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https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-do-the-eu-farmer-protests-relate-to-climate-change/
Analysis: How do the EU farmer protests relate to climate change?
Orla Dwyer
05.02.2024 | 4:36pm
Food and farming
From Berlin and Paris, to Brussels and Bucharest, European farmers have driven their tractors to the streets in protest over recent weeks.
According to reports, these agricultural protesters from across the European Union have a series of concerns, including competition from cheaper imports, rising costs of energy and fertiliser, and environmental rules.
Farmers have been protesting across the EU, including in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Romania. The demonstrations have also begun in the UK and India in recent weeks in response to similar concerns.
The UK’s Sunday Telegraph has tried to frame the protests as a “net-zero revolt” with several other media outlets saying the farmers have been rallying against climate or “green” rules.
Carbon Brief has analysed the key demands from farmer groups in 12 countries to determine how they are related to greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, biodiversity or conservation.
The findings show that many of the issues farmers are raising are directly and indirectly related to these issues. But some are not related at all. Several are based on policy measures that have not yet taken effect, such as the EU’s nature restoration law and a South American trade agreement.
Update: This article was extended on 19 February to include more countries in the analysis.
Why farmers are protesting
The issues EU farmers are raising centre around “falling sale prices, rising costs, heavy regulation, powerful and domineering retailers, debt, climate change and cheap foreign imports”, the Guardian reported.
Carbon Brief has gathered a range of specific concerns based on media reports and farmer union statements across 12 EU countries.
Each one is classified around whether the concern is related to climate change and/or greenhouse gas emissions (green), biodiversity and/or conservation (yellow), or not related to either set of issues (red).
Note, this table is not exhaustive.
[table]
These issues relate to climate change and biodiversity in different ways.
In some countries, protesters are calling for more action on climate adaptation, particularly in Greece where farmers are asking for measures to prevent farmland being damaged by flooding and other extreme weather.
In other cases, farmers are calling for fuel subsidies to continue and for fertiliser and pesticide restrictions to be reconsidered.
The EU’s “farm to fork” strategy – the bloc’s broad sustainable food initiative – focuses on cutting both pesticides and fertilisers in the years ahead to optimise their use and reduce harm (read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on fertilisers and climate change).
tweet from Gerardo Fortuna (@gerardofortuna) "It's been a tough job but someone had to: I checked ALL the proposed actions in the Farm to Fork strategy and I found out that over half of them have not got off the ground (and more than two-thirds will likely remain unfinished before the term ends)"
Last November, politicians voted against the EU’s proposed pesticide regulation which aimed to halve the use and risk of chemical pesticides by the end of this decade. The European commission scrapped the plans entirely on 6 February.
The EU said these rules would have “translate[d] our commitment to halt biodiversity loss in Europe into action”, highlighting the health risks and water quality issues associated with pesticide use.
European legislators are working to finalise a number of other climate and biodiversity rules this year ahead of the June elections.
How the protests have developed
In December, the German government announced plans to reduce subsidies and spending in an effort to fill a €17bn gap in the country’s 2024 budget.
The measures included cutting some agricultural subsidies and tax breaks, leading to an outburst of farmer protests (as covered in Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter).
In the weeks since then, other farmer groups across the EU have been taking to the streets with their own concerns.
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