Over the past two years, farmers throughout Europe have mobilized on a scale that should dominate news headlines.
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European farmers are not protesting against environmental responsibility. Many already apply methods of balance preservation, reduced inputs, limited grazing, cover cropping, and soil-enhancing methods. What they reject are regulations detached from reality.
Under policies guided by the European Union and initiatives such as the European Green Deal, farmers face rules that arbitrarily impose nitrogen limits per hectare, treat synthetic nitrogen and organic nitrogen as the same, require land to be removed from production regardless of local context, and demand extensive reporting on arable land and compliance that small and medium-sized farms cannot sustain.
This is no longer about practices. There are regenerative agriculture farmers, without chemicals, with integrated livestock, biologically active soil, whose crops are still regulated to death.
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When agriculture becomes impossible, land changes hands. Small and medium-sized farms close first. Family land is sold. Concentration accelerates. Institutional capital enters. Farmers become tenants, or disappear entirely. European farmers understand this. That is why they are angry.
