Dutch person here. We went through this a few years ago. Now we have a farmer's party in government. Buckle up Germans, it is gonna be a wild and not fun ride.
@@K_1_T_S_U_N_Eyeah and historically farmer parties tend towards nationalist/populist, far-right, anti-intellectual crap. That's not "interesting enough" that's frightening to think of given that we already have enough on our hands with the proto-fascist possible getting enough votes to fuck us all up in the next elections...
A good few years back the fees to register a "Party" for standing candidates on the Australian Electoral Ballot were erroneously made extremely low. Leading to a VERY bloated Voting Form as there were now choices from the "Party, Party, Party Party!" the "All Organically Grown Sun-Ripened Tomato Party" etc. Did brighten the drudgery of Election Day though! 😉😊
As far as I understood it, most Farmers out there protest out of solidarity with small, family-owned farms who cannot afford to protest themselves. The average income of farmers that politics based their decisions on doesn't really amount to anything, revenue isn't a metric you can judge by here, a single bad harvest can absolutely run you out of business at smaller scales. Around my area, every farmer over the last few years has either run out of business and instead keeps the farm for self-sufficiency, or has been bought out by a bigger one, as they couldn't turn a profit with the current prices and surrendered all their assets in the process. It's mainly about those people, who are already struggling massively, but without whom our entire economy would fall apart. As you already outlined, a farmer's income has to: - provide for the entire family, meaning food, money, education and additional lifestyle expenses - cover for insurance and the like, including, and most importantly, any applicable fees for the property itself - buy ever more expensive equipment to keep up with the market And at the end of all that, you need to have enough funds left over to cover up a bad harvest. You live at constant mercy of climate related incidents. Floods, droughts/heatwaves and hailstorms are common occurences lately. You kinda scramble for every bit of money you can set aside. So if the government decides to cut your already shaky income even further, to make up for their own mistakes no less, you kinda have to draw a line. On a related note, it's pretty ironic to see right-wing politicians participate in the protests, cutting subsidies has been part of the AfD's agenda for years, and now they're protesting against it. As for why nazis are even here, they're trying to hijack the protest for their own agenda, and attempt to shift the narrative from a struggle to survive to a general discomfort with the current government.
The media is basically doing the government’s work for them by calling anyone who supports the farmers a “Nazi” or “far right” in order to frame the protests in the way that the government wants.
Well the small farm are no longer economical units and keeping them afloat wil be lifelong. So a part of the population wil need lifelong handout just because they happen to own land. Shame. A farm is a business, either buy more land and become a profitable unit or sell so that others can.. Keeping them afloat with tax money is unsustainable and wasteful.
Nice comment… But I think you missing that the CDU was in charge all these years and did not enough to shift the focus to something that we could call modern agriculture… It’s a bit housemade problems I think and now it’s time for change by Desaster and not by design even more…
They're blaming the whole coalition, but the Greens' talk of eliminating subsidies for the sake of the environment and their advice to buy electric tractors have been particularly irksome to them.
@@rewboss yeah, a tractor that can't do the job is worthless. Which means the farmer needs to buy tractors in bulk, and that is simply not economically viable.
The Greens are an actual political threat to the CDU/CSU(Union), and the AFD (also to some parts of the FDP) - this is why they are the common enemy both in Union and AFD supporting media, which covers about 2/3rds of German media. The Greens were in a prime position to be the leading party for millenials and zoomers and had a good image, the reactionary establishment sided with the radical far right and the moderate right to oppose the Greens, destroy their imagine and discredit them at all cost. That invisible coalition is successful.
The same people I hear complaining about a few protesters gluing their hands to a road are suddenly completely supportive of the farmer's method of protest. Apparently blocking hypothetical ambulances isn't a concern when the protest is for a cause they support. Perhaps the climate protesters can borrow the tractors for their next protest to boost support.
You are comparing a scheduled planned and announced protest to a sudden, unannounced protest which noone could plan for. There where dozens of pages of planning for emergency routes for this farmer protest
problem is: ambulances were blocked by LG protestors, while farmers go (literally) out of their way to make sure that wont happen. Not to mention that what youre doing is by far not an apples to apples comparison...
@FlorianGeyer_ They provide a product and get paid for said product in addition to receiving massive amounts of subsidies. I know food production is important (I'm a journeyman gardener myself and have a BSc in horticulture) but elevating farmers to their current holier-than-thou position has made them an absolute nightmare to work with, especially when trying to implement any kind of sensible change in farming practices. Just to be clear: I'm mainly talking about "big" farmers, I can absolutely understand how these changes will negatively impact smaller ones.
@FlorianGeyer_ Oh I absolutely agree with you, especially when talking about the more local, "small-scale" farmers, and I'm someone that has worked in agriculture, so I also know that going completely "green" is simply not feasible in a lot of cases. But even small changes that would have a comperatively large impact without increasing the workload too much are often opposed by farmes by simply stating "we have always done it this way so we won't change". So sadly I do believe some changes need to be forced upon them or they will never be implemented.
Protesting the discontinuation of the diesel subsidy with the Greens minister for agriculture (ok, threatening him and his family on their way home from holidays), for a decision taken by the FDP Finance Minister... just begs the question if they been breathing too much of their own methane.
We have a similar problem in California. Farmers have historically gotten a 2/3 discount on the cost of water; it’s perpetuated massive inefficiencies, profits are higher than ever, and now they see it as an inalienable right. You’ll even see signs along the highway accusing the state government or even the United Nations of causing droughts just for them, and yeah there’s a lot of far-right groups in the rest of the state who’ve dropped in to take advantage of the issue.
@FlorianGeyer_ strange. Whenever there's talk about billionaires in the US in some specific context you can bet your @ss that Bill Gates will be mentioned as if there's no Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mr. Mercer, Koch, etc. The farms in California are huge and hence work with machines. Farm workers are often people from Mexico and farther parts of Latin America, some being in the US legally, some illegally. What do you think they get payed?
@FlorianGeyer_ Don't worry, oblivious guys like him will just wake up some day wondering how the farm land is all owned exclusively by like 3 billionaires
Exactly. If you change long established habits, you will earn protest. Water is still completly free in Germany, by the way - if they pump it themselve from the ground.
Farmers as a category don't have an "income" problem, they have a distribution problem! What really annoys me in all of this discussions is that there is a notion, that farms can not survive without the subsidies that are now up to debate. Those subsidies are a very small share of all the subsidies that go into agriculture. A few years ago the allocation of the vast majority of these subsidies, which come from the EU, has been changed. At that time, there was a push to change subsidies from being highly dependent on the land size to a system, that would allocate more due to environmental services. At that time, the Bauernverband has not been a huge fan of these changes and many of those were implemented significantly softened. This would have been the time, where we would have needed to change the system, but change is not something that the largest farmer's advocacy group (which is also intensely associated with the CDU and especially CSU) is interested in. For this reason, while I do support the demand that farmers should be able to make a good living from their work, I have a massive lack of understanding for this type of protest. As a society, we can absolutely no longer afford the lack of change that has brought us into this precarious situation in the first place!
I think you need to crunch the numbers a little. Over the last five years, the average annual "profit" (out of which farmers are expected to pay a lot of their costs, as I explained) for an average farm has been €60,000. That's barely enough to cover their costs: last year's record profits did little more than give farmers a breathing space and allow them to pay off some of their debts. So yes, the average farmer is going to notice the loss of €3,000 a year.
@@rewboss Haha, I always believed I had too many issues with the browser extensions that I use. Never came to the conclusion, that it would be really as bad as I experienced it. 🤦 Basically my argument was that there are not only farmers themself getting subsidies but a large part goes to big agricultural companies and enterprises and that FragDenStaat did great number crunching about that a year ago with several media partners publishing good articles!
Thank you Rewboss! I've been watching the protests and didn't know the reason the "Why". I LOVE that you are explaining relevant / timely issues from Germany.
Hello Rewboss, I just want to express my gratitude. I have found your channel recently. I am a Dane myself with no German skills but a desire to learn about German sociaty. I am glad I found your channel and I am grateful for your insight on German matters. Looking forward to seeing your videos in 2024.
Whenever essential workers protest against the government, the government can place a single individual with a far right flag and that's enough for naïve young people to dismiss the protests and permit the government to suppress them by any means. So much for workers solidarity.
One of the main problems is how the subsidies are distributed among the farmers. Basically, the bigger you are, the more you get. This benefits industrial farmers and puts small family farms at a disadvantage from the start. The farms which would be most affected by the higher Diesel prices, are the agricultural giants, because they have longer distances to work their land. Small farms wouldn’t be affected that much. We should have a system which supports small businesses and doesn’t favor industrial farms which produce food at dumping prices at the cost of animal welfare and the environment.
@@AntonGudenus I don’t think the distances between the fields are the issue, but the size of the fields. The bigger they are, the more fuel you need to plow, sow, harvest, etc.
