{"id":14230,"date":"2024-03-31T05:31:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-31T05:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/31\/angry-farmers-are-reshaping-europe\/"},"modified":"2024-03-31T05:31:07","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T05:31:07","slug":"angry-farmers-are-reshaping-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/31\/angry-farmers-are-reshaping-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Angry Farmers Are Reshaping Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/28\/multimedia\/28france-farm-01-lvmg-promo\/28france-farm-01-lvmg-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Angry Farmers Are Reshaping Europe\" title=\"Angry Farmers Are Reshaping Europe\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Gazing out from his 265-acre farm to the silhouetted Jura mountains in the distance, Jean-Michel Sibelle expounded on the intricate secrets of soil, climate and breeding that have made his chickens \u2014 blue feet, white feathers, red combs in the colors of France \u2014 the royalty of poultry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The \u201cpoulet de Bresse\u201d is no ordinary chicken. It was recognized in 1957 with a designation of origin, similar to that accorded a great Bordeaux. Moving from a diet of meadow bugs and worms to a mash of corn flour and milk in its final sedentary weeks, this revered Gallic bird acquires a unique muscular succulence. \u201cThe mash adds a little fat and softens the muscles formed in the fields to make the flesh moist and tender,\u201d Mr. Sibelle explained with evident satisfaction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But if this farmer seemed passionate about his chickens, he is also drained by harsh realities. Mr. Sibelle, 59, is done. Squeezed by European Union and national environmental regulations, facing rising costs and unregulated competition, he sees no further point in laboring 70 hours a week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He and his wife, Maria, are about to sell a farm that has been in the family for over a century. None of their three children want to take over; they have joined a steady exodus that has seen the share of the French population engaged in agriculture fall steadily over the past century to about 2 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are suffocated by norms to the point we can\u2019t go on,\u201d Mr. Sibelle said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Down on the European farm, revolt has stirred. The discontent, leading farmers to quit and demonstrate, threatens to do more than change how Europe produces its food. Angry farmers are <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/06\/climate\/europe-farming-protests-policy.html\" title=\"\">blunting climate goals<\/a>. They are reshaping politics ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June. They are <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/20\/world\/europe\/ukraine-poland-protest-farmers.html\" title=\"\">shaking European unity against Russia<\/a> as the war in Ukraine increases their costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s the end of the world versus the end of the month,\u201d Arnaud Rousseau, the head of the FNSEA, France\u2019s largest farmers\u2019 union, said in an interview. \u201cThere\u2019s no point talking about farm practices that help save the environment, if farmers cannot make a living. Ecology without an economy makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The turmoil has emboldened a far right that thrives on grievances and rattled a European establishment forced to make concessions. In recent weeks, farmers have blocked highways and descended on the streets of European capitals in a disruptive, if disjointed, outburst against what they call \u201cexistential challenges.\u201d In a shed full of the ducks he raises, Jean-Christophe Paquelet said: \u201cYes, I joined the protests because we are submerged in rules. My ducks\u2019 lives are short but at least they have no worries.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The challenges farmers cite include E.U. requirements to cut the use of pesticides and fertilizers, now partly dropped in light of the protests. Europe\u2019s decision to open its doors to cheaper Ukrainian grain and poultry in a show of solidarity added to competitive problems in a bloc where labor costs already varied widely. At the same time, the E.U. has in many cases reduced subsidies to farmers, especially if they do not shift to more environmentally friendly methods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">German farmers have attacked Green party events. This month, they spread a manure slick on a highway near Berlin that caused several cars to crash, seriously injuring five people. Spanish farmers have destroyed Moroccan produce grown with cheaper labor. Polish farmers are enraged by what they see as unfair competition from Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">French farmers, who <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/24\/world\/europe\/farmers-macron-paris-salon.html\" title=\"\">vented their fury against President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> during his recent visit to the Paris Agricultural Fair \u2014 where politicians regularly pat the backsides of bulls to prove their bona fides \u2014 say they can scarcely dig a ditch, trim a hedge, or birth a calf without confronting a maze of regulatory requirements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Fabrice Monnery, 50, who owns a 430-acre cereal farm, is among them. The cost for his electrified irrigation more than doubled in 2023, and his fertilizer costs tripled, he said, as the war in Ukraine increased energy prices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAt the start of the war, in 2022, our economy minister said we were going to destroy Russia economically,\u201d he said. \u201cWell, it\u2019s Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine that\u2019s destroying us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Farms are mythologized but misunderstood, he said. The soul of France is its \u201cterroir,\u201d the soil whose unique characteristics are learned over centuries by those cultivating it, yet the people living on that hallowed