The agriculture sector holds a lot of power within the European Union, receiving around one-third of the bloc’s total budget.
But, amid rising production costs and lower incomes, farmers have been voicing their frustrations on streets across the EU over the past few months.
These protests have resulted in promises for more funding and loosened rules from both the EU and individual countries.
Agriculture has become a “particularly sensitive subject” among EU politicians ahead of the European parliamentary elections in June, says Politico.
Earlier this month, Carbon Brief travelled to Amsterdam and Brussels to discuss these issues as part of a reporting trip organised by Clean Energy Wire, an EU-focused news service for climate and energy journalists.
Reporters spoke to academics, policymakers and farmers about the upcoming European elections and the future of farming across the bloc.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explores what these elections could mean for EU agricultural policy, the impact of the recent farmer protests and the possible pathways for farming in Europe.
- How important are climate and farming in the European parliament elections?
- What concessions have been made in response to the EU farmer protests?
- What does the future look like for EU agriculture?
How important are climate and farming in the European parliament elections?
The European parliamentary elections occur every five years. Voters across the EU will head to the polls over 6-9 June to elect 720 members of the European parliament (MEPs).
Each EU country is allocated a certain number of seats in parliament based on population size, from a minimum of six MEPs (Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta) to a maximum of 96 (Germany). Candidates in each country are elected based on proportional representation.
The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) won 189 out of 705 seats in 2019 – the highest portion of any group. The Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) boosted their number of seats from 50 in 2014 to 74 in 2019.
This so-called “green wave” was particularly notable in Germany, where the Greens/EFA received more than 20% of the vote.
Climate change and the environment were key issues for voters in 2019, according to Eurobarometer surveys after the elections. Agriculture, on the other hand, was not listed as a main priority issue for people casting their ballots across the bloc.
Analysis of opinion polls and previous EU election results by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign and security policy thinktank, suggested that this year’s results will “see a major shift to the right in many countries”.
The analysis, released in January, said that anti-European populist parties could top the polls in nine countries, including France, Italy and Poland. They could rank second or third in other places, such as Germany, Spain and Sweden.
Similar polls emerged ahead of the last election.
In the early days of 2019, Der Spiegel reported that public opinion researchers “believe that right-wing populists could end up with 20% of the EU-wide vote”.
These parties made gains in some countries in 2019, including Hungary, Italy and France, but, as the Guardian noted after the election, “a promised populist surge turned out to be more of a ripple” across the EU.
Recent analysis from the Jacques Delors Centre, a European thinktank, suggests that the “notion of a broad green backlash” in this year’s parliament election is “largely overblown”.
Based on an online survey of 15,000 people in Germany, France and Poland, they found that the majority of voters want more ambitious climate policy and would support “a raft of concrete measures” to cut emissions.
But a “sizeable minority” of people said they are against more ambitious climate policies – around 30% of people surveyed in Germany and Poland and 23% of those surveyed in France.
The chart below shows the percentage of people in each country who believe that the negative effects of climate change already affect them and their family, will do so in the future or will not affect them at all.
Rightwing parties have seen an increase in support in some recent national European elections. In Portugal’s parliamentary elections earlier this month, the centre-right won and support for the far-right also surged, the Financial Times reported.
There are a wide range of other votes happening in Europe this year, including legislative elections in Austria and federal elections in Belgium.
In the Dutch general election last November, the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) won the highest number of seats in parliament. Coalition talks have been strained, with unresolved issues around finance and policy differences dividing the parties, but discussions remain ongoing.
The party gained support by “harnessing widespread frustration about migration”, according to BBC News. The housing crisis was also a key issue for voters, while farmers and people living in rural areas were concerned about proposed nitrogen-reduction plans.
Following a court ruling in 2019 that previous plans to tackle nitrogen emissions were not sufficient, the Dutch government re-developed these plans. In 2022, the government set targets to cut nitrogen pollution by as much as 70% in some parts of the country by the end of this decade.
Most of the country’s nitrogen emissions come from livestock and the construction sector and a voluntary “buy-out” scheme for farms is among the measures aimed to cut emissions. This would compensate farmers who choose to close their farms if they are located near nature reserves.
Protests kicked off in 2019 in response to the possible nitrogen-reduction measures and demonstrations have continued over the past few years. These frustrations were among the reasons the populist Farmers-Citizen Movement (BBB) won the biggest share of seats in the Dutch provincial elections last March.
This party was set up in 2019 after a surge in farmer protests over nitrogen-reduction plans and fears of the impact they would have on farming.
Months out from the European parliament elections, it is still unclear how these issues will affect the final results.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has voiced support for farmers in her campaign to continue leading the commission. She recently said that her party, the EPP, “will always be by the side” of farmers.
The Guardian reported that von der Leyen “has made climate concerns a lower priority” since announcing the re-election bid in February. But the EU’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, recently told Politico that the bloc must “focus just as much, and probably more” on climate action in the years ahead.
Hoekstra’s comments followed a climate risk report from the European Environment Agency that outlined the “major challenges” the continent faces from extreme heat, drought and floods.
Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP in the Greens/EFA party, tells Carbon Brief that he believes the next parliament’s five-year term is “quite crucial, [with] this rise of right-wing populism and, at the same time, the attacks on the green deal” – the EU’s climate policy package.