@@kieferngruen But at the same time the amount of produce produced also increases proportionally. Both fuel and yield are directly proportional to field size. They are relatively fixed per m2 with larger farms generally having slightly better fuel-economy. Due to smaller farmers having to work with tighter margins, they would be hit worst and driven into unpprofitability first by increasing these relative costs. The reasons large farms are generally more profitable, is not due to the income and expenses that are directly proportional to farmed hectares like fuel/seed/time, but due to them being able to net themselves size-regression effects. Large farms can buy larger, more modern and more fuel efficient tractors and can use their machines to the fullest. They also can hire people and therefore optimally distribute work-load between many people with less overhead. And they are able to deploy all the newest and most expensive tech, due to being able to actually profit from even small efficiency increases brought by expensive systems. A good example would be the deployment of modern GPS guided self-driving systems for tractors. They are much to expensive for small farms with small tractors due to the very high and not scalable unit cost (such systems can easily cost €50k a piece), but they are paying off for very big farms, who are deploying much larger tractors, so the unit cost for the GPS guidance gets relatively smaller per m2/hectar worked. €50k extra on a €100k tractor is something different (a 50% price increase) than €50k extra on a €500k tractor (a 10% price increase).
One thing: the time and way the german government announced this seems a very bad choice too. As you recently also made a video about the 60 billion € hole in their governmental budget, it looked like they wanted to make the famers pay for their own mistake. Which i think is what caused the big rage with farmers. On a different note: I think the average income is pretty disceiving. There are huge farms with huge incomes and small farms with small incoms. The median numbers (if they would be available) would be more telling. The fuel subsidation is a thing in other countries too. Basically they pay less "fuel tax" on fuel that is specifically used for agriculture. So it's less an amount of money they would get than money they don't need to pay. And i would say food prices would rise if that is stopped. People would complain and be angry at the farmers for raising the prices, while the farmers then inturn would complain that their products aren't bought but cheaper stuff from somewhere else where either the subsidation is still in place or other local differences make the production cheaper.
It‘s hypocritical that children that are afraid for their future are deemed terrorists for their actions by certain media and politicians but farmers get lots of support when they block every road possible.
By the government and MSM the butt gluers were defintely not deemed as terrorists, exactly the opposite was the case, with lots of sympathizers, especially in the green party. Don't flip the facts!
And their style of protest , intimidating and terrorising people with their large vehicles, keeping them from getting to work and children to school, etc. is more than abnoxious. Even public transport is blocked today in my town. No tram or bus heading for the town centre from where I live because of farmers playing war.
I am a farmer in italy, where we live a softer situation (they'll cut on subsidies but not the Gas for now). The only evidence that upsets everyone is that we don't have, either on paper, a solution for leaving diesel. There is no Electric Tractor, nothing that compares to the actual machines. It's not like cars, where you can buy between models and kinda replace your combustion car. There is no electric Tractor, but they cut Diesel bonuses to enforce electric tractors. That's sounds more like weird ideology than "resilience" or what they call it. In this way, seems like the state is using green transition only to tax more money from the farmers, and keeps me in supporting them. Cheers!
How are farmers struggling when prices for simple food products are still at least 40% higher than pre-war? Sugar is still twice as expensive. Shouldn't they swim in money or did they all sign long-term gag contracts?
@@benm8214 Supermarkets are highly competitive, they actually do no not increase their margin (but they do protect it). The profits go to bigger agricultural investors.
@@johandanningsson8108 Fuel and natural gas are cheaper than pre-war and labour is pretty much a non-issue for crops that are planted and harvested at high rates of automation, like grain and sugar roots.
Just to expand the point on "electric tractors", and as someone who actually has looked into the possibility of buying an electric tractor. They currently don't really exist in a workable way. Even if you have 100s of thousands of Euros to burn. Tractors need to run for long hours during peak season. And they need to be fueled fast and easily. Building a recharge station for one would necessitate new power-grid infrastructure for most farms, because the current infrastructure just can't take the high currents. Even getting the grid ready to take larger deployments of solar pannels (like covering your barn with solar panels), is often not possible and outright banned in many areas due to the weak grid. The same is actually true for electric 4x4 offroad vehicles. There simply are no good options currently on the market. Either they are stuck in "will be available soon" like the Ford Lightning or they are not capable of dealing with actual offroad use like the Skoda Enyaq. And unfortunately also small economic 4x4 models with ICE are increasingly hard to get, due to having been killed by shortsighted EU fuel economy standards. As an example from my own situation: I currently drive a pickup truck burning some 14l/100km in my forestry work, because the Suzuki Jimny, which I actually would have liked and which only uses some 7l/100km offroad, can't be sold with 4 seats due to being so small. Used models are now more than 10k more expensive than new due to this situation. This is absolutely ridiculous. But it's the kind of regulatory bullshit, written by people, who have no idea about the realities of living and working in the countryside, you have to constantly deal with as a farmer.
I found a vague reference to an extra vehicle that could be bought (for a five-figure sum) to ferry spare batteries between the tractor and the charging point. And then I read that the battery for even the small tractor I showed (the only I could find that seemed to be actually on the market right now) weighs upwards of 600 kg; longer-lasting batteries can weigh as much as a small car, apparently. So now I'm thinking you'd also need to buy a little crane just to swap the batteries over.
@@rewboss The big problem currently still is found in the rather low energy density of batteries. This is both true in terms of weight/kWh and volume/kWh. Diesel fuel has a usable energy density of around 20.6 MJ/kg (at an engine efficiency of 45%), while the very best Lithium batteries are currently somewhere around 0.75 MJ/kg. Which makes diesel around 27.5x more efficient in terms of weight. In terms of volume diesel has a usable energy density of around 17.3 MJ/l, with LiNiCoAl batteries reaching around 2 MJ/l. Which makes diesel around 8.6x more efficient in terms of volume. And that importantly is not yet factoring in, that a fuel-tank can be much more "conformal" than a battery-bank and also needs less protection against puncture. This protection is especially important in uses like tractors, where there are massive forces involved, the potential for perforation is very high and you can not be reached by the fire-patrol easily. The idea of swichting batteries in the field might sound good on paper and might actually work in a controlled environment, but it is woefully unrealistic, even if you buy a small ofrroad crane to lift those 600kg power packs. Agricultural machines get dirty and dinged up. Good luck in changing the battery when something down there is bent or dirty. And lets hope the contacts don't short out and burn your 300k+ machine and whole field down, because you were unlucky. Additionally electric tractors are currently only available in rather puny kW (or horsepower) ratings. If you for instance are making hay with a big bale-press, you will need some 200 kW of power in your tractor. With many of the larger combustion models for big fields and machines easily topping 400 kW. But the best electric tractor, currently available from New Holland for instance, is 48 KW. That's not even enough to pull a medium size plough. And it burns through its battery (110 kWh) in about 2 hours of work.
cutting subsidys for farmers but at the same time leaving subsidys for airlines in place, is a very bad joke nobody should tolerate. always stand with those who put food on your table!
Well, of course some foodproduction subsidies are good and necessary, but a lot of western agriculture subsidising has not been directed at this. The EU subsidises mainly to give big corporations an advantage against local farmers and to conduct developement aid unofficially, while many state subsidies mainly aimed at bulliing third world competition out of business or increase export. In other words: Having some agriculture subsidies is good, but the overwhelming majority is bad and not even directed at food security, including paying for fossil fuel tractors instead of all farming vehicles.
@@DieJacke You need local farmers to grow you your local food. No matter how much fuel subsidies it will cost you, because buying it from farmers far away in a cheap labor country will increase emission output through the additional transport efforts. Not to mention additional environmental damages, that aren't strictly regulated as we got here. And cheap labor farmers abroad do also use fossil fuel vehicles. "including paying for fossil fuel tractors instead of all farming vehicles" - there are no alternative vehicles available. I don't know where rewboss got the information regarding electric tractors, but there are none in existence, that you could possibly buy right now. There is a prototype running at Fendt and John Deere is working on it right now. That's all. If there really is one out there - and rewboss picture is certainly not that vehicle, than it has to be a model, that is not certified for use in Europe. And ALL farm vehicles receive these "subsidies" - including excavators, bulldozers, and the farmers' jeeps for example. And these aren't even "subsidies". It's a tax-deferred solution, where they claim the energy tax back through their tax declaration. It doesn't match the definition of subsidies at all. I wonder why most media outlets call it as such.
Not taxing something is not a subsidy. Fuel taxes were introduced to make drivers pay for the cost they cause the government in road construction, traffic police, public car parks and so on.. Newsflash: Neither tractors nor airplanes use public roads, so it's absolutely fair to not make them pay for them.
