Stephen Cadogan: EU still does not truly understand why farmers protest

They concluded the main reasons for EU farmer dissatisfaction were the need for a fair income, low profitability due to low prices and high costs, complex legislation and frequent changes in the accompanying regulations imposing a heavy administrative burden on farmers, and the lack of a level playing field globally and in the EU market.

There was no mention of the Dutch government's plan to halve nitrogen emissions by cutting livestock numbers by as much as one-third. This caused huge farmer protests since 2019.

There was no mention of the diesel price rise, which drove German farmers to start the EU's 2024 wave of farmer protests.

The Industrial Emissions Directive agreed by the EU was not mentioned. In its originally proposed form, it would have required 50% of Irish dairy farmers to get an EPA farming license every year.

Limiting Ireland's nitrates derogation from 250kg to 220kg, and threatening to remove it altogether, didn't make it into the document either.

These, and hundreds of other Green Deal-related measures, have transformed the EU's agriculture policy from supporting food production to curbing farm output.

Their status and respect as food producers helped farmers in the past to put up with lower incomes (agricultural income is only 60% of the average wage of EU employees). 

Farmers portrayed as environmental villains

Now, farmers are often portrayed as environmental villains, especially those producing animal foods. That was undoubtedly in the minds of many farmers in the recent protests.

It seems even the agriculture ministers have now distanced themselves from farmers, and are no more sympathetic than the environment ministers who recently passed the Nature Restoration Law, despite many member states opposing it.

The agriculture ministers emphasised proper functioning and preservation of ecosystems as crucial for food security and the long-term resilience of the EU agriculture, saying climate change mitigation and adaptation in all sectors, including agriculture, are key.

They said the agricultural sector had helped to achieve the EU’s climate, biodiversity, environmental, animal welfare and other sustainability objectives, but must continue these efforts.

Perhaps the only hint of doubt farmers can achieve this was that the ministers asked the commission to "favour an incentivising approach that remunerates farmers beyond the costs and income foregone for their ecosystem services". 

Are farmers supposed to be happy that maybe their climate actions will not make them poorer?

Of course, all this was accompanied by the usual political platitudes about the strategic role of agriculture for food security; and how it is key for the economic, social and territorial cohesion of rural areas.

The agriculture ministers emphasised the need to adequately support farmers in the transition to adopt sustainable practices while maintaining high standards for food safety. 

On this occasion, they didn't add the prices must be affordable for consumers, a combination which the small-holder farmers in 21 European countries represented by the European Coordination Via Campesina say is the "impossible mission" of "an agroecological transition while producing for the lowest possible price". The ECVC was present at many of the EU farmer protests.

The ministers ominously said "agriculture should remain a key strategic interest in the years to come, given the current geopolitical context". 

Does that mean it can be ignored completely afterwards?

Have the agriculture ministers not noted the biggest European Parliament group, the EPP, promising to slow down the green transition for farmers (and energy-intensive industries)? 

Not to mind the many newly elected so-called right-wing MEPs of Germany's AfD, the Dutch PVV, Poland’s PiS, and Fidesz in Hungary, who want to scrap the Green Deal, saying it is “destroying European agriculture”.