Clara Bourgin is the food, agriculture, and nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.
As social justice and environmental activists, we joined the farmers’ protest in Brussels. We hear the frustrations of farmers who grapple with low incomes, a lack of future prospects, and the consequences of decades of unsustainable policies. We share their fight for a fairer agriculture system and their call to end the E.U.-Mercosur free-trade deal.Many farmers’ anger is legitimate.
But after years of it being ignored by political leaders, it is now dangerously being exploited by some conservative and far-right parties and agro-industrial lobbies, like COPA-COGECA, trying to shatter green objectives and commitments. Many farmers are ready for change, but this is incompatible with producing at the lowest prices in a globalised and deregulated market.