DIn recent days, the pitchfork has become the weapon of a campaign on the streets and on social media that can achieve nothing other than further unsettling the country's farmers. The farmers are being sent to the barricades by their lobby association, without any ifs or buts and regardless of what concessions have already been made to combat “every cut.” In a democracy, only those who are concerned with survival act so uncompromisingly. But is that really what it's all about: the existence of the companies? Not at all, at least not in the dispute over agricultural diesel or in the continuation of the exclusive tax advantages for German farmers.
For the small businesses that are always used as figureheads in agricultural campaigns – let's take 50 hectares as the limit – the recently announced cuts mean annual losses of an average of 470 euros from 2026 (with an annual profit of several tens of thousands of euros), for large businesses and agricultural holding companies an average of 164 Hectares are calculated at 4,300 euros – with an annual profit of well over a hundred thousand euros. In the big pile of subsidies, agricultural diesel is also marginal. In short: As martial as the tractor march may (and should) seem, it is definitely not about the rumored struggle for existence.
In fact, the mood is much worse than the figures of the last few years. If you ask agricultural experts, farmers certainly feel their situation is like a struggle for existence. This is sometimes explained by the increasing density of regulations, the requirements for environmental and species protection as well as animal welfare, sometimes by the changes caused by climate change or unfair prices for their products, and sometimes by the impending generational change. In fact, succession is secured for less than half of the farms to be handed over in the coming years.
Ecological modernization on the way
The ideas of the farmers' lobby and those of society and politics now diverge widely as to how more planning security can be achieved for farmers in this situation and how further farms can be prevented from dying. Externally, the association gives the impression that it is supporting the ecological modernization necessary for sustainable – and therefore long-term sustainable – use of nature as part of the great transformation of agriculture, but internally it is misleading farmers and consumers into believing that everything must and can stay as it is .
In this respect, the pitchfork is less suitable than ever as a symbol of the fight for survival. It is the tool of a lie in life, namely the symbol of an apparent transformation propagated for the sake of interest. The next generation of farmers is well aware that in the future they will be required to be more environmentally friendly, more animal welfare, more efficient and more climate protected – for their own protection. For them, it makes little sense to oppose the environmentally friendly control of subsidies, as has long been underway in Europe with the farm-to-fork strategy and can hardly be reversed (unless due to a political earthquake dreamed up by right-wing radical climate change deniers) .
There is nothing to speak against a rapid expiry of climate-damaging subsidies such as agricultural diesel, especially not with the overall societal goal of climate neutrality in mind. Now it's about the transitions. About socially acceptable but consistent progress. Instead of leading a green-washed resistance struggle, it would be the task of the powerful farmers' lobby to initiate the investments necessary for the inevitable change.
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