@@xaverlustig3581 "Neither tractors nor airplanes use public roads, so it's absolutely fair to not make them pay for them." - I grew up in the countryside, learnt to drive in the countryside, and being a notoriously bad driver, overtaking a tractor with a trailer was the nightmare of my learning to drive. For tractors never using public streets, I had to do it quite often. And after harves seasons, dangerous muddy roads were - well - produced by PKWs, and the frequent roadsign "Überholverbot - Trecker dürfen überholt werden" is mere decoration since they should actually not be seen there ? ;) It's probably a regional thing, and where I live now, there are a lot of side roads exclusively for tractors and other Landmaschinen, normally not allowed for other vehicles - but where I grew up, tractors and other farming vehicles use public roads every day and the heavier ones also damage it. That said, I still think Farmers should keep the tax exemption or at least a reduction, especially if they are small or middle class (Mittelstands) farms that have to pay and provide most of their gear themselves, with no backup by a large company behind them. After all, they do something for society with these vehicles, so society should support them somewhat. I'd go for the Dienstwagenprivileg instead and would opt for a closer look at that one and for some cuts with respect to this. (Note: We regularly used to have a Dienstwagen onf and off for years, so in contrast to taxing tractors, this could affect me personally, at least in the future.) Many people officially have one but actually do not need it. My husband got one several times only to make his employer and his contract seem more attractive, despite not actually needing one, eg (and he was not the only one among his colleagues). That was nice to have at times, but, seriously, it is absolutely not necessary to reduce or remove taxes for these cases.
@xaverlustig3581 "Public parking" is generally paid for, free parking is incredibly rare nowadays, so your point here is moot. Research has shown that tractors cause significantly more damage to roads than cars or even fully loaded trucks do. So another one of your points is moot. They should be pating taxes just as much as the rest of us. Done. What I do believe is that the government should be investing in more sustainable practices. Give them subsidies to invest in more modern equipment. German farmers are horribly outdated and basically still using the same principles they did 100 years ago, except it's now mechanized. Give them subsidies to build greenhouses or vertical farms, and incentive them to lend out their millions worth of land to build solar/wind farms. If they get to keep their short sighted subsidies, guess what, taxes for the rest of us will have to increase. The money has to come from somewhere. At least with the above mentioned investments, it creates some more jobs for the future and introduces a more reliable and steady source of income for farmers.
Thanks for clearing this farmer strike thing up for me, a bit. My wife and me were recently trying to understand what it was all about, but neither could contribute much information. Personally I'm on the small farmers' side. The big farms are doing well, it's always the small farms that suffer.
The irony regarding the AFD is that they also voted for stopping the subsidized fuel for farmers, btw, so good job if you happen to support them as a farmer with your "vote out of protest".
Stupid and uninformed people will always believe what you tell them if they already believe it anyway. That's why the AfD can tell contradicting things to different people and will still be elected. :(
I don't drive, therefore I do not pay vehicle tax; so does that mean I'm not allowed to take part in a demonstration? Or walk to the next village? Or ride a bike?
The German farmers are revolting because they are the second most subsided business in Germany after the automobile industry, and now, subsidies on fuel are cut. But prices for their products paid by the great retailers stay as small as before, the reason subsidies are necessary in the first place.
Thank you for explaining it so easily. I kinda have had problems grasping hwat the problem for the farmers is. And I kinda think its funny how some farmers, who where where anti "Klima-Kleber" are now uisng their tractors to block roads and and smear dung on buldings.... My mom was scared of the farmers protest in her town. Cause there are quite a few industrial farmers around my mums town. And their giant tractors where like tanks to her. And They also had "hanging equipment" and not so nice slogans on their banners. We like to have lively political discussions around the dinner tabel. And I try to understands everyones viewpoint and play devils advocat. So thanks for a few new insights.
There are many hypocrites in Germany. The farmers just have a better image (seen as hardworking, honest, relevant people) than the so-called "Klimakleber" (seen as spoiled, non-working, pest-like students who bark up the wrong tree and piss on the wrong leg).
Yeah, when the kids are afraid they won't have any livable Germany left because of the climate crisis they are "terrorists" and dragged into jail, but when farmers do it for a few cents while sitting in their giant machines with police helping them - well they are obviously couragous heroes. It's bigotry at it's finest and it's sad to see that so many farmers let themselves get puppeteered by the right and libertarians.
The profit of €150,000 is an average - there were some making significantly more, some significantly less. Another average value would be the cost per farm if the fuel subsidies would be removed at once: € 1,700 per year. Again, some would lose more, some less - but in average those with the bigger farms and higher profits would lose more than the smaller, less profitable farms. The amount itself is therefore not significant, it is only the starter for protests about the whole situation. This situation was however not caused by the current government - the responsibility lies rather with the former government(s) and the Bauernverband (farmer's association) itself, who lobbied for more than 7 decades for a policy which contributed massively to the economically desperate situation of a majority of the smaller farms. The Bauernverband is not simply a trade union of farmers, but tightly interconnected with the agroindustrial complex, and still propagates the slogan "Wachse oder weiche" - "up or out", instead of supporting smaller family farms. Their lobbying was excessively successful and created the economic environment which led to the decline of medium size farms. The narrative "in 1900 one farmer fed 4 people, in 1950 10 people, in 2021 140 people" is at least biased. At closer examination it seems rather implausible: The family of a farmer in the year 1900 would itself consist of more than 4 people, not counting the farmhands. The secret is not to count those family members and helpers as consumers, but only as producers. The production surplus in 1950 could feed in average 10 additional persons (again: average. My grandpa's farm was not very big at the time, but he fed dozens of townfolk and refugees during the late 1940s, besides his own family.) Modern agricultural methods facilitate in some sectors yields 4 times the size of those in the 1920s, using far less personnel. At the same time they do often damage massively the soil which will led to declining yields in the near future and even now diminishes possible profits by needing more input (agrochemicals, machines, ...). Most agricultural subsidies are by the way motivated by the goal of keeping down consumer prices, not by supporting small and medium-sized farms or rural families.
Yep. when the ratio gets to 1 "Farmer" feeds 100 "Other Ranks" you don't have to be a very smart politician to work out that any of the distributable goodies under your control MUST be directed ONLY to sucking up to the "Other Ranks" not the actual producers. 🙄😉😊
But they are not as honest, to give their numers. They protest just anyway, from emotional reasons. A farmer with a turnover of 1 Million, doesn't hardly notice if fuel tax goes up by 20.000€. It's actually 2%; easy to pass secretly to customers. But they cry as loud, like they are about to be killed.And by purpose, they only tell you the 20.000€, but not the 1 million € in turnover. It generates more empathy.
Climate protestors block the roads: "THESE ECO TERRORISTS!" Farmers block the roads: "WE NEED TO SAVE THE FARMERS! SOLIDARITY WITH FARMERS!" Talk about idiocy.
Farmers demand changes that would improve their income while climate protestors demand changes that would change lifestyle of others. It is a lot easier to relate to farmers because they don't want to suddenly and drastically change the direction the world goes.
@@yansakovich Well, if we don't change our lifestyle at least in certain parts, farmers will be out of work in future because of droughts, floods and other catastrophies cause by the changing climate. I understand the climate protesters. I don't support their ways of protesting either although they cause only minor problems compared to threating, war-like behaviour of the farmers.
Of course not. The organization behind the protests (Bauernverband) is a conservative lobby organization that is very much in bed with the big sale companies.
Hier im Dorf sind auch die Bauern mit Plakaten durchgefahren, und bei einigen musste ich doch kurz auf die Uhr schauen, in was für einem Jahrhundert wir uns eigentlich befinden. Da waren etliche Sprüche dabei, die ich bisher nur aus dem Geschichtsunterricht kannte.. erschreckend.
"i need that money!" burns diesel on the road blocking it with a vehicle more expensive than a year of rent, instead of getting a real job. that last part i don't believe in, but they like to say it, they must love hearing it back now.
Farmers are getting a disproportionately large amount of subsidies from the government compared to other professions. And many other professions are also struggling. So what I don't understand is, why are we disproportionately concerned about farmers, just because they have the heavy machines to cause more civil disorder than other professions? If the money isn't saved on these subsidies, it will have to be saved elsewhere, where it will likely negatively impact a lot more people. I would also have a lot more sympathy for farmers if they hadn't immediately decided to shut down everything every time something inconveniences them. They are blocking progress, even when what they protest against is something good like a reduction of unhealthy pesticides.
@@aoeuable Without marketing consultants, sure. But other critical professions are struggling too. Truck drivers' entire life revolves around burning fuel and they don't get it subsidized. And without them, most of the food that is farmed would rot because it can't be delivered. Nurses arguably are even more important than farmers. You can import food, but you can't import care. Yet look at what situation they are in. I'm not wishing hardship on farmer's. But at the end of the day, their protests come from a place of relative privilege which other professions, even crucial ones, don't get to enjoy.
