European Farmers Fight the ‘Green’ Lobby’s Crackpot Policies that Risk a Global Famine
It happens over and over again through history: Urban elites that depend for their daily bread on distant farmers decide that their deal isn’t good enough. They have the power; the farmers don’t. Maybe they can squeeze the farmers harder, make their own lives even more comfortable. Or impose their Utopian ideals of “progress” and “social justice” at the expense of their weaker neighbors. What could possibly go wrong? Even if their meddling causes a famine, they can shift the pain to the farmers themselves, since the cities control the government.
That happened in the wake of the Black Plague, when the wages for those who worked the land started rising; so many of them had died, the labor supply was scarce. In England, nobles outraged that uppity peasants were earning too much passed laws making serfdom even worse, and outlawing any market-driven rise in peasants’ wages. This even though the prices the peasants had to pay had already risen too. The misery this ham-handed cash grab imposed caused the Peasants Revolt in 1381, which briefly won some concessions, before King Richard II’s advisors brutally crushed it.
The same thing happened in the early 1930s, when Stalin’s Soviet government decided to break the back of the Ukrainian nation, stealing peasants’ land, herding them into collectives, and seizing so much grain for sale on the global market that millions of Ukrainian farmers starved to death. Perhaps six million died, perhaps many more.
We saw the same horror in China from 1959 to 1961, when uncounted millions (estimates vary wildly from 3 million to 55 million) of politically helpless peasants died of hunger, thanks to Mao’s crackpot “reforms” of agriculture — inspired by Marxist theory, not reality on the ground. Some 30 years later, farmers would have their revenge; a grassroots movement of farmers helped smash the Chinese Communist party’s poisonous monopoly over the land. See my college mentor Prof. Kate Xiao Zhou’s amazing book How the Farmers Changed China.
The Climate Cult Wants Us to Starve and Freeze in the Dark
Elites in the West today, especially in Europe, are waging a postmodern war against those who work on the land, in the name of pseudo-scientific apocalyptic fears of a “climate crisis.” The same people who can’t determine what “male” and “female” mean think they can predict the weather 100 years from now. And they’re willing to trash the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in the name of the Climate Cult.
But farmers are fighting back again. A surge of farmer demonstrations has sent ripples across Europe in the past few months. Tractors roars past Parliament buildings, horns pierce the political silence, and lights illuminate the dark wintry nights – a fiery symphony of agricultural discontent.
From sun-drenched olive groves in Spain to sprawling wheat fields in Germany, farmers stand united, their anger echoing far beyond their tractors. The EU farmers are heroes of resistance against tyrannical “green policies” imposed by half-educated, politically brainwashed elites.
Farmers Rebel Against Crackpot Utopian Policies
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field,” said Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was right and it is even harder if you are part of a global system that is responsible for feeding 8.1 billion people on an everyday basis. The world’s nutritional requirements are satisfied through the relentless efforts of farmers across the globe.
Their pivotal role ensures the stability of our economies and safeguards our future. Their voice is important, and sometimes act as a harbinger of the coming trouble. As climate legislations are sweeping through our political landscape, farmers are increasingly entangled in a web of green legislation that jeopardizes both their livelihoods and our food security.
The Dutch farmers ignited the farmer protests in 2023, swinging an election against the green policies. Next it was the French farmers, known for their passionate advocacy, who took to the streets, blocking highways and roads leading to major cities like Paris. Their protests quickly transcended national borders, uniting diverse farmers across the European Union.
The farmers’ discontent is sown in a fertile bed of complex interconnected issues. Soaring fuel and fertilizer costs are just part of a larger problem caused by a systemic war on the agricultural sector. Economic hardship, regulatory frustration, and existential fear have become the norm for the farmers.
‘Farm to Fork’ or Farm to Famine?
Farmers say the burdensome EU regulations such as ‘Farm to Fork’ and EU Green Deal — which are driven by green climate philosophies — are inflexible, tyrannical, impractical, and are crippling their livelihood. Many might have to stop farming altogether.
The European Green Deal is the primary program which encompasses affiliated programs Farm to Fork, Fit for 55, and Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. The root cause has been the EU parliament’s belief that humanity will be doomed by climate change without a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector. So they declared war on the very farmers who feed them.
