The anger of European farmers shocked EU technocrats
The continent-wide anger of EU farmers made its way straight to the heart of technocracy, namely the green agenda, Net Zero and the war on energy and food. The late Rosa Koire warned Europe between 2010-2015 about “the blueprint, the comprehensive action plan for the 21st century to inventory and control all land, all water, all plants, all minerals, all animals, all structures, all means of production, all Energy, all law enforcement, all health care, all food, all education, all information and all people in the world.”
The farmers have understood and started to fight for their lives and livelihoods. The technocrats develop these suicidal policies using their oracle of pseudoscience as their god. However, it is not a God, but a base scientism that CS Lewis exposed in his Abolition of Man (1943).
These people intend to destroy the earth (Rev. 11:18). Will we stop them before it’s too late?
Europe’s farmers started to rise up – and the elites are horrified. In France, farmers staged a four-day “siege of Paris,” blocking major roads around the French capital. In January, thousands of tractors invaded Berlin and lined the streets in front of the Brandenburg Gate. In Brussels, farmers from all over Europe came together to demonstrate against the EU and throw eggs at the European Parliament. In the Netherlands, tractors have caused the longest traffic jam in the country’s history as part of a years-long battle between farmers and the government. This farmers’ uprising is truly Europe-wide. From Portugal to Poland, from Ireland to Italy, almost all EU countries have been rocked by protests. So what is the cause of this populist uprising? What do the farmers want?
Of course, farmers in each country have their own specific complaints. But there is a common root to their anger. What connects them is the European Union’s green agenda, which has been imposed on agriculture from above. It has made farmers’ lives hell and sacrificed their existence on the altar of climate alarmism. Bureaucrats ignorant of the work and lives of farmers have essentially doomed farms – many of which have been run by families for generations – to oblivion, all with the stroke of a regulator’s pen. And farmers simply can’t put up with this anymore.
The first uprisings began in the Netherlands in 2019 with the so-called nitrogen crisis. The Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the government had failed to reduce nitrogen pollution to levels approved by the EU. The Dutch government then promised “drastic measures” to reduce nitrogen emissions. In doing so, she declared war on her country’s farmers, even if only in name. Suddenly the government turned against one of its most important and formidable sectors. Despite its small size, the Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world, thanks to the outstanding efficiency of its agriculture. And nitrogen is an essential part of that efficiency. Fertilizers are rich in nitrogen, and farmers need fertilizer to maximize their crop yields. Nitrogen is also an inevitable byproduct of animal agriculture. The animals release ammonia, a compound made up of nitrogen and hydrogen, through their excretions. There are over four million cows, 13 million pigs and 104 million chickens in the Netherlands. That’s a lot of manure and a lot of nitrogen. A crackdown on nitrogen emissions was always going to hit farmers hard. Nevertheless, the Dutch government’s proposals went further than anyone could have imagined. It declared that it would buy up thousands of the most polluting companies and simply shut them down. This would mean that around half of the total livestock in the Netherlands would have to be slaughtered. All in all, an unimaginable act of economic self-harm.
With this, the peasant uprising was born. Huge protests broke out in 2019. After a brief hiatus during the covid pandemic, they returned with fury in 2021 and 2022. Dutch farmers blocked roads, railways and canal bridges with tractors and hay bales. They defied the government’s ban on bringing tractors into Hague. Tens of thousands took part in the demonstrations. But the Dutch government didn’t let up. It continually proposed new targets, new measures and new restrictions on nitrogen. In 2022, according to the government’s own figures, around 30 percent of farms would have to close to achieve the goals. And last year it created a list of 3,000 businesses that it plans to forcibly close in the next few years.
All of this occurred with the consent and encouragement of the EU. And it will get worse, in the Netherlands and beyond. The absurd nitrogen regulations threatening Dutch businesses date back to an EU environmental directive from the 1990s. But the EU’s eco-craze has increased massively since then. Farmers need to also grapple with the pursuit of net zero. According to Laurence Tubiana, executive director of the European Climate Foundation and architect of the Paris Climate Agreement, Net Zero requires “the biggest agricultural change since World War II.” And once again, farmers were not consulted about this. The goals were simply drawn up by technocrats and approved by national governments, without regard to the impact on farmers and their ability to produce food.