Hi. First of all: Thanks for taking the time to summarize some of the facts. Second: I am sorry, but half of what you said is either wrong, missing key elements or is simply goverment propaganda. Please let me fill in some of the blanks: 1. The farmers are not only protesting the loss of "Substitution", they've been receiving. They are protesting after the withdraw of support broke the camels back. It is true, that they do not pay taxes for their vehicles. Rightfully so, if you ask me. Because without them, they cannot do their job. It is also true, that they got support to shoulder the fuel costs, because there is not substitution. They can only use this kind of fuel and electro traktors are worthless to them. They neither have to Power, not the reach, not do they last long enought or are simply so expensive, that they eat up their entire yearly budget... for one vehicle. I am sorry, but this is rediculous. 2. They are also protesting ridiculous laws and guidelines, that make it nearly impossible to gain any profits. The nitrat-law. The futilizer-law. The law that forbits them to use a certain amount of their land. And so on. There are hundrets! And part of a farmers life is spend, filling out forms and paying for surveys to prove, they do keep these rules... also costing them a lot. Add to that, that they are loosing profits due to less viable products and food guidelines, where food is rejected, because it's crooked or the potato is too large or too small. And add the fact, that some of those guidelines stop them from producing certain things (e.g. the futelizer-law prevets them from growing wheat, that is viable for human consuption and can only be fed to animals) and the fact, that they are forbidden from raising their prizes, unless it's agreed by the large supermarkets! Regarding the "Neo-Nazi" problem... I am gonna be frank here. It has been a rising worry for me, since this is a terrible injustice! Everytime someone (and it does not matter, who) disagrees with our goverment and gains support, they are called "Neo-Nazis", "right idiots" and suddenly "Neo-Nazis" and their signs were spotted during those protests. This has nothing to do with real Neo Nazis, but is an attempt by the German goverment to simply shut Nay-Sayers up. If you do not agree with them, you are anti-democratic, right, elect the AFD or are a Nazi or Rasist. Quite frankly, this is simply prove, that they do not have any arguments against those protestors. If they had them, it would not be necessary to use such underhanded and insulting tactics to force them into submission. Democracy lives from people having diffrent opinions. It is a part of us, that every opinion is heard and a compromise reached. We can not hope to preserve our constetutional state, if we are frightened by people of different opinions. It is an insult to all the victims during the Nazi-Regime to use their suffering so carelessly! I would implore our goverment to stop with this and focus on solving such issues, rather then trying to discredit these lawful protestors, but I have never gotten a single reply to any letter I sent. Please do not let these tactics stop you. Keep your head up and know: Violence is not the right way, but using our constetutional rights to their full potential, will lead to greater compromize and hopefully a good future for all of us in the world.
Where does it come from? The palm oil we use in Nutella® is 100% sustainable palm oil, traceable back to the mills. It mainly originates from Malaysia (averaging around 80% of our volumes) followed by Indonesia.
Wait. There are no electric tractors, that you could technically buy in Germany. There is a prototype made by Fendt and we know John Deere is working on the development of those, as well as many others. But there isn't even one available, that you could get, even if you wanted to.
Looks like the German and European agricultural vehicle industry is at the same sleeping pace as the German car industry. Globally there seems to be a rapidly growing selection of options. Some with significantly more than 4 hours runtime. Looks like in ten years time tractors on our fields might come from China or India.
@@patrickhanft There are no electric tractors in China or India either. These vehicles run with a very different user profile, when compared with cars. They run off-road, which triples or quadrouples your power consumption just by driving in heavy terrain. Then they often tow heavy loads as well. And they have to be able to do that 24/7 during harvest. They are the most fuel hungry machines out there. No battery can supply such a machine today. Current development ideas involve huge exchangable battery packs, to solve these issues in the future.
@@Akixkisu You would need to run quite a few of those in a linked rig to even come close to the capabilities of the normal modern Diesel unit on a large-scale farm. Not knocking the potential for electric tractors - just that they are nowhere nearly here yet. Actually in the long term, there is probably a better case for farm tractor use than road vehicles as the inevitable battery weight is needed on a tractor for 'traction" ability! On the road it's just dead weight to have to lug around. Also tractors and the infrastructure to support them can be fairly localized but road vehicles need a huge spaced out spread of infrastructure. All of it requires oceans of money, so the current generations better get used to pawning all their i-Phones and eschewing any visits to McDonald's for say .. the next hundred years! 😉
@@theoztreecrasher2647 depends on the farm and scale. Some are better suited and some are a distant dream. The MK-V convinced me in terms of dairy and vineyards. The type of farmer I empathise with doesn't work on a scale that is unfeasible for current or next gen ev (in most cases).
Very few people understand the connection that it is a systemic problem. Farmers should protest against the food lobby and fight for fair prices for milk and meat. The stuff is being pushed down by retail chains and buyers to such an extent that some of the richest Germans naturally belong to Aldi and so on. Our agriculture minister in the previous government lobbied for Nestlé, which is the devil among predatory capitalists... But the fight would have no chance and the organisers of the strikes are covering up for the retailers and the buyers. Milk for under €2 and cheap meat make subsidies vital. I have to admit that I find it reasonable that cuts are being made everywhere and that farmers are having to cut back too.
The farmers claim, they couldn't pass their prices to the customers. Only if the procondition is correct, the protests do make any sense. Consumers are able and willing, to take 1% increas of prices in average, they have no choice. If at all, food processors - the industry in between - can be considered a problem. But the governement really is the wrong target. But protesting the governement will generate more solidarity, cause everybody can find some personal reason , to protest the governement.
It would bring nothing to protest aganist discounters since you would basically protest against their business model. A discounter not exercising high price pressure is not a discoutner. As you said it is a systemic problem of how to incentivise higher prices and giving more price building power to the single farmer and therefore ultimately a question better balance of supply and demand which is not the case for most agricultural products because the price of agricultural commodities are heavily influenced by the futures markets at stock exchanges.
@@davinnicode It's a disbalance in size. If you have 10000 farmers and 4 discounters, no single farmer dears to raise prices, in expectation to get unlisted/fired. It's like an army of unskilled workers, having no way to put pressure on the employer. Their only options are to quit or not to quit. Something like a union organizing strikes doesn't exist. A stock market only exists for non-parishable goods, like wheat, oil, milk, maybe butter. If farmers join this market they know what they are doing. And there they had the option, to change to fresh vegetables or organic food, to get more distance from the global market. You know Germans eat raw pork, but definitly not from outside Germany.
Ironically, most farms were forced into banktruptcy by and during CDU/CSU governments. The same parties farmers predominantly vote for. The irony is really lost on them.
Visually, it makes a big difference whether there are 100 little people standing in the corner of a square or whether there are 100 large and loud tractors clogging the street. The farmers take this effect with them. The tractors of today also have little to do with the melancholic feeling when I think back to when I drove a tractor (illegally, of course) at the age of 14.
The tax on fuel is to be used for maintaining roads and bridges; that's how it started. Since farmers and those working in forests almost exclusively use their vehicles offroad they have always been exempt from this tax - it never was a subsidy !!! But nobody speaks about this aspect and today most Germans don't even know about this fact....
Most of the subsidised diesel is used for the production of animal feed and biodiesel/biogas. I see no reason why this production should be supported with climate-damaging subsidies.
@@rewboss I thought that was obvious. But if you need a source, let's take a look at grain production: Source: "Was wächst auf Deutschlands Feldern" (landwirtschaftDE): "Auf einem Großteil der Fläche wächst Tierfutter" In 2022/23, only 22.1% of grain production was destined for food.
@@clemensmuller2543 Yeah, livestock also has to be fed. If you're arguing that we should go vegan, that's an entirely different point, and in any case farmers still have to power their machinery.
@@clemensmuller2543 Yeah, livestock also has to be fed. If you're arguing that we should go vegan, that's an entirely different point, and in any case farmers still have to power their machinery.
@@rewboss I'm not saying that we should become vegan. But why should we subsidise the production of animal foods? Milk and pork are already subsidised. And why should we subsidise the 22% of grain production that is destined for industry or the energy sector?
rather interestingly, members of Letzte Generation voiced support of the protests, arguing that cutting these specific fuel subsidies would barely help the climate in comparison to other measures, and would therefore put an unnecessary strain on the farmers. it should also be noted that there has been some (some!) timid far-left support of the farmers, for example a local (and rather small) FAU delegation (Freie ArbeiterInnen Union, an anarcho syndicalist trade union) supporting the farmer's protests in Freiburg.
"arguing that cutting these specific fuel subsidies would barely help the climate in comparison to other measures" Maybe, but these specific fuel subsidies are exactly part of the huge number of climate-damaging subsidies that are rightly criticized by these groups when it comes to the question of which huge amount of money we should use to achieve the transformation to a sustainable economy. Where do we make the cut? Should farmers also continue to be exempt from the gradually increasing CO₂ price on agricultural diesel in the future because the specific effects of agricultural diesel are not so significant? Because that would directly be the next change impacting the farmers at the exact same spot! Or should subsidies be changed to help accelerate the technological transformation? We should not deny that fuel consumption is a huge problem everywhere. In the end, we must not forget one thing: These cuts are the direct result of the Federal Constitutional Court ruling based on the so-called debt brake - ideologically driven by the CDU/CSU and FDP in particular. Why do we now have to drastically reduce government spending and cannot increase government revenue so that we can both secure a reasonable livelihood for farmers and make government investments in climate protection? Quite simply: because the wealthy do not want progress.
