Why Farmer Protests are Spreading Across Europe

German farmers are protesting subsidy cuts, joining a European trend. This video delves into the German demonstrations, their impact on the government, and the broader surge in farmers' protests across Europe.

Our mission is to explain news and politics in an impartial, efficient, and accessible way, balancing import and interest while fostering independent thought.

TLDR is a completely independent & privately owned media company that's not afraid to tackle the issues we think are most important. The channel is run by a small group of young people, with us hoping to pass on our enthusiasm for politics to other young people. We are primarily fan sourced with most of our funding coming from donations and ad revenue. No shady corporations, no one telling us what to say. We can't wait to grow further and help more people get informed. Help support us by subscribing, engaging and sharing. Thanks!

0:00 Intro
1:17 Germany’s Farmer Protests Explained
4:50 Why are there so many farmers’ protests in Europe?
5:06 Net zero
5:25 Economic Inequality
6:37 Urban Rural Divide
7:25 Sponsor

[cgt]

Here in Romania, the farmers and transporters have also started to revolt. As im writing this, a lot of truck drivers have blocked a lot of streets heading towards the capital, seeking to make their voices heard at the Victory Palace (the seat of the Government)

[greisslich]

Just to clear this up: Subsidies means in this case that the farmers get a partial refund of the comperably high taxes we germans have to pay for Diesel. Its not like they get paid to drive around, it's still expensive... they call it an climate-harming-subsidy as if the farmers had an alternativ way of powering their machinery. But there are no big electric vehicles as an alternativ. Also the german farming sector reaches it's climate goals every year so thats even more illogical

[SensejWorld]

One thing I don’t understand is the “falling global food prices”. Food is extremely expensive now. I never had a situation like it is now so knowing that food is extremely expensive at the end user side and cheap on producer side, problem is somewhere in the middle.

[vishnumurthy]

When same thing happened in India. Foreign media channels were supportive of farmers. But when same happens to them they call the supporters right wing or use emergency ( Canada ). Western standards I think.

[boko]

There’s an old saying… “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

[RFGfotografie]

It stays cool how it all started in 2019. Walking on the Gouwe aquaduct, it was silent on the highway during rush hour, it was so weird to see. And then suddenly thousands of tractors, all driving barely half the speed you normally are allowed to drive on the A12 near Gouda. And then in the train to the Hague you still saw all of them driving. One of the most exiting experiences I've had as a photographer.

[trexthethird]

One thing the Ukraine war has shown is that food imports are not as secure as we once thought. Food security is going to be on the level of national security when wars and eventually climate change are on the table

[willterry]

Pissing off the people who make the food is generally a bad idea.

[joehoe]

As my grandfather always said: 'A farmer that doesn't complain, is dead.'

[abrakadaver]

I think you have overlooked one of the most important points. Farmers in the European Union have to deal with more and more bureaucracy every year, which is determined by Brussels. In many cases, this drives up the workload of farmers without giving them more income. It is also noticeable that the regulations are often laid down by bureaucrats with very little practical relevance. Farmers feel patronized and would like to have much less state intervention in their farms.

[HisShadow]

My major issue with trying to shit down farms to decrease emissions is that it literally won't help and in fact probably cause more emissions.

People still need to eat. So Europe will just buy from other countries that have even worse emission standards than Europe which will drive up demand in those countries leading to even more poor emmision farms.

This whole policy is just holllow virtue signaling.

[andreinicu]

I think farmers should be supported everywhere in Europe, because without them, we won't have enough food, and without food, there will be more serious problems to deal with, such as chemically-grown crops, for better yield, more diseases, more protests, less money for the lower class and an overall dissatisfaction towards the governments. I do think the rich should be taxed a lot more. They own too much and their greed for more is incredible.

[leerman]

"The honking will continue until freedom improves"

[andybrice]

I'm not sure what to think about agricultural subsidies. On the one hand: Farmers seem to be under constant pressure to reduce their prices below what is reasonable. And we should value national food security. But on the other hand: We do throw away vast quantities of food, which suggests overproduction and supply-chain mismanagement.

