Farmers are protesting across the EU in places like Germany, Greece, Italy, France and Brussels. There are are a number of issues making their livelihoods unsustainable. These include the rising price of animal feed, fertilizer, and energy; cheaper imports from outside the EU, particularly Ukraine; high taxes and red tape; and the impact of climate regulations. Although the EU spends a substantial percentage of its budget supporting farmers, many farmers are still unable to make ends meet. And with elections looming, far-right parties are exploiting the farmers’ protests. Therefore, it’s important to understand the issues affecting the farmers. In a recent panel discussion, members of DEiM25 explain the Plight of European Farmers. Some of the issues addressed are: is there a just transition that curbs emissions while minimizing the impact on farmers? What is the role of the far-right and where are the left-wing parties in all of this?
DEiM25 is the Democracy in Europe Movement. Its goal is to democratize Europe and make the Green New Deal a reality. Panel members taking part in this discussion include Yanis Varoufakis, Karen De Rigo, and Frederico Dolci. Yanis Varoufakis has been the secretary-general of DEiM25 since 2018. He is a Greek economist and politician. De Rigo is the lead German candidate for DEiM25 in the European elections. Dolci is the spokesperson for the associated MERA25 in Italy and activists across Europe. Erik Edman is the political director of DEiM25. He joins from Brussels.
The reality of farming in Europe versus the oligarch’s narrative
According to Edman, the first reality of farming in Europe is that a third of European farmers have disappeared in the last 15 years. The main cause is the takeover of farming by agribusiness. Suddenly in Europe, there are bigger machines, fewer farmers and fewer small farms. This has also been happening to farmers in the United States.
However, in Europe, all of these outcomes are compounded by the way the European Union and member states do policy. The most well-known agricultural policy in Europe is the CAP policy, or the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. Although CAP is the recipient of the biggest portion of the EU’s agricultural budget, 80 percent of that budget goes to 20 percent of the farmers. Therefore, 80 percent of European farmers are struggling to make ends meet. The reason for this is that CAP payments are based on land holdings, and global multinationals and a few wealthy farmers own 80 percent of the land.
Unfortunately, many of the protesters are being mislead about the cause of their troubles. Hypocrisy and misunderstandings surround the protests. The dominant narrative among farmers and the general population is that Environmental Protection rules are the cause of their problems. But this doesn’t seem likely. The majority of the Environmental rules have not gone into effect yet. They have either not been legislated or the governments are dragging their feet on implementing them. But the fact remains that costs are rising for farmers and consumers. Why is this happening?
Who or what is to blame for the rising costs of farming?
The rising costs of farming have led to a steady fall in income for farmers and everyone else. The costs increased even more after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This invasion together with the EU’s policy of boycotting Russia is at least partly responsible for the rising costs of fertilizer and energy.
Retailers have added to the problem by taking advantage of the situation. They have raised their prices and blamed it on the rising costs of farming. But farmers are still forced to sell at the prices that were in place before the crisis. Small farmers are hurt by these factors while multinationals benefit from the CAP.
Failing governments over the last 20 or 30 years–mostly right-wing governments–have blamed their failure on environmental rules. This hides the fact that their policies favored multinationals. In addition, they have actually been avoiding environmental policies in the same period, which could have softened the economic burden on farmers. Currently, these right-wing interests are using the farmers’ protests to roll back the few environmental rules that Europeans have managed to pass.
Holland sacrifices its water supply for unregulated pig farming
Right-wing or centrist Dutch governments have become an example of Europe’s short-term thinking about the environment. Holland has resisted environmental directives for so long that its water supplies have been poisoned by nitrates from pig farming. The Dutch government has been warned about this since the late 1990s. The EU even had a directive on nitrate levels that came into effect in the early 2000s. But the government consistently focused on short-term economic goals rather than the long-term threat to the water. As a result, they have been forced to shut down huge parts of their agricultural infrastructure for pig farming, destroying the livelihood of thousands of farmers. Obviously, it would have been better to act in the short-term rather than being forced to implement draconian measures.
The response of DEiM25
Unfortunately, the Green Party has not stepped up on this issue. Nor has the Left addressed it as much as it should have. As a result, farmers alone are bearing the burden of the environmental catastrophe. DEiM25 is trying to correct a lack of awareness on the part of progressives and the Left.
Yanis Varoufakis: the dependence of the European Union on agricultural policies that benefit the wealthy
Yanis Varoufakis explains how the European Union got its start. The EU began in 1950 as a cartel of heavy industry. Initially, it called itself the European Communities of Coal and Steel, and its first members were the steel and coal producing countries: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Northern Italy. By 1951, they had also coopted car manufacturers and electrical goods companies. At this point, the EU represented the whole industrial sector of Northern Central Europe.
