- 10,000 farmers with 5,000 tractors gathered on the road in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate this morning
- Vehicles blocked traffic in the German capital to protest against proposed restrictive environmental limits
- Proposals include restrictions on the use of pesticides and herbicides to protect insects and other animals
Thousands of farmers descended on Berlin from the countryside with their tractors today, gathering at the capital’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and blocking traffic in protest against the German government’s agricultural policies.
About 10,000 farmers with 5,000 tractors drove into the city, with the first 1,800 heavy vehicles arriving from the surrounding state of Brandenburg before dawn.
The farmers claim new environmental limits being planned are overly restrictive and that the government is making it impossible for domestic agriculture to compete against imports, among other things.
People need farmers. Out of nearly 8 billion people in the world, how many can feed themselves without the advancements in pesticides and modern Ag technologies? Perhaps only a few hundred million in the old hunter/gatherer or parcel farm format used centuries ago….
No farmers, no food.
Are these really a demographic of people that need to be so heavily scrutinized and needlessly restricted? Farmers have always been at the vanguard of environmentalism and sustainable safe practices. After-all, it is their livelihood. They gain nothing from harming their own lifestyle and progeny. Farmers gain nothing from hurting the environment.
Why are governments listening to biased and misinformed supposed “environmentalist” groups with extreme agendas, and not listening more to the very people that all of our survival and security relies on? If farmers say they are hurting, we need to listen. We need to help. We need to be there for them.
We need to stop demonizing the people we rely on for our very food security. It gets us no where.
The country’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, said the government is willing to talk to farmers but insisted that they, too, need to play their part in protecting the environment.
But I ask, how are farmers not being part of the solution? What more can they do? How many more thousands of people need to march on a capital for a government to realize that its policies are destroying an entire group of people and industry that we all rely on?
Farmers in both the EU and USA have the strictest regulations in the world already. And many could argue, that quite a bit of the restrictions we have placed on farming are so needlessly complicated that they are starting to endanger our own food supply. When governments make an industry so insecure to become part of or grow within, that industry is doomed to fail in major ways. Who will want to feed the nations or the world, if it no longer becomes practical to do so? Where are the lines of needed regulation versus needless regulation?
Governments are not making decisions based on true value science lately. They are making decisions based on fear monger lobbying. And it is hurting Ag more than ever.
Farmers’ leaders of the movement say the government should work with them and conservation groups to find ways to protect the environment while preserving the competitiveness of farms.
The environmental group Greenpeace criticized both sides, saying that Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner was trying to shift the burden onto consumers by saying they’ll have to get used to paying more for food, while the farmers needed to also help fight climate change and species extinction.
‘Farms need clear and reliable guidelines and targeted recommendations,’ said Greenpeace’s agricultural expert Stephanie Toewe. ‘Then they will also have the ability to operate so that the water, animals and climate are protected.’
I encourage everyone to support their local farmers and the industry as a whole. Talk to them, and try to understand just what they have to go through already. Would it be an industry anyone else could handle? Walk a mile in the farmers boots before you cast your judgement.