So you misunderstood something. The vehicle tax exam has been made 1922 in order to motorize the farmers, who had to pay much of their earnings to modernize. (Which is nowadays even more expensive). The fuel tax is a tax that was invented to specifically maintain the road, as farmers don't use much the roads and have to maintain their own dirtroads they got some of it back after a year with their tax declaration.
Yeah, just as we see how thousands take their tractors from everywhere around the country to Berlin... I think this video offers a quite neutral look on the facts. Just because it doesn't deliver the conclusion you would like to hear, it doesn't mean there is any kind of misunderstanding.
@@mariof2921 I'm more expert than this gentleman, who doesn't know the background story about this taxes. I worked in German farming. What kind of brilliant expert on the topic are you?
If the farmers demanded to be compensated for the loss of income, I would support the protests. But since they are protesting the abolition of a subsidy on burning fossil fuels, I do not. They are being unreasonable and unconstructive in their demands and in their methods.
Well considering there are no alternatives there is a total of 2 or 3 electric tractors on the market all so small that only vineyards and other speciality farms could actually find any use for them with a range of way less than the average hourly use of a tractor on a full working day in harvest or other high-demand times of the year and all that for the price of two regular tractors.. It would be a different story if tractors running on something else than diesel were available and working just as well.
@@modelleicher I wouldn't be suprised if the diesel subsidies are the reason why there are no viable electric alternatives. The engine and battery technology exists now for many years but can't compete with the heavily subsidized diesel engines.
If you want farmers to switch to electric tractors, you're going to have to give them all massive grants -- and I mean massive. We start with the fact that the few electric tractors currently on the market are prohibitively expensive. On a typical farm, tractors are often running pretty much all day, but on current models the battery lasts only a few hours between charges depending on the terrain, the soil, and any attachments they are powering. This means farmers would also have to buy at least one spare battery, another four or five-figure sum. These batteries are very heavy: the one for the model I showed weighs in at over 600 kg. So to swap the batteries out, you need some kind of mobile crane, and another vehicle to ferry the batteries between the tractor and the charging point. If the nearest power supply is too far away to be practicable, you have to build charging points in the fields, with solar panels and a windmill. The electric tractor I showed costs, as I said, €120,000. That's more than last year's entire record average profit, for just one tractor, without the spare battery and all the other stuff I mentioned. And there isn't much choice on the market at the moment: bigger and more powerful electric tractors are in development, and they should have a better battery life, but that's still in the future -- so the smart thing to do is for the farmers to hang on until more and better vehicles come onto the market and their prices start dropping (which is what usually happens with new technologies). Anyway, if you would support the idea of the government giving farmers €3,000 to compensate for the €3,000 loss in subsidy, what actual difference would that make?
@@rewbossThanks for your detailed reply. While I do understand that electric tractors that cost an arm and a leg but run for only 4 hours are little use to someone who has to work all day and then some during harvest season, I don't think this means diesel should be subsidised. The difference abolishing cheap diesel for farmers and compensating them financially would make, is that you are no longer paying them to burn diesel. Saving diesel will save farmers more money if the diesel is not subsidised. Therefore, diesel costs will weigh heavier in decisions on e.g. which crops to grow and how to grow them. I do believe farmers are being exploited by market forces and realise there is no easy fix, but subsidising fossil fuels is not the solution.
@@Welgeldiguniekalias Yes, sure. But then farmers have to be able to increase the costs for their products to compensate. Just like every other business out there is compensating increasing costs for fossil fuels, increasing toll costs and increasing CO2 taxation. Unfortunately, that's impossible for them, as prices are being dictated for them. Hence their protest.
With the battery powered ones.. My coworker used to work as farmer and his comment was that even years ago there were battery-electric tractors with 10h runtime and they still found no adoption because big industrialised farmers found that not enough for their employees because apparently farmers like to heavily ignore that German laws state 8h a day, 10h tops. These farmers should protest for subsidies for battery-electric or hydrogen fueled tractors and easier access to and subsidies for solar and wind. But instead of better access to future proofing their businesses they fight for outdated tech that will deffo cost them more in the long run and that will definitely fuck us all up(including their fields and yields). We just cannot fucking afford to put more CO2 in the atmosphere when we're going to cross that 1.5C line this year, yet these people, who really should know better, let themselves get dragged down to this bs by demagogues from the right who just want to keep their fucking oil buddies in business...
Most small self-employed farmers definitely ignore the 10h a day rule during the times, when they actually need their tractors. Tractors are used extremely intensively for a small subset of the year. At succh times at our farm our tractors regularly run deep into the night with everyone on the farm taking shifts driving them. Most farmers are actually self-employed so they can ignore those 10h workdays. And that the charging infrastructure for a good electric tractor would need a substantially beefier grid-infrastructure. A grid-infrastructure that allready struggles with farmers trying to deploy larger solar-power on their barns. I should know. I have been looking at electric tractors and trying to cover our barn with solar for years. It took around 8 years from trying to get the infrastructure to handle our planned PV system to it actually going online. And that's even though we are very close to very beefy power-infrastructure. In our neighbouring valley there currently is a more than 5 year ban on new PV happening, because the grid simply can't keep up. The situation actually is so bad, that you currently can't even get a new economic or electric 4x4, that is actually up to the task of serious offroad use. We bought two and sold both after fining out, that they don't hold up. And I currently have to drive a 14l/100km pickup, because, for some reason only politicians will understand, the Suzuki Jimny, which only needs some 7l/100km offroad and is probably the most fuel- and ressource.efficient 4x4 available on the market, was too fuel-inneficient.
electric tractors, real 🤡hours. Heavy machines like that have the best arguments to use fossil fuels. But instead you use this silly talk to attack the only industry who actually manages to achieve its climate goals lmao
@@AntonGudenusHow could 7l/100km possibly be too fuel inefficient? My (very weak and fuel-efficient) Astra consumes this much, while driving on paved roads, lol.
The problem that no farmer seems to be thinking about is this: How are you going to grow the crops you're used to in an environment that can no longer support those plants? Here in the US, we only _recently_ changed our growing zones. And we had to "sneak" the change in by pretending it wasn't due to Climate Change. Yet, both insects and plants are now growing further north than they used do, and some plants are refusing to grow where they do now because they require a different climate. So the plants and the insects were telling us, "No, Zone-4 is _now_ 200km north of where you insist it is," while the politicians were going, "No! *_No!No!No!No!No!No!No!No!_* It's _not_ real! It's Not! It's Not! It's Not! It's Not! It's Not!" Your growing-zones are going to change, too, Europe. And just to make matters worse: nothing I've said takes precipitation into account. Nor does it account for what's happening to glaciers, the reservoirs of fresh water for all of human history. Expect winter floods and summers with rivers running dry. How do you farm when all of your crops and techniques are applicable for a planet that no longer exists?
You forgot to mention that this average profit was mainly made by big farming companies (the ones also getting the most subsidies) while small farms didn't get so much. Also the small farmers took part in the protests organized by the farmer's association while this association is only interested in the needs of the big farmers. So, instead of blocking roads, the small farmers should probably demonstrate against the politics of the farmer's association so that their issues finally get the necessary attention, e.g. prices for milk and grain with which also small farmers can maintain a profitable farm without getting big and/or "animal unfriendly".
What I find the most annoying about this is that the people supporting this are the same people who's been very vocal abut how murder would be an appropriate response whenever protestors have blocked the roads before.
I would agree with the fuel subsidies, if the government would actually hold itself to the same standard and punish fuel services from violating the Spritpreisverordnung. I live in a rural village and the vehicles most definitely use the public roads for more than just getting to another field, nonetheless I support farmers. There have been reductionns, taxes and price changes for years that did not solve any problem and virtually only existed to aggravate farming industry workers.
Let's face the fact: if farmers would have nothing to complain about, that would be a sign of the endtimes. As a lot of commenters pointed out, it's not that farmers would pay more, it's that they would be subsidised less. And the allegiance of a lot of farmers to some parties always baffles me. Parties that cry 'No handouts!' of any kind, especially not towards refugees, cultural or educational organisations, marginalised groups or others out of 'financial competency', yet here we have ludicrous amounts of money going into the agricultural sector to help keeping farm alive that would have otherwise vanished a long time ago. Money paying for produce that in part just gets destroyed because there's no market for it. Parties that spew hat against everything foreign, parroting those ideas about boarder control and sovereignty, and yet here we have an industry that in parts relies on manual labour and could not survive without the seasonal workers out of the more eastern countries.
