The farmers' protest that has been spreading in Europe for months has also manifested itself in Italy in recent days, with tractors taking to the streets to also express (fortunately in a calm and civilized way) a diffuse and deep unease.
Demonstrations of discontent in rural areas began about a year ago in Belgium and the Netherlands. In the country of tulips, a “farmers' party” even emerged, which was a resounding success in the last provincial elections, obtaining 19% of the votes, demonstrating a consensus that goes beyond the relatively modest weight of the “peasant” population. The unease throughout the European agricultural world regarding EU policies has spread with a kind of “domino effect”. From France (where the manure spread by the “paysans” in the vicinity of the Élysée Palace became a symbol of farmers' anger against the excesses of bureaucracy, the slowness and harassment of an administration accused of not respecting those who work in the fields) to Germany (where the “last straw” was the abolition of agricultural diesel subsidies announced by the “traffic light” government – the colors of the coalition of parties that form the government of Germany today, green, yellow and red), passing through Romania, Poland, Hungary and Greece, the entire old continent was crossed by farmers' unrest.
Even in Italy, the fire of protest had been burning beneath the ashes for some time. And now it seems to be on fire, giving way to motivations that are sometimes confusing, as often happens with those who think “everything is bad”: they complain about market difficulties, production costs, the immobility of union representatives (in fact in crisis of identity), and even the damage caused by non-native fauna introduced by probably hasty “environmentalist” initiatives.
The “citizen” may be tempted to dismiss these expressions of protest as a “threatening reactionary mob” or as the defense of “anachronistic corporate privileges” of a sector that in the modern economy appears, on superficial analysis, to have very little weight. This, as in the saying that “when the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger”, would be a very serious error.
Agriculture provides food security and consumer goods for the planet's eight billion inhabitants and, according to FAO statisticsthe percentage of undernourished people fell from 13.1% in 2002 to less than 8% recorded between 2012 and 2019. One should not ignore, however, the slow increase in the percentage of undernourished people, with values again above 9% since 2020.
Let us also remember that, thanks to photosynthesis, global agriculture absorbs 42 gigatons of carbon dioxide every year, while emitting only about ten. Essentially, it is the only socioeconomic sector that is highly relevant and structurally active in terms of emissions.
Statistics also tell us that, at a European level, food produced by agriculture has never been so healthy: for example, in Italy, according to data from the Italian Ministry of Health (2020 report), food samples with product residues phytosanitary products that do not comply with regulations (which are notoriously very restrictive and prudential) are only 1.5% among fruits and vegetables and 0.7% among cereals, while no “outlaw” samples were found in the sectors of oil and wine.
Finally, the role of agriculture should not be ignored in terms of landscape: many landscapes that citizens insist on considering natural are, in fact, the result of the ancient actions of farmers who maintain them to this day thanks to their activity. Added to this is the fact that agriculture controls the territory, protecting it from hydrogeological risk, as demonstrated by the flood events that have also recently affected mountainous areas that, in recent decades, have been abandoned by agriculture and frequently reoccupied by forests. degraded.
Another element to make those who want to go beyond the commonplace think is the fact that agriculture today provides income for around three billion human beings (one billion of whom are involved in animal husbandry), who work in 590 million farms (9.1 million in the European Union alone). These numbers highlight a gigantic structural complexity that should lead us to avoid interpretations based on slogans or ideological prejudices: to understand the causes of the European agricultural sector's malaise, we must go as far as reading the economic and cultivation accounts of individual farms.
The Green Deal kills agriculture and threatens the environment
Among European citizens, the idea that only “natural” and non-intensive agriculture is the only one that is truly sustainable from an environmental point of view is more widespread than ever. On the contrary, the scientific data we have clearly indicates that the environment is protected precisely by the intensification of agriculture with the help of innovative and “low impact” science-based technologies (animal and plant genetics, cultivation and reproduction techniques, etc.) ), while agricultural systems with low production efficiency generate much greater and generally unsustainable environmental impacts per unit of product.