Under the EU’s so-called Green Deal, every EU member state must achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. And the EU’s emissions regulations for agriculture are particularly strict, incredibly strict. And that’s not all that green politics has to offer. The “Farm to Fork Strategy” announced for 2020 calls for 10 percent of agricultural land to be made available for non-agricultural purposes. The use of fertilizers should decrease by 20 percent. The use of pesticides need to be reduced by 50 percent. And all of this should occur by 2030. Each of these demands alone would be enough to bankrupt thousands of farms. In combination, they represent an existential threat to European agriculture. And as if the EU laws weren’t bad enough, the member states are also gilding these regulations. The EU had already demanded the impossible from farmers. Now the elites in Berlin, Paris and Hague want to go even further.
That’s why farmers across the continent are taking to the streets. That’s why they take matters into their own hands. That’s why they see no other choice than to use their tractors to block roads, bring life to a standstill and smear public buildings with manure. They are determined to remind those in power how important they are to the functioning of modern life.
At first, the elites tried to dismiss the protests. They resorted to their usual pattern. They described the farmers as fascists, right-wing extremists and pawns in online disinformation. But this propaganda campaign failed. Not only did these slanders fail to demoralize farmers, but they also failed to galvanize the public against the protests. In one country after another, European people stand behind their farmers, even as protests disrupt daily life.
In the Netherlands, where our story began, a peasant party briefly managed to storm electoral politics. The Farmers-Citizens Movement (BBB) was founded in 2019 amid demonstrations against the nitrogen crisis. Less than four years later, the BBB swept the field in the Dutch provincial elections. It won the elections in all 12 provinces – the first time in the history of the Netherlands that a party has achieved this. While the farmers’ protests brought tens of thousands to the streets, the Farmers’ Party managed to mobilize almost 1.5 million voters.
The anger of the farmers has now become unmistakable. The otherwise alert elites across Europe are forced to listen and react. In Germany, farmers have persuaded their government to postpone planned cuts to agricultural fuel subsidies. And they have managed to preserve their tax breaks on tractors and farm vehicles, which were also under threat. In France, farmers have obtained additional subsidies amounting to several million euros. And they have put a stop to the government’s plans to increase fuel taxes. In Ireland, an outlandish government proposal to kill 200,000 cows has been quietly shelved. Farmers have also already achieved some significant successes at EU level. Remember the plan to halve pesticide use by 2030? It has now been torn apart.
But the protests won’t stop anytime soon. How could they? While these concessions are welcome, they do not go nearly far enough. The green agenda is diametrically opposed to the interests of agriculture. As long as European politicians are committed to Net Zero, they will always have farmers in their sights. Furthermore, farmers’ cause will continue to resonate with ordinary people who are also badly treated by their environmental leaders, whose policies drive up prices and undermine food and energy security. The farmers are just the canaries in the coal mine. They were just the first group of people to be pushed to the breaking point – and to organize as a result.
Farmers are a deterrent example for those in power in Europe. The green elites assumed that the farmers would swallow their bitter medicine. They didn’t see the people behind the emissions numbers on their spreadsheets. And the broader push for Net Zero could soon generate much more opposition, from a much broader swath of society. Because under current plans, our energy bills will skyrocket as we replace reliable fossil fuels with unreliable renewables. Our tried and tested gas boilers could soon be replaced by expensive and inefficient heat pumps. Older, cheaper vehicles are being phased out or taxed to promote electric cars. Once again the establishment seems to believe that it can change our way of life and shred our standard of living without a peep of discontent. This is bound to provoke a huge backlash. And the farmers showed us the way.
May the farmers’ revolt continue. And we hope it inspires many more people to take a stand.
Author: Patrick Wood
yogaesoteric
April 23, 2024