Ah, in the Netherlands we had those already. But here it was about nitrogen emissions (manure, mainly). The EU demands that the nitrogen content of nature reserve area's soil is reduced. And rightly so, it is waaaay too high for a healthy environment (also elsewhere, but that is besides the point). So, some farmers near nature reserve areas will have to go over to ecological farming or stop alltogether. It lamed the country many days.... Now the farmer's party is the largest in the first chamber of parliament..... It even went so far that farmes rammed the seat of province of Groningen with their tractors, damaging the building. But we had no neo nazi farmers, as far as I could see.
Auch in Deutschland gibt es keine Neo-Nazi-Bauern. Die Diffamierung, ein Nazi zu sein, ereilt jeden, der nicht der Meinung der Regierenden ist. Wer sich eine eigene, wirklich qualifizierte Meinung bilden möchte, der schaue sich bitte den YT-Kabal von Anthony Lee an. Er war früher Polizist und ist seit einigen Jahren selber Farmer. Alles andere ist den öffentlichen Medien, die das Sprachrohr der Regierung bilden und die nicht mehr objektiv berichten nachgeplappert. Und : bei jedem Protest kann es oasdieren, dass sich Menschen mit einer bestimmten Auffassung und Ideologie,darunter mischen. Das geschieht immer und überall. Und, darauf geben die Organisatoren gar keinen Einfluss.
For Netherlands the major problem is poultry and for Germany it's pigs. Just to many animals, way more than needed inside of the country thus beeing heavily dependent on exports...
Regarding the Far right symbols, looking at the protests as a whole, statistics dictates there must be a few black sheep. Looking at Footage, I've not yet seen those symbols (although obviously I have not looked at every protest all over Germany), and for it being called out I always see the same roughly 10 pictures recirculated. Yet I do recognize them as obviously terrible. At the same time, I'm really torn on the symbolism of the gallows
There are always black sheeps. Does this violation by a few idiots destroy the whole protest act for you? I guess I need to show up with such a flag or symbol during the next climate activist glue-yourself-to-the-street show, and wait for media to call it right-wing protest then.
The threat or implication that something is or might even be construed as "right wing" is enough for many germans to preemptively cower and distance themselves, almost doesn't matter what the cause is. There are probably few peoples in europe that have less solidarity than germans, the french would just laugh at this transparent media spin
Taking away subsidy's does not make sense but neither does Nazism in a protest. I always thought Germany was further along but I stand corrected. Shame really.
Most German people especially workers, nurses, cleaners and handcrafters support the farmers. Because the whole Germans see the government millions of euros to Ukraine, China, India & elsewhere. At the same time the gap between rich and poor people in Germany becomes larger, rental flats/houses, food, gas, oil for normal people become more expensive and invaluable. I think similar like in other European countries.... And every German lived in the 60s/70s/80s now see the the decay of a strong economic nation. They feel their country smashing into the mud by the red & green government. And If you are afraid loosing of this what your parents and grandparents established last 50 Years you will be marked as a Nazi. ....and of course our public television is owned by our government. They will use the words in the reports as they need
3000 Euros is not the average increase in fuel cost without the subsidies, as someone in the comments here mentioned 1700-2000 euros would be the one realistic range to hurt the smaller farms. What I don't like is the lack of solidarity by every part of society that has enjoyed subsidies for so long! Many people can't afford to protest or don't have the leeway to protest in such a manner knowing it won't influence the government because a large chunk of immigrants in Germany without citizenship who pay equal taxes to citizens, still can't vote in the general elections.
Farming subsidies are an idiotic problem. Farmers make money when crop prices are high. Farm subsidies make food extremely cheap, which makes the farmers dependent on more subsidies. In poor countries, farmers cannot compete and go out of business. Then the rich countries that drove them out of business flood their countries with free food, keeping them out of business and in need of handouts while patting themselves on the back for their generosity. The US government has, by far, the most expensive military in the world. We outspend practically outspend all of the rest of the world combined, but military spending is not the most expensive thing in the US government. The farm bill is. But we can't stop this merry-go round. Any nation that stops farm subsidies will drive all its farmers out of business because they couldn't compete with all the rest of the world's subsidized farmers. It would be like lowering the dike on your side of the river during a flood.
I think the biggest problem we have is the insanity of the "schwarze null", meaning the reduction of public dept. We had a decade of cheap money and didn't use it, now we have to fix the problems that created with more expensive money and we still are reluctant to spend it. It won't get better if we wait even longer so we have to make cuts everywhere.
Who is gonna pay the dept in the Future? Who is paying the loss in purchasing power? I dont think scrapping the Schwarze Null is gonna solve anything, its only pushing the the problem to the Future
@@michaelmichael2382 Public dept works different than you personal depts. They are a valid and reasonable way to invest in your economy. And maintenance has to be done, no way around it.
When same thing happened in asia you people said the government is fascist, when it happens in "civilizational" west the farmers are fascist. Wow what a logic
Telling the farmers to just buy electric tractors is to laugh on their faces, isn't it? If the farmer ends up with some profit but still has bills to pay like everybody else, how is that good? Do you like to work indentured to the banks? How about failure to pay will lose your farm and a roof over your head? The way this was explained sounds like Profit is a dirty word.
Having to modernize isnt exactly something that comes from "having to feed more people", its an inevitable cost of doing business. When you dont have slaves, you have to improve profitability and productivity otherwise. Just saying, the framing of that statement was kinda weird. It sounded like modernization is something that costs farmers, when in fact its beneficial to their bottom line by virtue of how businesses work. Not to mention the fact that most people dont make major investments like vehicles using reserves, but rather credit. Also calling the Bauernverband a union might be slightly off, its more akin to a lobbying organisation. Other than that, pretty good. I wasn't exactly aware of high clear-cut the rightwing symbolism has been, thanks for the examples.
The problem with farming is that the large profits made one year have to go, almost completely, to paying off the debts accrued in previous years. Farming is completely at the mercy of the behavior of the seasons from year to year. And due to climate-change, the behavior of the seasons from year to year is changing from consistent to swinging-between-extremes.
Could I perhaps have a source on some farmers supporting the ideology of gregor strasser? It's not that I don't believe you. I want to use it as a source in an article I'm writing.
Well, if the FDP is not willing to negotiate a reform of the debt break then the missing money has to be taken from somewhere. Many people showing solidarity with the farmers now claiming that "It's not only their cause, it affects us all" don't seem to understand that it would equally affect us all if the government were to cut, for instance, social support (which incidentally is exactly what CDU has proposed in parliament...).
Whether the government plunders social support, or ends farming subsidies thus driving up food prices, it is punishing the poorest in society for its own mistakes at a time when poverty rates are already increasing. In pursuing policies like this, it is galvanizing support for dangerous populist movements, especially those on the right. There are other options, but the reason we're in this mess is that the government went against expert advice and tried to finance its ambitious policies illegally. I don't see why our most vulnerable should be the ones to bear the consequences.
@rewboss I definitely agree with you on the point that attempts to save money at the cost of poor people is wrong. But simply saying that the government is trying to punish people for their own mistakes is a weird framing. I don't think that they have some billions of euros lying around personally that they can use to stuff the money hole. The ambitious policies that you are critising include things like the implementation of a basic child protection (Kindergrundsicherung) and investments to transform our economy to be able to reach net zero (which is our obligation according to the Paris climate treaty). The situation is actually quite simple: The budget was supposed to be financed in part by the help of loans. Now we can either reform the debt break so we are still able to do that or we can cut expenses somewhere. And there is actually a third solution which is to increase top income taxes and introduce a financial transaction tax but guess who does not want that either (FPD and CDU).
@@FilemonHD They don't have 60 billion euros lying around, no; but if they're looking for money to plug that gap, they should perhaps start with the people who have more money than they need, not those who don't have enough. For example, "Kindergrundsicherung", which is an attempt to alleviate child poverty, can't be financed with policies that push _more_ young families into poverty.
The privileged are getting their privileges revoked...that is what is happening. So, they have to pay an equal amount as all the others? I cannot say I am angry at the government Also, have you ever encountered a poor farmer? Well, I haven't met one yet. All are rich af. Compassion for them equals to zero.
someone please tell them that they should prepare food and maybe a donation font, if they want to continue longer. because the politicians know very well that if you don't work you have no money and the motivation to rebel will reduce to naught.
Farmers are self-employed, not employers. The profit is after regular costs, for things like seed, animal feed, manure, energy costs, taxes, hire of machinery such as combine harvesters, and so on. If the farm hires actual workers, that (I believe) also comes out before profit. Out of the profits, though, the farmer has to support any family members that also work on the farm, his (and their) health insurance and pension contributions, and in many cases the "Hofübergeber" (sometimes a farmer is unable to continue running the farm but is too young to retire, so transfers ownership of the farm and is then supported out of the farm's profits until he can start drawing a pension). Then come things like debt repayments, and what's left over goes into a reserve fund for those very expensive extra-ordinary costs. If you deduct all of those costs from the official profits, most farms struggle to break even.
Minister: Sire, the farmers in the north are revolting!
King: I'll say!
