For years the green movement has tried to tame European farmers. Probably because they view that farmers are conservative (e.g. they don't vote for the green parties) and partly because reading the ingredients in retail pesticides will make you doubt the justification farmers have for using the commercial version.
Here in the UK, since Brexit things have improved immeasurably for the average commercial farmer. Government legislation that was imposed or suggested by the EU was immediately binned by the government. Farmers had a freeer hand, aside from the eye-watering rise in the cost of pesticides.
The European green movement has been adopting pesticide use legislation with little consultation with farmers. Their recent target of reducing the use of pesticides by 50% was born in a think tank with political expediency and sound bites in mind. The result of such legislation would see ordinary farmers face a massive yield collapse. Farming is already a precarious adventure, reducing revenues by a third while keeping costs constant would lead to bankruptcy even for large commercial farms.
We know that it is the large commercial grain farms that made the threat, amidst the protests, and projected grain shortage this year (future prices have trebled), commercial farmers have told EU politicians that they will hold off on planting this season (planting starts in a few weeks) unless the EU backs down. A simple economic decision, the large commercial farmers were better off selling off their seeds instead of planting with a 30% reduction in pesticides and fertilizers. The losses for the farms would be less.
This time the EU farmers won. They will not next time.
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