Posted on 04/01/2024 5:13:06 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Europe’s farmers are rising up – and the elites are terrified. In France, farmers recently staged a four-day ‘siege of Paris’, blocking major roads around the French capital. In January, thousands of tractors descended on Berlin in Germany, lining the streets leading up to the Brandenburg Gate. In Brussels, farmers have gathered from all over Europe to demonstrate against the EU and pelt the European Parliament with eggs. In the Netherlands, tractors have caused the longest traffic jam in the nation’s history, as part of a years-long battle between farmers and the government. This farmers’ revolt is now truly Europe-wide. From Portugal to Poland, from Ireland to Italy, almost every EU country has been rocked by protests. So what is driving this populist uprising? What do the farmers want?
Farmers in each country have their own specific grievances, of course. 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 on-high. It has made farmers’ lives a misery, sacrificing their livelihoods at the altar of climate alarmism. Bureaucrats who have no idea how farmers work and live, have essentially been condemning farms – many of them run by families for generations – to oblivion, all at the stroke of the regulator’s pen. And farmers are simply not putting up with it anymore.
The first stirrings of revolt began in 2019, in the Netherlands, with the so-called nitrogen crisis. The Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the government was failing to cut nitrogen pollution to EU-approved levels. In response, the Dutch government promised ‘drastic measures’ to cut nitrogen emissions. In all but name, it declared war on its nation’s farmers. Suddenly, the government had turned against one of its most important and impressive sectors. You see, the Netherlands, despite its small size, is the second-largest exporter of food in the entire world, thanks to the world-beating efficiency of its farms. And nitrogen is intrinsic to this efficiency. Fertilisers are rich in nitrogen, and farmers need fertilisers to maximise their crop yields. Nitrogen is also an inevitable byproduct of animal farming. Livestock release ammonia, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, through their excrement. The Netherlands has over four million cows, 13million pigs and 104million chickens. Which is a lot of manure and a lot of nitrogen. Any crackdown on nitrogen emissions was always going to hit farmers hard. Even so, the Dutch government’s proposals went even further than anyone could have imagined. It said it would buy out thousands of the most polluting farms and simply shut them down. Other farms would have to cull a proportion of their animals. This would mean slaughtering around half of all the livestock in the Netherlands. In all, this represented an unthinkable act of national economic self-harm.
Thus, the farmers’ revolt was born. Huge protests erupted in 2019. After a brief hiatus during the Covid pandemic, they came roaring back in 2021 and 2022. Dutch farmers blocked roads, railways and canal bridges with tractors and hay bales. They defied government bans to bring tractors into the Hague. Tens of thousands took part in the demonstrations. But the Dutch government did not back down. It kept proposing new targets, new measures and new restrictions on nitrogen....
Communists always love rationing. Food, energy, housing, travel. What is not mandatory is forbidden.
If the commies in Brussels could starve out the peasants (a la Stalin) they would.
Control food and you control people. Communists are willing to let *millions* starve to death in order to put themselves in control of those who survive. The history of communism is full of engineered famines.
I admire the pluck of the European farmers, but the EU governments have the guns. Sooner or later they’re going to get tired of these protests and start shooting. It’s what they always do.
Do these so called elites think that their food is produced at the grocery store?
Piss off the people that produce what you eat....
Who thought that this was a good idea?
They think it is produced “elsewhere.” I’ve asked this question often. They are happy for some 3rd world shithole to grow everything, without knowing, of course, that people in third world shitholes can’t even feed themselves much less a first world country’s population. They stupidly think they are helping third world countries by directing agriculture to them, again, not realizing they are raising cost of food production and starving people to death.
Omen II
“Our profitable future, gentlemen ... is also in famine”
The French, Dutch, German, Belgian, and Irish farmers are largely unarmed. Our farmers and ranchers are not, The Feds cannot enforce similar regulations in this country without state help. California will be happy to comply with Federal “green” regulations as they are rolled out. That will be a problem for American fruit, nut, and vegetable production, much of which is concentrated in that state. Florida, most of the South, the northern Rockies states, and the Plains states will not.
You’re making a good point. These elites are living in an imaginary bubble of some sort. Going after farmers is a small part of the problem.
The elite majority are rich white people and they are purposely flooding their own countries with third world people for the exacting purpose of creating chaos and breaking down their own culture.
These jerk wads don’t realize if the culture is broken down into a third world status and the farmers are hacked to death as in Africa that they are screwed. It will be like Dark Ages where they have to live in heavily guarded castles.
Guns do no good when you have nothing to feed your soldiers. Less than 2% of Europeans are farmers. Ditto the USA. You’ll know the farmers are serious when they only plant enough to feed themselves. It’s coming because the Marxists genuinely believe they can wait them out. Very, very shortsighted on the part of the gubmint, but that’s nothing new.
GOOD!!!
Farmers will be fine. People who depend on them? Not so much, particularly if the farmers decide to only plant what they need. It would only take 10% of them not planting a full crop to cause severe chaos in the supply chain. Pissing off the people who grow your food is never a good idea.
It behooves us all to learn how to garden.
“It behooves us all to learn how to garden.”
People have no idea of the amount of work involved with growing and tending even a small one-quarter acre garden.
Which is why the government will work to make that hard to do, under the guise of environmental protection.
Self-reliance is a crime against the State.
Are you sure the elites are shaken? Street protests are simple decor for them.
It will take more than a tractor in the road to get their attention.
That’s right.
Every year I tell mr. mm that I sure am glad that we don’t have to actually live on what I grow. But it sure helps stretch things out.
I’m still working on onions from last year and was looking at my potatoes. They are starting to sprout and I’ll be pressure canning those that I’m not going to use for seed potatoes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.