Minister: ... I mean they are rising up in revolt.
Dutch person here. We went through this a few years ago. Now we have a farmer's party in government. Buckle up Germans, it is gonna be a wild and not fun ride.
Interesting enough, Germany had a farmer`s party during the Weimar Republic.
@@K_1_T_S_U_N_E Lovely, that spells a fun time based on historic precedent.
Can't wait for the Christian Democrats to ally with the Fascists again.
@@K_1_T_S_U_N_Eyeah and historically farmer parties tend towards nationalist/populist, far-right, anti-intellectual crap. That's not "interesting enough" that's frightening to think of given that we already have enough on our hands with the proto-fascist possible getting enough votes to fuck us all up in the next elections...
Just right wing playbooks.
A good few years back the fees to register a "Party" for standing candidates on the Australian Electoral Ballot were erroneously made extremely low. Leading to a VERY bloated Voting Form as there were now choices from the "Party, Party, Party Party!" the "All Organically Grown Sun-Ripened Tomato Party" etc. Did brighten the drudgery of Election Day though! 😉😊
As far as I understood it, most Farmers out there protest out of solidarity with small, family-owned farms who cannot afford to protest themselves. The average income of farmers that politics based their decisions on doesn't really amount to anything, revenue isn't a metric you can judge by here, a single bad harvest can absolutely run you out of business at smaller scales.
Around my area, every farmer over the last few years has either run out of business and instead keeps the farm for self-sufficiency, or has been bought out by a bigger one, as they couldn't turn a profit with the current prices and surrendered all their assets in the process. It's mainly about those people, who are already struggling massively, but without whom our entire economy would fall apart.
As you already outlined, a farmer's income has to:
- provide for the entire family, meaning food, money, education and additional lifestyle expenses
- cover for insurance and the like, including, and most importantly, any applicable fees for the property itself
- buy ever more expensive equipment to keep up with the market
And at the end of all that, you need to have enough funds left over to cover up a bad harvest. You live at constant mercy of climate related incidents. Floods, droughts/heatwaves and hailstorms are common occurences lately. You kinda scramble for every bit of money you can set aside.
So if the government decides to cut your already shaky income even further, to make up for their own mistakes no less, you kinda have to draw a line.
On a related note, it's pretty ironic to see right-wing politicians participate in the protests, cutting subsidies has been part of the AfD's agenda for years, and now they're protesting against it.
As for why nazis are even here, they're trying to hijack the protest for their own agenda, and attempt to shift the narrative from a struggle to survive to a general discomfort with the current government.
As a German myself I feel sorry for the farmers too and I can confirm that the protests, at least in my area, were very peaceful.
The media is basically doing the government’s work for them by calling anyone who supports the farmers a “Nazi” or “far right” in order to frame the protests in the way that the government wants.
@@gamingagent80good to read that..
Well the small farm are no longer economical units and keeping them afloat wil be lifelong. So a part of the population wil need lifelong handout just because they happen to own land. Shame. A farm is a business, either buy more land and become a profitable unit or sell so that others can.. Keeping them afloat with tax money is unsustainable and wasteful.
Nice comment…
But I think you missing that the CDU was in charge all these years and did not enough to shift the focus to something that we could call modern agriculture…
It’s a bit housemade problems I think and now it’s time for change by Desaster and not by design even more…
I wonder why no one is blaming the FDP for what's a budget issue. They're the ones in charge of the Finances after all
They're blaming the whole coalition, but the Greens' talk of eliminating subsidies for the sake of the environment and their advice to buy electric tractors have been particularly irksome to them.
The polling figures of all three coalition parties are plummeting.
@@xaverlustig3581 that is absolutely no problem in the middle of an election period as long as they have a Solid majority in parlament.
@@rewboss yeah, a tractor that can't do the job is worthless. Which means the farmer needs to buy tractors in bulk, and that is simply not economically viable.
The Greens are an actual political threat to the CDU/CSU(Union), and the AFD (also to some parts of the FDP) - this is why they are the common enemy both in Union and AFD supporting media, which covers about 2/3rds of German media. The Greens were in a prime position to be the leading party for millenials and zoomers and had a good image, the reactionary establishment sided with the radical far right and the moderate right to oppose the Greens, destroy their imagine and discredit them at all cost. That invisible coalition is successful.
The same people I hear complaining about a few protesters gluing their hands to a road are suddenly completely supportive of the farmer's method of protest. Apparently blocking hypothetical ambulances isn't a concern when the protest is for a cause they support.
Perhaps the climate protesters can borrow the tractors for their next protest to boost support.
If you don't mind pay through the eye balls for food have at it
You are comparing a scheduled planned and announced protest to a sudden, unannounced protest which noone could plan for.
There where dozens of pages of planning for emergency routes for this farmer protest
problem is: ambulances were blocked by LG protestors, while farmers go (literally) out of their way to make sure that wont happen.
Not to mention that what youre doing is by far not an apples to apples comparison...
@FlorianGeyer_ They provide a product and get paid for said product in addition to receiving massive amounts of subsidies. I know food production is important (I'm a journeyman gardener myself and have a BSc in horticulture) but elevating farmers to their current holier-than-thou position has made them an absolute nightmare to work with, especially when trying to implement any kind of sensible change in farming practices. Just to be clear: I'm mainly talking about "big" farmers, I can absolutely understand how these changes will negatively impact smaller ones.
@FlorianGeyer_ Oh I absolutely agree with you, especially when talking about the more local, "small-scale" farmers, and I'm someone that has worked in agriculture, so I also know that going completely "green" is simply not feasible in a lot of cases. But even small changes that would have a comperatively large impact without increasing the workload too much are often opposed by farmes by simply stating "we have always done it this way so we won't change". So sadly I do believe some changes need to be forced upon them or they will never be implemented.
Protesting the discontinuation of the diesel subsidy with the Greens minister for agriculture (ok, threatening him and his family on their way home from holidays), for a decision taken by the FDP Finance Minister... just begs the question if they been breathing too much of their own methane.
They just hate the Greens.
We have a similar problem in California. Farmers have historically gotten a 2/3 discount on the cost of water; it’s perpetuated massive inefficiencies, profits are higher than ever, and now they see it as an inalienable right. You’ll even see signs along the highway accusing the state government or even the United Nations of causing droughts just for them, and yeah there’s a lot of far-right groups in the rest of the state who’ve dropped in to take advantage of the issue.
That's some next level main character syndrome if one thinks a government is causing droughts just to mess with them. Holy cow.
@FlorianGeyer_ strange. Whenever there's talk about billionaires in the US in some specific context you can bet your @ss that Bill Gates will be mentioned as if there's no Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mr. Mercer, Koch, etc.
The farms in California are huge and hence work with machines. Farm workers are often people from Mexico and farther parts of Latin America, some being in the US legally, some illegally. What do you think they get payed?
@FlorianGeyer_
Don't worry, oblivious guys like him will just wake up some day wondering how the farm land is all owned exclusively by like 3 billionaires
Exactly. If you change long established habits, you will earn protest. Water is still completly free in Germany, by the way - if they pump it themselve from the ground.
@@holger_p Which may (or rather, will) become a problem in a few years, with how the droughts are becoming regular occurrences.
Farmers as a category don't have an "income" problem, they have a distribution problem! What really annoys me in all of this discussions is that there is a notion, that farms can not survive without the subsidies that are now up to debate. Those subsidies are a very small share of all the subsidies that go into agriculture.
A few years ago the allocation of the vast majority of these subsidies, which come from the EU, has been changed. At that time, there was a push to change subsidies from being highly dependent on the land size to a system, that would allocate more due to environmental services. At that time, the Bauernverband has not been a huge fan of these changes and many of those were implemented significantly softened.
This would have been the time, where we would have needed to change the system, but change is not something that the largest farmer's advocacy group (which is also intensely associated with the CDU and especially CSU) is interested in.
For this reason, while I do support the demand that farmers should be able to make a good living from their work, I have a massive lack of understanding for this type of protest. As a society, we can absolutely no longer afford the lack of change that has brought us into this precarious situation in the first place!
I think you need to crunch the numbers a little. Over the last five years, the average annual "profit" (out of which farmers are expected to pay a lot of their costs, as I explained) for an average farm has been €60,000. That's barely enough to cover their costs: last year's record profits did little more than give farmers a breathing space and allow them to pay off some of their debts.
So yes, the average farmer is going to notice the loss of €3,000 a year.
okay, looks like my source reference keeps my reply in the moderation filter.
@@patrickhanft I'm not seeing anything in the filters. Unfortunately, UA-cam's commenting system is notoriously buggy.
@@rewboss Haha, I always believed I had too many issues with the browser extensions that I use. Never came to the conclusion, that it would be really as bad as I experienced it. 🤦
Basically my argument was that there are not only farmers themself getting subsidies but a large part goes to big agricultural companies and enterprises and that FragDenStaat did great number crunching about that a year ago with several media partners publishing good articles!
