm workers, while 80% of support goes to a privileged 20% of farmers. Many of the bloc’s 8.7 million farm workers are close to or below the poverty line.
At the same time, the EU is seeking to push through stringent nature and agricultural laws as part of its Green Deal to make the bloc climate-neutral by 2050. Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of EU greenhouse gas emissions, from sources such as the nitrous oxide in fertilizers, carbon dioxide from vehicles and methane from cattle.
Cutting these emissions has forced short-notice changes on farmers at a time of financial insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic and surging inflation have increased the cost of goods and labor, while farmers’ earnings are down as squeezed consumers cut back.
And then there’s the war next door. After Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the EU granted tariff-free access for agricultural imports from Ukraine, many of them exempt from the strict environmental standards the bloc enforces on its own producers. Imports surged from 7 billion euros in 2021 to 13 billion euros the following year, causing gluts and undercutting farmers, particularly in Poland.
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