Mohammed Chahim, the vice-president of the Social and Democrats Group and another Dutch MEP, tells Carbon Brief that he is “very concerned” about the future strength of EU environmental policy, but believes that parties can “find common ground under which we can continuously improve competitiveness” for farmers at the same time.
What concessions have been made in response to the EU farmer protests?
Since the end of last year, farmers have been protesting in several countries across the EU.
The protesters have many concerns, including competition from cheaper imports, environmental regulations and the rising costs of energy and fertiliser.
The complaints from farmers differ from country to country, as highlighted in Carbon Brief’s recent analysis of the key demands from farmer groups in 12 countries.
Many relate to environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity and conservation, but others relate more to trade policy. Farmers in several countries are protesting against proposed measures, such as a trade agreement that is still being finalised between the EU and several South American countries.
In some countries, protesters are calling for more action on climate adaptation. For example, in Greece, farmers are asking the government to implement measures to prevent farmland from being damaged by flooding and other extreme weather.
In other countries, farmers are calling for fuel subsidies to continue and for fertiliser and pesticide restrictions to be reconsidered.
In several eastern European countries, farmers have raised concerns about Ukrainian grain imports. Farmers in countries surrounding Ukraine have been arguing for months that they “can’t compete” with the price of these imports.
The protests in France were largely halted in February after the government promised more “cash support” and withdrew a planned agricultural fuel tax increase, said Le Monde.
The French government also suspended national efforts to halve the use of pesticides by the end of this decade, the Daily Telegraph reported, which environmentalists described as a “major step backwards”.
On 31 January, the European Commission pushed back rules requiring farmers to set aside some land for biodiversity. This measure, which was due to take effect this year, was postponed.
Earlier this month, the commission proposed to review some terms of the EU farmer subsidies, including making this now-postponed land measure voluntary instead of mandatory when it takes effect.
The review is aimed to reduce paperwork for farmers and allow “greater flexibility for complying with certain environmental conditionalities”, the commission said.
Von der Leyen said in a statement that the EU’s agricultural policy “adapts to changing realities”, but continues to focus on “the key priority of protecting the environment and adapting to climate change”.
The commission president also scrapped a proposal to halve pesticide use.
This was an “absolute symbolic act” considering it was already “killed in parliament”, Dutch MEP Mohammed Chahim tells Carbon Brief. Last November, MEPs rejected the pesticide proposal, leaving it with an uncertain future.
What does the future look like for EU agriculture?
Agriculture generates around 25-30% of global emissions; in the EU, the figure averages about 10%. Global livestock emissions alone account for almost one-third of human-caused methane emissions, according to the UN Environment Programme.
At the same time, agriculture is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Drought can wither crops, extreme heat can kill livestock and floods can damage soil quality.
The EU has put forward plans to both reduce agricultural emissions and make the sector more resilient and sustainable for the future.
The “farm-to-fork” strategy, a policy plan forming part of the wider green deal, was proposed in 2020 as a way to make food systems “fair, healthy and environmentally friendly”. The plans under this strategy include measures to reduce fertiliser use, increase organic farming and provide more consumer information on “healthy, sustainable” food choices.
However, around half of the actions promised under this strategy have fallen by the wayside, Euronews reported on 19 February.
The next European parliament term will have a number of key agricultural issues to tackle including a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU farmer subsidy system, before 2027.
Earlier this year, the EU launched a “strategic dialogue” to bring together farmers, retailers and other stakeholders to discuss the future of EU agriculture. A report on the outcome of these talks will be given to the commission president this summer outlining a “common ground for the future of the union’s agri-food sector”.
Looking more globally, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization last year released a “roadmap” to change agrifood systems and end hunger without exceeding the 1.5C global temperature limit.
There is an “urgent need” to reform agrifood systems, the report said, in order to meet climate goals and improve food security.
It listed a number of global targets, including reducing livestock methane emissions by one-quarter by 2030, halving food loss and waste at retail and consumer level by 2030 and reaching net-zero deforestation around the world by 2025. A recent Nature Food comment piece criticised elements of this report.
Given that the future of agriculture is still being resolved on an EU and global level, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout says it is not surprising to see farmers protesting over their concerns. He believes, however, that the protesting farmers “throwing manure on the street” are the “extreme voices” being amplified. He told Carbon Brief in Brussels:
“There are a lot behind who are not putting their manure here on the Berlaymont building. They are not happy, but they’re not protesting.”
He said that farmers need to receive more profits from the wider food chain, adding:
“[There are] a lot of producers, a lot of consumers and a couple in the middle that have the power. That’s where the profits are. There are enough profits in the food chain, but they are not ending up at the farms…[it is a] fundamental economic problem that is happening.”
John Arink, an organic farmer, recently spoke to Carbon Brief and other media outlets on his farm near the village of Lievelde, in the east of the Netherlands. (Read Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter from last week for more on Arink’s farm.)
He wants to see a future with less intensive farming and more outdoor space for animals to grow. He said:
“In Holland, we have some kind of a mantra that says the intensive way of producing milk and meat is very efficient. But it is not when you calculate all of the indirect dues of materials and energy, it shows that the intensive way of farming is very inefficient.
“Maybe from the financial point of view it can be efficient, but we have to look at it in the ecological way. And from that point of view, it’s very inefficient to produce so intensively.”
The post Q&A: The impact of farmer protests on the EU’s upcoming parliamentary elections appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: The impact of farmer protests on the EU’s upcoming parliamentary elections
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Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
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