European farmer protests rage on

MADRID, SPAIN — European farmers continued their tractor rallies and demonstrations straight through the month of February and now into March. There have been protests in at least 17 European Union countries. 

While North American mainstream media has been shy to report on the farmer revolt across the Atlantic, European farmers have been making progress. They are protesting cheap crops coming in from Ukraine and Latin America, as well as climate change policies that would be especially burdensome on farmers.

Here are a few farmer victories since the protests began in January:

• The European Parliament last month shelved a plan to further restrict agricultural pesticides.
• France abandoned a plan to tax agricultural diesel and further restrict pesticide use and offered $433 million in aid and tax breaks.
• In Spain, the far-left president Pedro Sanchez has promised a fairer relationship with farmers, as VOX party leader Santiago Abascal has become a staunch farm defender and charged that Spanish farmers are facing unfair competition, radical environmentalism, unbearable red tape and  the “criminalization of their way of life.”
• Germany will delay cuts to diesel tax breaks.

The head of the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) in the Netherlands,  Caroline van der Plas, has said that Europe’s “Green Deal politics will mean (the) end of farming for many farmers in Europe.”