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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

For the past month, European farmers have been blocking roads and protesting against new European Union (EU) rules that could transform European agriculture.

Many of the ideas that farmers protested against are associated with the EU’s Green Deal, an ambitious project to make Europe carbon-neutral by 2050.

One of the most controversial proposals sought to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2030, sparking an angry backlash from farmers who have already struggled with low food prices, stiff competition, and razor-thin profit margins over the past year.

The disruptive protests have been effective, with the EU leadership ultimately abandoning the pesticide-reduction idea.

Plus, individual European governments have promised hundreds of millions of Euros in aid and subsidies to struggling farmers.

By looking closer at these farmers’ protests, we can better understand:

• The challenges of modern agriculture 🚜

• How eco-friendly policies can affect the business of farming 🌱

• What Food Sovereignty is and how it can inform conversations about agricultural policy & practice 👩‍🌾

Why are Farmers Protesting Across Europe?

Key facts:

• Agriculture was responsible for ~11% of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020

• Between 2005 and 2020, the number of farms across the EU fell by nearly 40% 

• The EU wants to transform its agricultural regulations in order to comply with its net-zero goals

Some of the environmental proposals that sparked protests include:

• Reducing pesticide use by 50% by 2030

• Mandating that farmers leave at least 4% of their arable land fallow every year

• Reducing fertilizer use by 20%

In addition to the burdensome regulations, European farmers have highlighted several factors making it more difficult for them to stay in business:

• Rising costs for fertilizers, pesticides, and farm equipment

• Cheap imports from Ukraine and countries outside Europe that undercut their prices

• Existing regulations that keep them in front of laptops instead of on their farms

French farmer Morgan Ody, a representative from the Confédération Paysanne farming union, explained to TIME Magazine:

Ody also highlighted the contradiction at the heart of the EU policy:

Corporate Agriculture vs. Small Farmers

Critics also highlight that Europe's massive farm-subsidy program, the Common Agriculture Policy, favors large corporate farms at the expense of small family-owned farms.

Nearly a third of the EU's budget goes toward agricultural subsidies, which are defended by corporate agriculture lobbies like Copa-Cogeca.

Copa-Cogeca claims to represent “over 22 million European farmers and their family members,” but many small farmers say that the agricultural lobbying group only advocates for large farms.

What is Food Sovereignty?

The concept of Food Sovereignty was coined by the international farmers collective La Via Campesina in 1996.

The group defines food sovereignty as:

Put more simply, food sovereignty is the idea that farmers and communities (rather than corporations and governments) should have control over different aspect of the food production process, from the seeds planted to the ways that the food is distributed to the people.

The seven pillars of food sovereignty are highlighted below:

LEARN MORE:

The history of La Via Campesina and food sovereignty is fascinating and worth exploring in greater detail.

La Via Campesina has served as a hub for peasant farmers around the world for decades, and I expect that we will see more farmers’ protests — and social movements oriented around food sovereignty — in the years to come.

Here’s a PDF from La Via Campesina explaining the group’s history and goals, and here’s a video from the group explaining the concept of food sovereignty:

ART OF THE DAY

Thank you for reading. Please reply to this email if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Yours,
Dan