In a post on X on Monday, Vlaardingerbroek described farmers as “one of the few groups in society with enough manpower to put up a real fight against the globalists who wants to radically change our way of life”. Similar pronouncements have been echoed by conspiracy theorists with even larger followings. “We don’t want to be eating insects, we want our steak,” she said. The YouTube clip – titled “Politicians know when they control the food, they control the people: Activist” – has been viewed more than half a million times. In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last year, Vlaardingerbroek pushed a popular conspiracy theory by claiming that groups like the World Economic Forum are trying to make Dutch people eat bugs by cracking down on farms and opening insect factories. Last Monday, Dutch political pundit Eva Vlaardingerbroek joined farmers on a tractor in Germany to rail against “the global elites waging a war against the hard-working people who put food on our tables”. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.Ĭonspiracy theories have even spread from rural farms in northern Europe to cable TV shows in the US to social media feeds around the world. For more information see our Privacy Policy. “This is the new kind of agrarian populism popping up in these countries.” skip past newsletter promotionĮnter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. “The Netherlands was a bit of a harbinger when it comes to these protests,” said Léonie de Jonge, a political scientist at the University of Groningen who studies the far right. Grassroots support for farmers’ protests, from campaign placards to Telegram groups, has also overlapped with conspiracy theories about issues such as Covid, climate breakdown and migration. The proposal is a key pillar of the European Green Deal – championed by the European Commission president and EPP heavyweight, Ursula von der Leyen – that the centre-right grouping had previously backed. In the European parliament last year, the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) led a rightwing alliance of lawmakers who narrowly failed to throw out a bill to restore nature on the grounds that it would hurt farmers. The protests have also highlighted a split among Europe’s moderate conservative groups. “There are calls circulating with coup fantasies, extremist groups are forming and ethnic-nationalist symbols are being openly displayed,” he said. The climate and economy minister, Robert Habeck, warned on Monday of fringe groups exploiting the protests. In Germany, the protests have gained vocal support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and groups with more extreme and anti-democratic views. In the Netherlands, the nitrogen crisis led to the creation of the Farmer-Citizen Movement, a rural populist party that scored big wins in provincial elections in March but came sixth in general elections in November. More than 80% of habitats in Europe are in poor shape, according to the European Commission, and yields for some crops have already been hit by poor soils, a lack of water and extreme weather events that are growing increasingly violent.īut for some European governments, the more pressing threat is the attention that farmers’ protests have attracted from far-right and populist parties, as well as radical conspiracy theorists. Scientists, meanwhile, have pointed to the damage that will be done to farms as planet-heating pollution turns the climate less hospitable to humans. “Subsidies that are harmful to the climate must be phased out.” “ a better subsidy policy that gets more for farm income, climate protection and nature with the same funds,” he said. Sascha Müller-Kraenner, head of campaign group Environmental Action Germany, called for every euro of agricultural subsidy to come with ecological and social strings. In agricultural giants like the Netherlands and France, farmers have expressed frustration at the pressure from governments to produce less after years of encouragement to make more.Įnvironmental activists say they do not want to reduce subsidies to farmers but instead spend them in a less destructive way. Some say they feel overburdened by rules and undervalued by city dwellers who eat the food they grow without knowing where it came from. Firefighters at the scene as farmers set fire to manure and hay bales during a protest in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands in July 2022 Photograph: News United/EPAįor some farmers, the burden of paying for more of their pollution is a step too far after an energy crisis and pandemic that has left many struggling to make ends meet.
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