[TheMetalfreak]

I dunno how farmers in Germany actually have it, I can only talk from personal experience on our farm that we shut down around 5 years ago here in Norway (I am guessing one of the biggest differences will be EU, us having the trade agreement, it is often said we have the EU system, just not with vote right, but dunno how correct that truely is).

We worked really hard, close to 24/7 with no vacation, and we barely made it through each year, if it wasn't for the goodwill of family and sorrounding farmers, we would not have made it so far as we did. The subsidies we got seemed more like a payment for putting up with the govt. changes and their shit, at least that is what it felt to me.
(One thing I remember well, was the guy that was on our farm and needed to see all the buildings we had, because it was a new tax on buildings you had on your land, we had to pay for old sheds we had way up the mountain to store fence equipment and such, and other buildings, we couldn't tear them down either because of how old they were, but we were pissed having to pay an idiotic tax on stuff like that)
When we sold meat and whool (we were mostly a sheep farm), we got literally cents for each kg of meat (slaughter weight) (To put it in perspective, we got 10 øre NOK (1/10 of 1 NOK) for 1kg meat, in the store it was around 120 NOK for a package, which could be around 5kg if I remember right), and whool I am not 100% on, but from what I was told, it was not much better.

And year after year of barely making 0 or going a bit in the red, it started to make it harder and harder to make do, because I am not sure how many knows this, but tools, medicine for the animals etc. adds up real fast, especially when we had a problem with the tractor and had to pay out the ass to fix it. Because a lot breaks after so much use, especially us that barely made it through, had to rely on older tools, that we fixed, because we had no money to get newer tools.

It just became an endless cycle of arguing interally in the family about money and other related issues, breaking our backs (I got a back problem when I was 17) and just a feeling of hopelessness.

Now I am not saying that we shouldn't look at the subsidies and give the farmers all the subsidies they want, but I think it is important to look at the farming system each country have and how to best utilize it, both econimically and for good reliable food source. There are farmers out there that literally do not need subsidies at all to get by, and have most of their farms close to automated, with machines milking their cows etc. Not something we could do, we had to go to each one and milk it ourselves. Those farmers are away most of the time on vacation or doing something else, and the farm is more like a side hussle. Imho, those are not the farmers that needs or should get subsidies, it should go to smaller farmers if the country has them to alivate them to a point where it gets better and then one can slowly remove/reduce it. That is just my two cents.

And I think it is very important to have food safety in each country, relying more and more on import is not a good thing imho, we saw how bad it was when Ukraine got invaded and the wheat got removed from there. Not to say anything on the fertilizers we got from Russia that stopped.

Side note, a little tangent, but seen it quite often online or when talking to people IRL, telling a farmer on the coast of Norway to "just grow wheat" instead of having sheeps or other animals is the most asinine thing ever that does not think about the conditions we work with, nor how to best utilize the land we have. I am literally flabbergasted sometimes when talking to people about this topic.

[laiphone]

As a french im suprise than our medias talk may more about the protest in netherland and germany than in france

[farmrgalga]

In the Netherlands, the Urban - Rural divide is one major issues. This is also in part behind the rise of the PVV and NSC.
One of the big issues behind the Dutch protests though is the government overreach and interference. As an example, there was a crisis in October with the potato harvest. Because of the weather earlier in the year, the potatoes had not grown fully yet, but according to government regulations they had to be harvested by a certain date, so nitrogen capturing crops could be planted by a certain date. This meant the farmers would not be able to get a good price for their crops. Eventually the government gave an extension to the deadline, but it's left everyone wondering what they think they're doing.
Add to that, the government and the EU between them update regulations and policies about once every 3-4 months, and the farmers just cannot run their businesses any more. Seeing as this started in the 1950s with redistribution of land and forced specialisation, and has kept on going, it is completely understandable that farming families and rural communities are fed up with it now.

[azahel]

Germany closing nuclear plants, burning coal and then saying that farmers are bad for the environment. Let's all eat carbon from the air...

[Yassified]

There are also farmer protests in Latvia and Lithuania.

[knickohr]

3:46 Your pronounciation of "Baden-Württemberg" is really good. Especially considering that it is a long word which has an umlaut.