To meet climate targets, some European countries are asking farmers to reduce, relocate or close down livestock numbers – and an angry backlash has begun to reshape the political landscape ahead of national elections in the fall.
This summer dozens of farmers came to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to protest against new EU rules aimed at restoring natural areas and reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. Farmers have also protested in Belgium, Italy and Spain.
The discontent has underscored a widening divide in a continent that is determined to take action on climate change, but often deeply divided over how to do it and who should pay for it.
People like Helma Breunissen, who runs a dairy farm in the Netherlands with her husband, say that too much of the burden is on them, threatening both their livelihoods and their way of life.
For nearly 20 years, Ms. Breunissen has provided the Dutch with a staple product: cow’s milk, and she felt that her work was appreciated by society, she said. The dairy sector in the Netherlands, where cheeses such as Gouda and Edam are also produced, is celebrated as the cornerstone of national pride.
But the sector also causes almost half of Dutch nitrogen emissions, a surplus of which is bad for biodiversity. Mrs. Breunissen and thousands of other farmers insist that they are now labeled as peak emitters.
“I was confused, sad and angry,” says Mrs. Breunissen, who runs a farm with a hundred cows in the middle of the country. “We are doing our best. We try to follow the rules. And suddenly it’s like you’re a criminal.”
A sense of betrayal
Many farmers have deep feelings. The prominent role of agriculture was enshrined in the founding documents of the European Union as a way of ensuring food security for a continent still traumatized by the rigors of World War II.
But it was also a nod to national identity and a way to protect competing agricultural interests in what would become a common market. To this end, the bloc has established a fund from the outset that provides farmers with billions of dollars in subsidies annually to this day.
But increasingly these subsidies and the bloc’s ideals run up against a new ambition: adapting to a world where climate change threatens traditional ways of life. Scientists are adamant: To meet the bloc’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and reversing biodiversity loss, Europe must transform the way it produces its food.
In the Netherlands, the government has asked thousands of farmers to scale back, move or close. Authorities have earmarked around €24 billion, about $26 billion, to help farmers implement – or buy out – more sustainable solutions.
Wilhelm Doeleman, a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, said farmers are not the only ones affected. “The government has also imposed measures in the construction, mobility and industry sectors,” he notes.
‘But’, he acknowledged, ‘the biggest challenge lies with the farmers.’
For Mrs. Breunissen, who is 48 and works as a veterinarian in addition to her work on the farm, none of the options proposed by the government seem feasible. She is too young to quit and too old to disrupt her life, she said, and authorities have not provided enough support and information on how to change what she is doing now.
“There are so many questions,” she said. “Trust in the government is completely gone.”
A new political force
Farmers’ disillusionment with established parties is fueling new political movements – and in some places has turned rural communities into a ripe new constituency for far-right nationalist parties and others.
Although only nine million of Europe’s nearly 400 million voters work in agriculture, they form a vocal and influential bloc that captures the sympathy of many on a continent where a country’s identity is often tied to the food it produces.
A large number of new groups are fighting to supplant the traditional parties. This includes the Farmer Citizen Movement, known by its Dutch abbreviation BBB, which was founded four years ago.
The party has only one seat in the 150-member Dutch House of Representatives, but won regional elections in March and opinion polls predict it will do well in November’s national elections.
Caroline van der Plas, co-founder of the party, was a journalist in The Hague who reported on the meat industry, and has never worked in agriculture. But she grew up in a small rural town, and she said in an interview that she wanted to be “the voice of the rural people who are not seen or heard” by policy makers.
She and her party have discussed the need for drastic steps to cut emissions, saying the reductions can be achieved through technological innovation. Policy should be based on “common sense,” she said, without offering concrete solutions.
“It’s not that science says this or that,” Ms van der Plas said, referring to how theories can change. “Science always asks questions.”
Parties like the Farmer Citizen Movement are making progress, analysts say, by presenting the issue of the ecological transition as part of the culture wars.
Referring to that phenomenon, Ariel Brunner, the Brussels-based European director of the environmental charity BirdLife International, said: “There is political manipulation.”
But, he added, “it feeds on real grievances and a real sense of hardship.”
Sharing the responsibility
Many farmers say they are not opposed to tackling the problem of climate change, noting that their livelihoods are more directly affected than many others. But they say the burden should be more evenly distributed.
Geertjan Kloosterboer, a 43-year-old farmer with 135 cows in the eastern Netherlands, is the third generation to work on his family’s farm. He said four of the past six summers had been extremely dry.
“Something is changing,” he said. But the question, he added, was, “What can we do about it together?”
Mr Kloosterboer indicated that he would like to innovate, but that the government is asking too quickly and too much. “Tell me what I must do to do the right thing,” he said.
The Department of Agriculture said it had provided farm consultants to advise individual farmers. But it acknowledged that because the country would be ruled by a transitional government until a new coalition was formed after November’s elections, the way forward remained unclear for now.
Sitting at her kitchen table on her farm, surrounded by paintings of cows and a reproduction of ‘The Milkmaid’ by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, Ms Breunissen said she felt like all the attention was focused on urban areas rather than the countryside . that there was no room for ‘this kind of life’.
“If you want to make a change, you all have to decide together to consume less,” she said. “It’s not just about the farmers.”