German farmers: "Too much is too much"

Farmers in Germany are rising up and protesting government austerity measures they say will put them out of business.

German farmers kicked off a week of planned protests on Monday by blocking roads, and shutting down bridges and tunnels across the country. Nearly every German state saw huge convoys of trucks and tractors, reminiscent of the trucker convoy protest two years ago in Canada.

Rallies also took place in front of state parliament buildings around Germany, and about 550 tractors were parked outside the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin, bringing the capital’s traffic to a standstill.

The farmers are angry about the German government’s plans to balance its budget on the back of the agricultural sector. A coalition of Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats agreed to abolish a partial tax refund on agricultural diesel, along with cutting a tax exemption for agricultural vehicles. Farmers say cutting these exemptions, along with rising energy costs, would cause the average German farmer to lose at least a third of their income.

"For a farm like mine, I would lose about 10,000 euros," Bavarian farmer Ralf Huber told Reuters. "For our businesses, it's a catastrophe."

As Breitbart reports:

President of the German Farmer’s Association Joachim Rukwied said that the government was “depriving agriculture of its future viability”…

The Farmer’s Association chief went on to dispute the government’s claims that it was short of money, arguing that the bloated government in Berlin has a spending problem rather than an income problem, arguing that the government should seek to make cuts in other areas.

Rukwied went on to say that the “planned tax increases were the last straw” for the farmers, whose businesses are “dying in instalments”.

Even the country’s Minister for Food and Agriculture, Cem Özdemir — a Green Party member — agrees with the farmers. He said farmers have "no alternative" but to use diesel, and that "farmers are the ones who supply us with food… these cuts overburden the sector."

While the government is hoping the cuts would not only balance the budget but also help meet its climate goals, it should be noted that Germany’s agriculture sector contributed less than 1% of global agricultural emissions from 2015 to 2021. One can only surmise that this is yet another salvo in the ongoing globalist war against farmers now commonplace in so many parts of Europe and North America.

Environmental groups like Greenpeace say farmers are making profits from rising food prices and should step up and bear the brunt of the cancelled subsidies for the sake of the climate.

"With all understanding for the farmers — making agricultural diesel cheaper by the state is expensive, harmful to the climate and should be abolished," Greenpeace agricultural expert Martin Hofstetter said in a statement.

Reports say the protests may grow as the week progresses: “Truck drivers, rail workers and other groups are either joining the farmers' demonstrations or staging their own actions to demand better pay and working conditions,” according to Courthouse News.

Not yet two weeks into 2024, it’s clear that ideologues have a deranged view of the world when, in the interest of pushing their agenda, they accuse farmers of making profits from rising food prices. Only when shelves are bare will people recognize that you can’t eat ideology.

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