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The unelected EU bureaucrats imposed impractical policies that outlaw or slash the use of fertilizers, pesticides, fossil fuel powered tractors and subsidies for fuels. They even started pressuring farmers to sell their fields to the governments. Posing his challenge to the EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, the Danish Member of European Parliament Anders Vistisen asked, “Don’t you realize it? … This climate policy has run wild. On the streets, from Paris to Berlin, from Rome to Warsaw, farmers, workers, pensioners are protesting against this grotesque climate policy.”
Speaking to the Guardian, a farmer said, “They’re drowning us with all these regulations … . They need to ease up on all the directives and bureaucracy. We can’t compete with other countries when things are like this. We’re … drowning.” Truck drivers, who are an important part of the food supply chain, say they back the farmers. “We understand their anger because we value farmers. What are we going to do if they are not here? We won’t eat. Such protests are important,” said a trucker.
Responding to the widespread protests across Europe for a month, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reluctantly offered concessions. Last week, the EU commission revised several previously issued mandates, including the directives to reduce pesticide, emissions of methane and nitrous oxide.
Despite widespread mainstream media reports that celebrated the announcement as a victory for the farmer movement, European analysts worry that this could simply be a ploy to pacify the situation, designed to quell the persistent protests and weaken the fundamental demands of the farmers. Indeed, the farmers seem to have interpreted the concessions in a similar way. Farmers in Spain, Italy and Poland continued to protest this week. The key access road between Poland and Ukraine was blocked.
While temporary measures may quiet folks down for now, crackpot “green” initiatives are still on a collision course with reality. Farmers know that the EU commission’s commitment to Net Zero targets will come back to haunt them. Besides, farmers also argue that their emissions make up just 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Europe (2019).
Pushing Back Against Arrogant Urban Elites
The European farmers have ignited a fire for justice that will inspire other farmers around the world to collectively fight for a future where the feeders truly thrive. British farmers are now protesting UK government’s policies to reduce emissions. In Wales, farmers did a “go-slow” protest this Friday, bringing down traffic speed on the important A48 highway. Farmers in Southern England parked dozens of tractors in front of a famous supermarket chain in Dover.
Speaking to Kent Online, a British farmer said, “They’re pushing us towards greening the country and reducing our CO2 emissions which is brilliant in theory apart from every single one of those crops that is not being grown in this country is going to be grown aboard.” Practically, that would more emissions per crop, due to the additional process of transporting them across the ocean from a foreign country.
Even the farmers in India have erupted in protests, “seeking a legal guarantee for the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their agricultural produce.” Police in India resorted to tear gassing the farmers, and the capital city of Delhi was put on high alert.
The farmers’ protests are a stark reminder that the food on our plates is at risk of being endangered by green policies and crazy price regulations. The protests are not simply a cry of discontent; they are a call for a new agricultural policy framework that is free from green lunacy and unfair pricing policies. We need policies that will nourish both the land and those who till it, ensuring fair compensation and long-term sustenance.
We should hope that this ongoing crisis will turn into an opportunity for genuine reform worldwide, and free us from climate doomsday-driven nonsensical policies. Europe’s farmers are heroes of resistance for their fight against the green dragon, the Climate Cult that motivates today’s urban elites. For more on the Climate Cult, see the chapter exposing it in my new book.
Jason Jones is a film producer, author, activist, popular podcast host, and human rights worker. He is president of the Human-Rights Education and Relief Organization (H.E.R.O.), known for its two main programs, the Vulnerable People Project and Movie to Movement. He was the first recipient of the East Turkistan Order of Friend- ship Medal for his advocacy of the Uyghur people. Jones was an executive producer of Bella and an associate producer of The Stoning of Soraya M. His humanitarian efforts have aided millions in Af- ghanistan, Nigeria, and the Ukraine, as well as pregnancy centers and women’s shelters throughout North America. Jones is a senior contributor to The Streamand the host of The Jason Jones Show. He is also the author of three books, The Race to Save Our Century, The World Is on Fire, and his latest book The Great Campaign Against the Great Reset. His latest film, Divided Hearts of America, is available on Amazon Prime.