Subsequently, the Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community. The EEC was a deal between capital, heavy industry and large-scale farmers. Farmers were included because, in order for this cartel to work, it needed free trade with no borders. So, the EEC had to convince the large farmers in the Netherlands, Germany and Northern France to agree to the elimination of borders. The industrialists were able to convince the large farmers by telling them that everyone, was going to make a lot of money by cutting back on production and driving prices up. The farmers were promised a cut of this money. You could say that the CAP was the result of a bribe. And the bribe did not help all farmers.
Class war between farmers
Currently, the EU and EEC represent a class war on a number of levels. On one level is a class war between farmers. Small holders in Sicily, Spain and Greece are not able to take advantage of CAP, so the benefits go to large farmers in the North.
Class war between farmers and the energy cartel
Another class war takes place between the farmers, and the energy cartel. In the first years of the EU, electricity was provided by nationalized public utilities. But Thatcherism privatized electricity generation. As a result, electricity grids became vassals of oligarchs who own the power stations. Soon, energy prices began rising much faster than the price of agricultural commodities. The electricity cartel also benefits from the war in Ukraine.
Class war between farmers and the agribusiness cartel
The agribusiness cartel is all over the world. It is currently poisoning the land in Pakistan, India, and everywhere it operates. Agribusiness forces genetically modified seeds and certain kinds of pesticides on farmers. Once the land is poisoned, the seeds the farmers used before won’t work. In addition, the modified seeds don’t reproduce themselves, so farmers are forced to buy them from Bayer and Monsanto every year.
Class war between North and South Europe
A third kind of class war is between North and South Europe due to differences in climate and productivity in the soil.
Class war between East and West Europe
A forth kind of class war is taking place between east and west. The European Union, the European Commission and member states have pressured Orban and other leaders to allow Ukraine into the EU. But the business model of every farmer in Europe will be ruined if Ukraine enters the EU. Ukraine has more productive capacity for agriculture than Germany, Belgium, Holland and France together. This means that the majority of the CAP money will go to Ukraine. Other countries, such as Poland, will shift from being a net beneficiary of the CAP to being a net contributor. French farmers will be cut off and Greek farmers will be finished.
Already Ukrainian products have been entering Europe in solidarity with Ukrainian farmers. In response, the Polish government, which used to support Zelenskyy, is now vetoing aid to Ukraine.
Class war over who pays for the Green Transition
As for the green transition, if you mention it to farmers in Europe, you will become their enemy. For them the Green Transition is not green and it’s not a transition. It represents certain bankruptcy. This is due to the fact that Bayer and Monsanto will not pay for the transition plans of the EU. The cartel of big business that created the EU won’t pay for it either. The consumers and farmers will pay. The green transition is an intensification of the class war for farmers and the working classes.
Three planks of DEiM25
DEiM25 has three planks. Varoufakis lists them as peace; basic universal income; and making the oligarchs pay for the green transition. But here again, Europe and the United States are similar. The victims of the oligarchs are turning to the right-wing and voting for parties and candidates like Donald Trump who claim to be anti-establishment. Such candidates are not anti-establishment. They are the establishment’s greatest servants. For this reason, they threaten small farmers more than they threaten large farmers. But neither class of farmers is a natural ally of the Left.
Farmers in the North of Europe are not allies of the Left because they are capitalist employers. They support both ultra-right and center-right parties as long as they can avoid environmental legislation, or as long as they don’t have to pay for it. In their opinion, it’s better if the proletariate pays for it.
The small holders of Greece, Italy, and other countries in the south. are more accepting of progressive policies, but they side with anti-immigration parties because they depend on undocumented laborers. Legal immigration would make them too expensive.
The job of DEiM25, according to Varoufakis, is to create a rupture within the agricultural sector and win the support of the victims of the class war, small farmers.
Germany’s protests began earlier and for different reasons
Karin De Rigo provides informations specific to Germany, where the situation is different from the rest of Europe. The protests there started before Christmas, and for a different reason–the government announced a budget deficit. In Germany this automatically required that they immediately cut costs. So they cut the diesel subsidies and the tax rebate on vehicles. These cuts were not life-threatening for the companies, but they sparked protests because they came on top of everything else that was happening. Now, it is feared that the cuts will destabilize the government, so of course, the right-wing parties have taken advantage of the turmoil.
