|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 7:29:57 GMT -7
Similar things happened in the Netherlands. Farmers living in silent poverty, working 16 hours a day and committing suicide. Farmers are proud entrepreneurs who are dedicated to their farms, their live stock and their communities. These farms often are hundreds of years old and many generations worked on them. From Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great grandfathers centuries ago to the farmer today, his son and grandson. When they go into dept, struggle to survive a great shame comes over them, because their ancestors were proud farmers. They struggle to admid that they are in problems. That they work hard and live in abject poverty, can't provide an income for their family anymore. They are ashamed that they can't make the farm work. They are insecure financially. They were taught to be discrete, not to talk about problems. But they are in deep problems today. They are in a pressure cooker. In time that pressure explodes and they commit suicide. How is the situation in Poland Jaga?
I do believe that farmers deserve more respect from city people. I was raised with respect for the Zeeland farmers at the Walcheren Peninsula by my dad and also saw the Walloon mountain farmers with their small farms, cows and chickens and pigs, and crops in the Ardennes mountains. As a child I played and 'worked' with both Dutch speaking Zeeland farm kids and the French speaking farm kids and their parents in the Netherlands and Belgium. I was of course joyful, playful work in the summer vacations, helping with collecting hay or milking cows or escorting cows to the fields or back to the stable at the farm. It is sad to see the farmers that doesn't make it due to European, national and provincial legislations, quota and the power of large food processing multi-nationals who pay to little for the products of the farmers. Consumers aren't aware of that and that is sad. But in the same time I am critical towards Dutch farm organisations like Agroactie (Agrarian Action), The Farmers Defence Leage and LTO (Farmers Union). They have little self criticism and don't do enough to limit the carbon monoxide emission the agricultural sector causes.
The Farmers Defence Leage could become an European organisation when Dutch, German, Belgian and French farmers unite in one United Front. One of these day I expect European farmers to march to Brussels with their tractors.Probably Dutch farmers commit suicide relatively often. ‘Probably’, because farmers are no separate category in Dutch suicide-statistics. Cultural anthropologist and writer Lizzy van Leeuwen recently published a study on ‘suicide in the countryside’, called ‘De hanenbalken’ (‘The Collar Beams’). In this lecture she builds the case that Dutch farmers commit suicide more often than other Dutch citizens. She gives possible explanations of this phenomenon, and of the reasons why it is not systematically studied. The Dutch farmers are in a difficult position. Although their land and house might be worth a lot of money, they have to work many hours to make an often low income. An income which varies substantially from year to year, due to external circumstances. Not the least of these circumstances are the changing rules they are submitted to, despite being ‘free entrepreneurs’. So nowadays many Dutch farmers depend on the income of their spouse to make ends meets. A special problem is the succession, as agriculture steadily becomes less attractive for younger generations.Source: www.wur.nl/en/activity/Suicide-among-Farmers.htmFarmers in general have to deal with many changes upon which traditional behaviour or knowledge has no answer. One of these is the European policy to combat epidemic livestock diseases as happened in the Netherlands in 1998 with Swine Fever and in 2001 with Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). The psychological impact of the FMD-policy has hardly been investigated. In this study this impact was studied among dairy farmers by comparing areas with different severity of the crisis. Subjects came from one cultural group: Dutch dairy farmers (n = 661). Questionnaires about stress, psychological marginal-ization and depression were administered in three different areas: the 'culled' area, the ‘buffer’ area and the FMD-‘free’ area. The psychological impact of the FMD-crisis was associated with differences in levels of stress, marginalization and depression. It was concluded that the impact of the FMD-crisis was considerable, especially for farmers in the ‘culled’ area.www.researchgate.net/publication/222397762_The_psychological_impact_of_the_Foot_and_Mouth_Disease_crisis_on_Dutch_dairy_farmerswww.pigprogress.net/World-of-Pigs1/Articles/2018/10/Rabobank-The-Netherlands-will-lose-many-pig-producers-348896E/
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 7:52:09 GMT -7
In August the French farmers already protested against the EU trade deal with Canada
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 7:56:57 GMT -7
Also in Berlin there were farm protests
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 7:59:32 GMT -7
Poland has also a tradition of farmer political parties (PSL), farmer movements (Samoobrona) and farmer strikes and protests
2015
Poland: Thousands of farmers protest against Ukrainian imports
6 feb. 2019
Thousands of farmers from all over Poland took to the streets of Warsaw on Wednesday, demanding that the Polish government limit the import of products, primarily from Ukraine.
The protest, which was organised by the private company AGROunia, was held in front of the Presidential Palace, where protesting farmers urged politicians to do more to care about the polish agriculture industry.
According to the organiser of the protest Michal Kolodziejczak, “more and more goods from Ukraine are coming to Poland. The West does not want to buy our goods in the amount we produce. They cut us off effectively from the internal market.”
“We cannot sell [products] to Russia, because politicians in some strange way conduct international policy at the expense of Polish farmers and Russian consumers. And here we bear the consequences," Kolodziejczak added.