land feel abandoned. The average age of farmers is over 50, and many cannot find a successor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Often the romanticized image of the French farm \u2014 cows being milked at dawn as the mist rises over undulating pasture \u2014 is at some distance from reality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Through Mr. Monnery\u2019s office window, the Bugey nuclear plant could be seen belching steam into the blue sky. Urban development and industrial zones encroach on highly mechanized farms abutting deserted villages where small stores have been crushed by hypermarkets that offer cheaper imported meat and produce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe graduates of elite schools that run this country have no idea about farm life, or even what a day\u2019s labor feels like,\u201d Mr. Monnery said. \u201cThey\u2019re perched up there, the successors to our royal family, Macron chief among them.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-69bd2572\">\u2018Punitive Ecology\u2019<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ascendant far-right parties across the continent have seized on such anger three months before European Parliament elections. They portray it as another illustration of the confrontation between arrogant elites and the people, urban globalists and rooted farmers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Their message is that the countryside is the custodian of national traditions under assault from modernity, political correctness and immigration, in addition to a thicket of environmental rules that, in their view, defies common sense. Such messages resonate with voters who feel forgotten.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Marine Le Pen, the leader of France\u2019s anti-immigrant National Rally party, argues that true exile \u201cis not to be banished from your country, but to live in it and no longer recognize it.\u201d Her young lieutenant, the charismatic Jordan Bardella, 28, who is leading the party\u2019s election campaign, speaks of \u201cpunitive ecology\u201d as he crisscrosses the countryside.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Bardella often finds a receptive audience. Vincent Chatellier, an economist at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, said that close to 18 percent of French farmers live below the official poverty line, and 25 percent are struggling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For the National Rally, the E.U.\u2019s \u201cGreen Deal\u201d and \u201cFarm to Fork Strategy,\u201d which aim to halve chemical pesticide use and cut fertilizer use by 20 percent by 2030 as part of a plan to be carbon neutral by 2050, are a thinly disguised attack on the French economy. In February, under pressure from farmer protests, the E.U. acknowledged how polarizing its efforts have become, scrapping an anti-pesticide bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A recent poll by the daily Le Monde gave Ms. Le Pen\u2019s National Rally 31 percent of France\u2019s European election vote, well ahead of Mr. Macron\u2019s Renaissance party with 18 percent. Farmers may not contribute many votes directly but they are popular, even venerated, figures in France, and their discontent registers with a broad spectrum of voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Germany, Stefan Hartung, a member of Die Heimat (Homeland), a neo-Nazi party, addressed a farmers\u2019 protest in January and denounced Brussels and Berlin politicians who exert control over people by \u201cimposing things like climate ideology, gender madness and all that nonsense.\u201d Demonstrations by German farmers had not previously been as violent as the recent ones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s war between the Greens and farmers,\u201d said Pascal Bruckner, an author and political commentator in France. \u201cYou don\u2019t bite the hand that feeds you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cyrielle Chatelain, a French lawmaker who represents the mountainous Is\u00e8re region and leads a group of environmentalist parties in Parliament, said that it was wrong to say that \u201call farmers are angry with the Greens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s less the idea of a green transition that angers them,\u201d she said in an interview, \u201cthan the way it\u2019s applied.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Green Deal stipulates, for example, that hedges, home to nesting birds, cannot be cut between March 15 and the end of August. But in Is\u00e8re, Ms. Chatelain said, no bird would nest in a hedge on March 15 because the hedge is still frozen. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Thierry Thenoz, 63, a pig farmer in Lescheroux in southeastern France, told me he had replanted miles of hedges on his 700-acre farm. \u201cBut if I want to cut a 25-foot break in the hedge for a gate and a track, I have to negotiate with regulators.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Thenoz, who invested long ago in a methane unit to recycle pig manure as fertilizer to make his farm self-sustaining, has also decided to retire and sell his shares in the farm. His three children, he said, were just not interested.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-43aefcd2\">A Cornerstone Wobbles<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The cornerstone of a uniting Europe for more than six decades has been its Common Agricultural Policy, known as the C.A.P. As in the United States, where the government spends billions annually on farm subsidies, mostly for much larger farms than in western Europe, a viable agricultural sector is seen as a core strategic interest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The European policy has kept food abundant, set certain prices, and helped ensure that France and the European Union have a large trade surplus in agricultural and food products, even as it has come under scrutiny for <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/03\/world\/europe\/eu-farm-subsidy-hungary.html\" title=\"\">corruption<\/a> and favoring the rich. Big farms benefit most.