Just reflect, for example, on the fact that, to obtain the same quantity of goods with extensive agriculture, which produces half the quantity per unit area as intensive agriculture, twice as much land is needed, which today could only be found through the felling of forests and the deforestation of natural pastures, with enormous damage to biodiversity. Or reflect on the fact that, to produce a liter of milk and bring it to the consumer's table, 1.3 kg of CO2 equivalent is emitted today if this milk comes from intensive farming in large open stables, while this value rises to 3.7 kg of CO2 if the same milk is produced by animals raised on pasture. We write this not so much to demonize pasture farming (the wandering shepherd of Asia is not a “villain” and the dairy farmer of the Alpine and Apennine mountains is a resource for land conservation!), but rather to stigmatize the foolish demonization of intensive agriculture that has been ongoing for some time.
Unfortunately, asserting the merits of intensive agriculture based on scientific research and technological innovation in the eyes of the public is becoming increasingly difficult. For years, grotesque and pseudoscientific views have prevailed which, through the media, influence the ideas of public opinion and politics at a national and European level. It is also from these misleading views that the EU's general approach to the “Green Deal” derives, which in agriculture is reflected in the “farm to table”, “biodiversity” and “rewilding” strategies. Disconcerting measures are taking shape from these strategies, including:
- 1. The intention to reduce the amount of phytosanitary products permitted for use by 50-60%, based on a rigid “algorithm” that does not take into account any rational aspect and puts the entire phytosanitary protection of crops at risk: if crops are not protected against insects, pathogenic fungi, bacteria, weeds and other enemies, the products obtained will, in many cases, be less healthy (many pathogenic fungi and bacteria are capable of producing toxins with negative effects on health) and, in many cases, so scarce that their harvest will not be economical. It is worth remembering that the impact of this “prohibitionist” approach is particularly dangerous for agriculture in Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal), which are based on crops (fruits, vines and vegetables) that have significant need
s in terms of phytosanitary defense. . - 2. The intention to expand organic agriculture from 9% to 30% of the agricultural area used. This will lead to yield drops of 20 to 70% depending on the crop, resulting in an explosion of imports at a time when, globally, the security of food and energy supplies is the top priority for states wanting to maintain their sovereignty. . Did the Russian-Ukrainian war teach us nothing?
- 3. The decision to “renaturalize” vast territories where agricultural activity has taken place for thousands of years, without asking what will result from this in terms of defense against floods or defense of agricultural activity against invasive wild species.
All this is taking place in a European context marked by a persistent distrust towards innovative genetic improvement technologies (GMO – genetically modified organisms, NBT – new breeding techniques), whose preconceived rejection puts European farmers in a position quantitatively and qualitatively inferior in relation to competitors from other agricultural areas in the world.
In the end, the doleances cache (list of demands) of farmers is really full, both on the side of unrecognized merits and on the side of “degrowth” policies, dangerous not only for the agricultural sector, but for society as a whole.
Is this protest really useful?
The farmers' protest will only be useful if it helps to understand a reality that goes far beyond the “complaints” of the moment, but which affects all of European politics. Because the “misunderstood environmentalism” that seems to constrain EU institutions (but also numb national governments) risks causing harm to the economy, society and, paradoxically, even the environment. In particular, European agricultural policy appears to be oriented towards a rigid dirigisme that increasingly resembles a surreptitious transformation of European agriculture into Soviet Colcoz, whereby a “ruling class” divorced from reality but firmly established in the “palaces” in Brussels, in the Ministries or in the Provinces, I would like to impose on producers a suffocating welfare system, made up of subsidies similar to alms in the face of impracticable and absurd operational rules to be applied “in the field”.
To accompany the protest with the proposal, it would be necessary, today, to engage in the “strategic dialogue” on agriculture, to which President Von der Leyen finally declared herself willing. Furthermore, it would be useful to reestablish on a new basis the “alliance” between agriculture and society on which food security is based, today exposed to real risks. For this to happen, however, a cultural base is indispensable, which is perhaps lacking both in the agricultural world and in political decision-makers, on which academic institutions will have to engage ever more deeply for the general interest.
Flavio BarozziPhD in Agricultural Sciences at the Università degli Studi di Milano, is president of the Società Agraria di Lombardia. Luigi Mariani He is a professor of Agronomy at the Facoltà di Agraria di Milano.
©2024 La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. Published with permission. Text published in two parts in the original Italian: “The EU began to wage war on agricoltori to establish its farm” It is “The European Green Deal affects agriculture and undermines the environment”.
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