“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” a common sense sort of phrase that means don’t mistreat those who help provide the necessities.  In the agriculture world, we mean it a little more literally because if you abuse and mistreat farmers and ranchers, the hands that actually provide the food consumers eat everyday, you aren’t just damaging the someones business or even putting a stop to an industry, you are hurting the economy, markets, and literally taking food off your family’s table.

Farmers throughout Europe are taking to the streets in protest as they are no longer willing to sit back and take the demands of the government without being heard.  From France to Germany, Belgium to Italy, and even in Greece, thousands of ag producers have blocked streets with rotten produce, straw bales, manure piles and tractors in an attempt to get one point across, “NO Farmers, NO Food!”

It may seem like a sudden and extreme action taken by Europe’s farmers, but conditions over the last several years and months have led to this.  With so much focus on climate change and pushing through a green agenda, governments throughout the EU have put ag producers in a difficult position.  In an attempt to reduce emissions, new policies such as 20% less fertilizer use, increased crop rotations and 4% of arable land left fallow are forcing farmers to invest in new farming production methods that they can hardly afford.  In addition to costly farming practices, EU farmers have dealt with increased production costs following covid and the Ukraine/Russian War. 

Coupled with increased cost for ag production, farmers are also seeing a lack of government subsidies that have helped make food more affordable across the continent.  In Germany, their government is phasing out tax breaks for diesel usage.  While it might be well intended to help “balance the budget,” it will likely lead to several farmers resulting in bankruptcy.

The final straw of the farmer’s plight is the frustrating fact that the EU is developing foreign trade agreements on cheap imports that will undercut their domestic markets.  Having a little competition isn’t the issue, but the fact that the goods brought in from countries like Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay are not held to the same production standards that the EU farmers are.  

In essence, farmers across Europe are suffering from falling incomes because the markets cannot support the cost of production forced on them by government over regulations in conjunction with them having to compete with cheaper, substandard imported products.  You can see why they are fed up with their current situation and demanding to be heard.

Their persistence has led to some positive outcomes.  In France, the leading ag producer in the EU, concessions have been made to help guarantee fair prices for farmers from food retailers, the loosening of their green farming requirements and providing government aid packages to the tune of $160 million.  How or when such concessions will be granted is still yet to come, but such pledges were enough for the majority of protesters to finally go home.

As we watch what is happening to our agriculture family across the ocean, we might wonder just how their situation might affect us.  Truthfully, in the immediate future, it might not have any rippling effects that will hit our shores.  Exporting very little food products to EU countries, their new trade agreements are unlikely to play a factor in our ag industry.  

But down the road, the steps their governments take to balance the agendas of the environmental special interest groups and the farmers that feed their citizens just might play into what our own officials choose to push here at home.  We can only hope that first, they recognize the absolute necessary role farmers and ranchers play, not only in their economy, market, culture and providing their people with life’s essentials.  And second, governments, here and abroad, need to see the efforts producers throughout the ag industry are already making to be sustainable.