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">French farmers who have led the protests of recent months over what they see as unfair competition from less regulated countries have themselves benefited enormously from E.U. subsidies and open global markets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">France has received more in annual financial support from Brussels for its farmers than any other country, more than $10 billion in 2022, said Mr. Chatellier, the economist. The French agriculture-and-food sector had a $3.8 billion surplus with China in 2022, and an even larger one with the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Europe\u2019s agricultural policy is riddled with problems that have contributed to the farm uprising. An expanding E.U. introduced greater internal competition. Cheap chickens bred with much lower labor costs in Poland have flooded the French market. Such problems abound in a bloc that now has 27 members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tariff-free imports from Ukraine \u2014 where labor is even cheaper \u2014 have given a sobering sense of what eventual Ukrainian membership in the E.U. would mean. (This month, the E.U. imposed restrictions on some imports from Ukraine, including chicken and sugar.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The C.A.P. has created an \u201cunhealthy dependency,\u201d Mr. Chatellier said. Farmers rely on politicians and officials, not consumers, for a substantial part of their revenue, and they feel vulnerable. Mr. Monnery said he received about $38,000 last year in E.U. aid, a sum that has declined steadily in recent years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Increasingly, the money is tied to a raft of rules to benefit the environment. A new E.U. requirement that farmers leave 4 percent of land uncultivated to help \u201cre-green\u201d the continent provoked special fury \u2014 and has been put on hold for a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/01\/world\/europe\/france-farmers-protest-macron.html\" title=\"\">Governments are scrambling<\/a> to contain the damage. Besides deferring some environmental rules, France has canceled a tax increase on diesel fuel for farm vehicles. It has turned against free trade, moving to block an agreement with Mercosur, a South American bloc accused by farmers of unfair competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The question is how much of a toll such concessions will take on the environment and whether these are cosmetic changes to what is widely seen as a dysfunctional, outdated European agricultural system.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-1ea10ec6\">Tough Road Ahead<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">M\u00e9ryl Cruz Mermy and her husband, Beno\u00eet Merlo, who graduated in agricultural engineering from a prestigious Lyon school, have moved in the opposite direction from most young people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over the past five years, they built a 700-acre organic farm in eastern France where they grow wheat, rye, lentils, flax, sunflowers and other crops, as well as raising cattle. They went into debt as they bought and rented land.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">If their path is to lead to the future of farming, it must be made easier, they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Merlo, 35, sees a \u201ccrisis of civilization\u201d in the countryside, where automation means fewer workers, the work is too arduous to attract most young people, and credit for investment is hard to obtain. He joined one protest out of extreme frustration. \u201cWe don\u2019t count the hours we work, and that work is not respected at its just value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They are committed environmentalists, but a crisis in the organic food sector, known as \u201cbio\u201d in France, has added to their difficulties. Bio boomed for some years, but hard-pressed consumers now balk at the higher prices. Several big supermarkets have dropped organic food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cNew norms for a greener planet are necessary,\u201d Ms. Cruz Mermy, 36, said, \u201cbut so are fair prices and competition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">I asked if they might give up the farm life. \u201cWe have two children aged 3 and 7, so we have to be optimistic,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want this farm to be an anchor for them. You look at the future \u2014 climate change, war, limited energy \u2014 and it feels ominous, but we go step by step.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over a century, that is what the family of Jean-Michel and Maria Sibelle did, breeding legendary poultry. Now, with a sense of resignation, they have come to the end of that road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t have the physical force I once had,\u201d Mr. Sibelle said. \u201cThat, too, is nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou know, I always wanted to be a farmer and had the good fortune to do that,\u201d he added. \u201cI would not have gone to a factory to work a 35-hour week even if I worked double that with my chicken and capons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He took me into his \u201cprize room,\u201d a shed filled with silver cups and trophies, S\u00e8vres porcelain sent by presidents, framed accolades and other tributes to the greatness of his blue-white-and-red Bresse chickens, symbols of a certain France that endures, but only just.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Erika Solomon<!-- --> contributed reporting from Berlin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gazing out from his 265-acre farm to the silhouetted Jura mountains in the distance, Jean-Michel Sibelle expounded on the intricate secrets of soil, climate and breeding that have made his chickens \u2014 blue feet, white feathers, red combs in the colors of France \u2014 the royalty of poultry. The \u201cpoulet de Bresse\u201d is no ordinary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/28\/multimedia\/28france-farm-01-lvmg-promo\/28france-farm-01-lvmg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19866,896,14625,19867],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14232,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14230\/revisions\/14232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}