Hundreds of tractors have descended on a German coastal town to protest great reset measures imposed by the European Union.
400 tractors reportedly descended on the North Sea town of Büsum on Wednesday to protest great reset policies being imposed by the EU and implemented by Berlin on their behalf.
The protest follows similar mass demonstrations in Belgium and the Netherlands, all of which were held in order to oppose the European Commission’s plan to reduce nitrogen pollution across the European continent, even if that means forcibly closing farms in some areas deemed to be problematic.
Such green agenda policies have greatly angered many in Germany, with hundreds of farmers descending on Büsum to attend a three-day protest against green agenda rules imposed by regional, national and European authorities. While the plans of Germany’s coalition-partner-ruling Green party and the Green farming minister Cem Özdemir are portrayed as being about animal welfare and a transition to organic farming, critics point out the inevitable results of these sound-good policies are farms with fewer animals producing less food.
Özdemir for his part has said that while he takes “hunger very seriously”, nevertheless he believes “you shouldn’t misuse it as an argument to make compromises in terms of biodiversity and climate protection.”
The farmers today have also been joined by at least 60 fishing trawlers, who are set to hold a demonstration at sea in protest of an EU ban on certain types of trawling, a move that is set to severely damage Germany’s shrimp fishing industry. The EU says the fishing technique is harmful to the environment.
Speaking at the start of the demonstration on Wednesday, a representative of Germany’s Free Farmers association, Jann-Harro Petersen, denounced attempts by the German and EU government to kill off the country’s farming and fishing industry, arguing that such sectors have been an essential part of life in the country’s north for centuries.
“In this nature blessed by God, we produce food for people, and so far it hasn’t harmed either nature or people,” Petersen remarked, rejecting outright claims from Brussels that the area should be “restored” to nature.
“In nature there is no original state, that could be restored — nothing demonstrates this more impressively than our coastline on the North Sea over the past 500 years,” he argued. “They want to push us out of the area, but we won’t give way.”
The Büsum protest is the latest of many farming demos that have been taking place across Europe in the wake of the EU’s great reset scheme to see farming curtailed.
Despite repeated warnings that food production on the content is now under threat largely due to energy prices and the war in Ukraine, officials in Brussels have been keen to make the lives of farmers even harder by implementing various restrictions on what fertilisers and pesticides they can use, often justifying any bans with reference to the environment.
By far the worst of these measures are those aimed at curbing the nitrogen content of European soils, with officials in Brussels outright ordering authorities in the Netherlands to forcibly shut down farms in the country in order to hit green targets set by EU bureaucrats.
Such forced farm shutdowns have provoked mass outrage in the country over the last year, eventually culminating in the small FarmerCitizenMovement (BBB) party coming first in the country’s local elections last month.
Despite only being set up in 2019, the party is now set to have the single greatest number of seats in the country’s Senate, prompting some ruling parties in the country to suggest that the government should rethink whether it really should just unquestionably implement the EU’s green agenda.