According to activists, if the country's leadership does not make concessions, farmers promise to begin a “siege of the capital.” According to experts, the Polish authorities refuse to change their political course.
2014
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 8:04:38 GMT -7
Also the old West German capital Bonn saw farmers actions
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 8:11:07 GMT -7
I wonder if this Farmers Defence Force will develop into a militia?
Dutch farmers invade Dutch police station
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 9:01:34 GMT -7
|
|
|
Post by karl on Nov 27, 2019 10:29:16 GMT -7
Pieter
It is most amazing of the general disdain given to Farmers by our respective Governements and distributors.For if to think for only just a moment, all civilizations exist for the reason of just half a meter of top soil. If that half meter of top soil is rendered useless we as well as the remainder of all people would starve to death.
It is to our collective benefit to protect and promote the welfare of our respective farmers, the reason of our lives depend upon their products they produce.
Karl
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 11:58:46 GMT -7
Karl,
You are absolutely right on this subject. Our governments (Your Federal Bundes government), Provincial authorities (in your case your Bundesländer) and European authorities squeeze out, harass, and hinder our farmers with bureaucratic measures, extreme legislation, quota's, production limits and doing so thus destroy farms, farm communities and our agricultural sectors. In the Netherlands one progressive liberal party (D66) want to downseize the meat producing farms by 50%. So from the present 100% of cow, pig, chicken and sheep farmers only 50% should stay. The rest should be bought or sold out by authorities or forcebly closed?
Large parts of the city populations and especially young children and teenagers who are alienated from real life by social media, computer games and city life don't understand that our lives are dependend on good farmers and the food processing industry.
Not only the governments are guilte Karl, also the larger cooperations, and the largerfarming cooperatives and dominant super large farm companies squeze the normal farmers. I is deeply sad, disturbing and tragic that hard working, decent and dedicated farmers are having such a hard time to survive. People pay to less for their meat, diary products and vegetables and fruit in Europe, because our farmers have a hard time to keep thier farm enterprises running. My father said. Pieter, farmers are entrepreneurs, they have knowledge about their product, the agricultural market, they know a lot about weather conditions, machinery, farming techniques, live stock, crops, and their competition elsewhere. Today European farmers have an extreme hard time to survive. I few tough large farmers survive, a lot of middle big and smaller farms are engaged in a tough battle with themselves, the harsh agricultural markets (the cooperatives, corporations and multi-nationals like Unilever who use the farm products for their Industrial food processed products).
Farmers should get more fair prices. Products that are to cheap should be more expensive, and the larger cooperatives shouldn't squeze the farmers out.
Cheers, Pieter
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 13:41:10 GMT -7
These video’s plus street interviews I made last week wednesday evening in between 20:00-21:00 hours on the square in front of the Provincial administration headquarters of the Gelderland Province in Arnhem (Arnhem is the capital of Gelderland) and the police station which was invaded and surrounded by a mob of farmers and construction workers. There seems to be a coalition between farmers and construction workers. I ran out of a city council meeting in the city hall of Arnhem.
It was a wild spontaneous action folks and I just ran after the tractors to the square. There was no clear spokes person. The first guy in the orange jacket was unclear and somewhat distant and reluctant in his reply, so I looked for another one. The second guy gave a better and clear answer. He explained what the action was about. This is an unedited live report. What you see is what you get.
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 13:45:15 GMT -7
Farmers and construction workers parked their tractors, vans and cars on the market square in front of the Provincial building and went to the Arnhem police station to protest against the arrest of a construction worker of a building firm who would have pushed asside a police motor bike during a protest.
|
|
|
Post by karl on Nov 27, 2019 15:01:16 GMT -7
Pieter
Thank you most kindly for sharing your work, for it makes it much more interesting knowing you are both the camera man and interviewer.
For the most part, it appears these farmers protest is well civilized and yet should be effective in gaining the attention to their plight for action. It is with hope and trust that Federal Authority will listen with honest attention and not just lip service to gain votes..
Karl
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 15:33:15 GMT -7
Karl,
You have 4 main reactions to the farmer protests.
- 1) The lipservice politicians - 2) The honest real supporters of the farmers - 3) The opponents if the farmers (green parties and technocratic pragmatic parties who follow science, reports [research] and Brussels guide lines) - 4) The traditional supporters of the farmers, the CDA christian democrats (the Dutch CDU/CSU). But the CDA switched to 3. With a few Pro-Farmers Christian democratic politicians left.
Problem for the farmers is that most Dutch politicians and parliamentarians are of the cathegory 1), 3) and 4). Few politicians are cathegory 2).
|
|
|
Post by pieter on Nov 27, 2019 15:36:15 GMT -7
So I expect that the farmer protests will continue and will become more militant, radical and maybe more aggressive and possibly violent.
Fact is that these tractors if used in an aggressive or violent manner can become arms. You can crush people, police cars, vans and damage buildings with them.
|
|