The structure of the German market is also a factor. Germany has an oligopoly. Four corporations own 75 percent of the retailers, including the supermarkets. This means that German farmers have to negotiate with the oligarchs. But the oligarchs have the upper hand. If an individual farmer doesn’t accept their policies, he will be out of the market.
In addition, the big corporations are vertically integrated. Supermarkets for example, own the whole supply chain, and small companies can’t compete.
The true interests behind the protests
Farmers protest are important, but it’s important that they protest for the right reasons. For example, food and job security. Food shouldn’t be a commodity or subject to speculation. It’s a human right. A safe job in the farming sector and a dignified salary is also a human right. Politicians should not be able to control this narrative. The protesters need to control it.
The only path forward is to break the monopoly. CAP needs to be restructured and the system reorganized. This is the platform of DEiM25’s Green New Deal.
The factors leading to these protests are at least 10 years old
Frederico Dolce sees the current protests as a continuation of something that started in the time of José Bové–ten years ago. (Bové is a French farmer, politician and syndicalist, and former member of the EU Parliament.) Today, the protests claim to support anti-green policies, but green policies are not the problem. This is a false narrative proposed by a confederation representing the major firms–the same firms that push aside small farmers and down-to-earth leaders.
An example of this confederation is Arnaud Rousseau. He began his career in commodities trading and then took over his family’s cereal farm. Another example is Danilo Calvani, a producer from Lazio. These people are only interested in more subsidies for large farms.
The Supermarket Revolution
Europeans have a problem matching the Green Revolution with the current agricultural system. They call this the Supermarket Revolution, and it has developed over the last 25 years. Today, 74.5 percent of fresh and packaged food goes through the corporate channels. In Italy, only 13 percent remains with traditional sources.
In the same period, Italian farms have gone from 3 million in 1982 to 1.4 million in 2014. But the number of foreign workers, most of them employed illegally, has increased. Foreign workers account for a third of agricultural wage-earners. Dolce calls this ‘the new system’. Those in charge of the protests do not want to change the new system. They only want to obtain more favorable conditions for themselves.
The real enemies of the agriculture world, according to Dolce, are large distributors, agribusiness industrialists, fake agricultural unionists, and a corrupt CAP system. The Green New Deal not only needs to push for CAP reform, it needs to reform the entire system.
The historical context of the struggle over agriculture: the beginning of corporate farming
Dafne Delkara, based in France, provides historical context. In November of this year, there was a law proposed by DEiM25 to reintroduce floor prices for producers so their minimum production costs would be covered. The measure fell short by six votes thanks to government intervention. Currently, the Left is trying to reintroduce this proposal and call for another vote. But unfortunately, the public is not aware of this effort. The media did not mention it. Instead, they continue to blame Left-wing environmentalists for the farmers’ problems.
Guatemala and United Fruit
Reaching back further in time, Delkara cites Guatemala as an example of how ruthless large corporations and the government can be. In 1952, the Árbenz government planned to distribute land to the peasantry. At that time, United Fruit owned a third of the arable land in Guatemala. To preserve the company’s profitable operation in Guatemala, United Fruit persuaded Harry Truman to overthrow Árbenz. Two hundred thousand Guatemalans died, including 160,000 peasants.
Nixon, Earl Butz, and the end of New Deal farm policies
Another historical moment occurred after the 1973 oil shock in the US. when foreclosures were sweeping the country. The foreclosures particularly devastated small farms. In the same decade, Nixon’s agricultural minister, Earl Butz, ended the New Deal era of farming policies and paved the way for corporate farming.
Ukraine and the IMF after Euromaidan
After Euromaidan, Europe lowered the trade barriers between Ukraine and the EU, and European farmers were priced out. Ukrainian products started flooding European markets and bringing down prices. But the trouble started before that.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a decade of land privatization. During that time, many Ukrainian farms were hoarded by the oligarchic class. In 2001, in order to stop this process, the government introduced a moratorium on the sale of agricultural land.
When Ukraine’s debt began to rise, the IMF stepped in under the condition that land reform would restart and the land market would be reopened. The peasants protested the reopening of the land market. At first, the protests were successful, but then the pandemic hit. Because the people could not leave their houses to protest, the Land Reform measures were passed.
In June 2021, Ukraine reopened its agricultural land market. Current owners include Ukrainian multinationals, trust funds and transfers from the European Investment Bank.
The Black Sea Grain Deal
The Black Sea grain deal was supposed to help low-income countries. But, according to the World Bank’s numbers, only 3 percent of that grain went to low-income countries. The question is, why does the third world, especially Africa, have to depend on imports in the first place? The answer is that overproduction in European markets gets dumped on Africa. This destroys African farming.