London: Remember The Arab Spring, around 2010, when demonstrators across North Africa and The Arabian Peninsula called for change?
Welcome to Europe’s Agri Spring!
Since COVID restrictions were eased at the start of 2021, farmers have driven caravans of tractors into cities across Europe to protest the financial squeeze that is crippling them.
In 2021, French farmers descended on Strasbourg to protest EU agriculture policy changes and Time Magazine said, “Dutch farmer protests show how messy the climate transition will be.”
The Irish Farmers’ Association parked 100 tractors Dublin’s Merrion Square to protest a Climate Action Plan that will require them to reduce emissions by up to 30 per cent by 2030. In 2022, Farmers Forum reported that European farmer protests had jumped 30 per cent in 2021.
In Britain, protests were more passive-aggressive. Farmers stopped selling to major supermarkets and ploughed their crops into the ground as Brexit-induced labour shortages, removal of European subsidies, and harsh supermarket buying practices squeezed them against rising cost bases.
The result was empty supermarket shelves, or photographs of the fresh produce instead of the real thing, like some sort of post-apocalyptic bad joke. And rationing. Yes, supermarkets rationed tomatoes in 2023.
The supermarkets blamed independent shops buying-up and reselling their produce, or consumer stockpiling, or supply chain breakdown. Independent supermarkets showed them up with groaning produce bins, thanks to a willingness to pay a little more, and sell for a slightly higher price.
The public responded by crossing the road from major supermarkets to local ones.
In January this year, Spanish farmers protested in Madrid. Reduced irrigation quotas from the Targus River, which irrigates 70 per cent of Spain’s fruit and vegetable exports threatened 25,000 jobs, according to Fernando Lopez, regional leader of Murcia.
Environment minister, Teresa Ribera said reductions would prepare the country, which experienced its hottest year on record in 2022, for climate change, and offered €8 ($A13) billion to encourage water recycling and desalination.
In February, Dutch farmers met finance minister, Sigrid Kaag with burning torches, dumped slurry at environment minister Christianne van der Wal’s home, and held a tractor blockade, protesting the government’s commitment to halve the country’s nitrogen emissions by 2030: emissions largely from 100 million cattle, pigs and poultry on Dutch farms.
In March, Portuguese farmers mobilised 800 tractors in the small city of Beja (population 36,000) to stage their “largest demonstration held in the country ever”, according to Eduardo Oliveira e Sousa, president of the Portugese Farmers’ Confederation. Their demand – a strategic plan for Portugal’s future, and resignation of Maria do Céu Antunes, minister for agriculture and food.
In April, Polish farmers claimed that Ukrainian grain was flooding EU at the expense of Poland’s market share. Poland’s agriculture minister, Henryk Kowalczyk resigned after failing to convince the EU to reintroduce tariffs on Ukrainian grain exporters, and having eggs thrown at him.
The EU has increased Ukrainian import quotas into all member states to bypass blockaded seaports and much of the grain has stayed in the EU instead of being exported, reducing prices.
This month, Spanish farmers. They poured out 400,000 litres of milk in Andalusia when Lactalis – the world’s largest dairy group – announced buying price reduction of €0.09 (10c) per litre. They plan to continue wasting milk until negotiations are complete.
Catalan dairy producers have also complained to Spain’s competition watchdog about price fixing by three major dairy retailers. The Spanish dairy farmers union claims farmers are forced to sell at or below the cost of production. There were 507 registered dairy farmers in Catalonia. It’s 380 today.
So where does motoring journalism come in?
Jeremy Clarkson – the man who drove to the North Pole to show that ice flows weren’t melting – has a hit Amazon TV show, Clarkson’s Farm.
Viewers, seduced by Clarkson’s buffoonery, and gorgeous visuals of Diddly Squat Farm, are quickly transported behind the scenes of British farming into a world of conflicting regulations, touch-and-go profitability, desperate ploys to turn a profit, enormous capital expenditure and Clarkson’s never-ending battles with a council he presents as wanting to preserve the bucolic nature of The Cotswolds by hobbling the farmers that make it that way.
Along with its stablemate, Born Mucky, Clarkson’s Farm feels like the first time audiences get to see the real costs farmers incur, and the financial risks they take, to feed us.
Clarkson’s council battles seem to focus on the idea that he isn’t a “real” farmer, but farmers take a different view.
Clarkson was named NFU’s Farming Champion 2021 at the Farmers Weekly awards. In the same month, Clarkson, with his more capable sidekick, Kaleb Cooper, received a trophy for Flying the Flag for British Agriculture at the British Farming Awards. His battle with the council continues.
Farmers do an amazing job. My understanding is that they’ve been told essentially that their farming will be halved by 2030 to meet climate goals. BTW we still need to efficiently feed the world. It’s not one or the other. Australia currently sits on the world’s largest deposit of amorphous silica (AgriPower in Queensland). This can reduce synthetic nitrous oxide GHG emissions by about 40%. Not sure that this article is quite correct (but I’m happy to be corrected). I believe N2O is mainly used for agriculture grains such as rice and other crops (not for cattle). The issue with cattle is methane (also solvable – methane can be reduced by 90% with seaweed feedstock alternatives). see CH4 for more on this. Farming needs to be part of the solution and highly valued because they do a great job. Technology and innovation can help farmers and address climate change at the same time. Clearly they feel left out of the discussion and under threat – when they already have enough pressure (reflected in high suicide rates).