This time is actually not about subsidies but about taxation.
Thank you Rewboss! I've been watching the protests and didn't know the reason the "Why". I LOVE that you are explaining relevant / timely issues from Germany.
He NOT explaining them fully !
Hello Rewboss, I just want to express my gratitude. I have found your channel recently. I am a Dane myself with no German skills but a desire to learn about German sociaty. I am glad I found your channel and I am grateful for your insight on German matters. Looking forward to seeing your videos in 2024.
Well he didn't understand it so well after all. A lot of the times he's more confused than anything.
@@tobiasbauer198really? .. Any actual examples or concrete criticisms?
@@user-ve7hn2dh8h a lot but I won't repeat myself.
Better search for an other Channel this guy talks a lot of shit and has no idea
Just know, that this guy has a much noticable left wing bias.
Whenever essential workers protest against the government, the government can place a single individual with a far right flag and that's enough for naïve young people to dismiss the protests and permit the government to suppress them by any means. So much for workers solidarity.
It´s called "Protest" not "Revolt"
let us hope we do not need to enter the stage of revolting....
More power to the farmers, the most important people on earth ❤
One of the main problems is how the subsidies are distributed among the farmers. Basically, the bigger you are, the more you get. This benefits industrial farmers and puts small family farms at a disadvantage from the start. The farms which would be most affected by the higher Diesel prices, are the agricultural giants, because they have longer distances to work their land. Small farms wouldn’t be affected that much. We should have a system which supports small businesses and doesn’t favor industrial farms which produce food at dumping prices at the cost of animal welfare and the environment.
Fuel costs are basically hitting everyone equally. With driving between field not making up of the total fuel use even for very spread out businesses.
@@AntonGudenus I don’t think the distances between the fields are the issue, but the size of the fields. The bigger they are, the more fuel you need to plow, sow, harvest, etc.
@@kieferngruen But at the same time the amount of produce produced also increases proportionally.
Both fuel and yield are directly proportional to field size. They are relatively fixed per m2 with larger farms generally having slightly better fuel-economy.
Due to smaller farmers having to work with tighter margins, they would be hit worst and driven into unpprofitability first by increasing these relative costs.
The reasons large farms are generally more profitable, is not due to the income and expenses that are directly proportional to farmed hectares like fuel/seed/time, but due to them being able to net themselves size-regression effects.
Large farms can buy larger, more modern and more fuel efficient tractors and can use their machines to the fullest. They also can hire people and therefore optimally distribute work-load between many people with less overhead. And they are able to deploy all the newest and most expensive tech, due to being able to actually profit from even small efficiency increases brought by expensive systems.
A good example would be the deployment of modern GPS guided self-driving systems for tractors.
They are much to expensive for small farms with small tractors due to the very high and not scalable unit cost (such systems can easily cost €50k a piece), but they are paying off for very big farms, who are deploying much larger tractors, so the unit cost for the GPS guidance gets relatively smaller per m2/hectar worked.
€50k extra on a €100k tractor is something different (a 50% price increase) than €50k extra on a €500k tractor (a 10% price increase).
We don't need Nazi Farmers
Exactly - and forcing farms to consolidate has been the political goal for well over a decade.
One thing: the time and way the german government announced this seems a very bad choice too.
As you recently also made a video about the 60 billion € hole in their governmental budget, it looked like they wanted to make the famers pay for their own mistake. Which i think is what caused the big rage with farmers.
On a different note: I think the average income is pretty disceiving. There are huge farms with huge incomes and small farms with small incoms.
The median numbers (if they would be available) would be more telling.
The fuel subsidation is a thing in other countries too. Basically they pay less "fuel tax" on fuel that is specifically used for agriculture. So it's less an amount of money they would get than money they don't need to pay.
And i would say food prices would rise if that is stopped. People would complain and be angry at the farmers for raising the prices, while the farmers then inturn would complain that their products aren't bought but cheaper stuff from somewhere else where either the subsidation is still in place or other local differences make the production cheaper.
It‘s hypocritical that children that are afraid for their future are deemed terrorists for their actions by certain media and politicians but farmers get lots of support when they block every road possible.
Both are assholes. You block the road you lose my vote.
It is hypocritical, indeed.
By the government and MSM the butt gluers were defintely not deemed as terrorists, exactly the opposite was the case, with lots of sympathizers, especially in the green party.
Don't flip the facts!
And their style of protest , intimidating and terrorising people with their large vehicles, keeping them from getting to work and children to school, etc. is more than abnoxious. Even public transport is blocked today in my town. No tram or bus heading for the town centre from where I live because of farmers playing war.
@@magmalin But you knew about that in December.
Very nicely explained. Now I understand so much more. Farmers feed the people, farmers should not have to struggle to pay their bills.
I mean, sure, they aren't the most handsome, but 'revolting' sounds rather harsh.
I am a farmer in italy, where we live a softer situation (they'll cut on subsidies but not the Gas for now). The only evidence that upsets everyone is that we don't have, either on paper, a solution for leaving diesel. There is no Electric Tractor, nothing that compares to the actual machines. It's not like cars, where you can buy between models and kinda replace your combustion car. There is no electric Tractor, but they cut Diesel bonuses to enforce electric tractors. That's sounds more like weird ideology than "resilience" or what they call it. In this way, seems like the state is using green transition only to tax more money from the farmers, and keeps me in supporting them. Cheers!
"Why are German farmers revolting?"
I really would not go that far. Sure, appalling maybe, but not revolting
;)
not yet
yes, haven't seen them dumping manure like French
@@feedbackzaloop They did, actually. There's been dumps in front of a number of offices of the SPD and Grüne and assorted scapegoats.
@@katze7450 oh, so it is no better. Good to know!
That's Nazi Farmers
How are farmers struggling when prices for simple food products are still at least 40% higher than pre-war? Sugar is still twice as expensive. Shouldn't they swim in money or did they all sign long-term gag contracts?
Cus the profits go to supermarket CEOs and not. farmers
So they're protesting for others to fix a problem they created themselves? Sounds reasonable.
@@benm8214 Supermarkets are highly competitive, they actually do no not increase their margin (but they do protect it). The profits go to bigger agricultural investors.
Just because something increase i price does not mean anyone earn more money. It is just costs that are increase.
@@johandanningsson8108 Fuel and natural gas are cheaper than pre-war and labour is pretty much a non-issue for crops that are planted and harvested at high rates of automation, like grain and sugar roots.
Just to expand the point on "electric tractors", and as someone who actually has looked into the possibility of buying an electric tractor.
They currently don't really exist in a workable way. Even if you have 100s of thousands of Euros to burn. Tractors need to run for long hours during peak season. And they need to be fueled fast and easily. Building a recharge station for one would necessitate new power-grid infrastructure for most farms, because the current infrastructure just can't take the high currents. Even getting the grid ready to take larger deployments of solar pannels (like covering your barn with solar panels), is often not possible and outright banned in many areas due to the weak grid.
The same is actually true for electric 4x4 offroad vehicles. There simply are no good options currently on the market. Either they are stuck in "will be available soon" like the Ford Lightning or they are not capable of dealing with actual offroad use like the Skoda Enyaq.
And unfortunately also small economic 4x4 models with ICE are increasingly hard to get, due to having been killed by shortsighted EU fuel economy standards. As an example from my own situation: I currently drive a pickup truck burning some 14l/100km in my forestry work, because the Suzuki Jimny, which I actually would have liked and which only uses some 7l/100km offroad, can't be sold with 4 seats due to being so small. Used models are now more than 10k more expensive than new due to this situation.
This is absolutely ridiculous. But it's the kind of regulatory bullshit, written by people, who have no idea about the realities of living and working in the countryside, you have to constantly deal with as a farmer.
I found a vague reference to an extra vehicle that could be bought (for a five-figure sum) to ferry spare batteries between the tractor and the charging point. And then I read that the battery for even the small tractor I showed (the only I could find that seemed to be actually on the market right now) weighs upwards of 600 kg; longer-lasting batteries can weigh as much as a small car, apparently. So now I'm thinking you'd also need to buy a little crane just to swap the batteries over.
@@rewboss The big problem currently still is found in the rather low energy density of batteries. This is both true in terms of weight/kWh and volume/kWh.
Diesel fuel has a usable energy density of around 20.6 MJ/kg (at an engine efficiency of 45%), while the very best Lithium batteries are currently somewhere around 0.75 MJ/kg. Which makes diesel around 27.5x more efficient in terms of weight.
In terms of volume diesel has a usable energy density of around 17.3 MJ/l, with LiNiCoAl batteries reaching around 2 MJ/l. Which makes diesel around 8.6x more efficient in terms of volume. And that importantly is not yet factoring in, that a fuel-tank can be much more "conformal" than a battery-bank and also needs less protection against puncture.
This protection is especially important in uses like tractors, where there are massive forces involved, the potential for perforation is very high and you can not be reached by the fire-patrol easily.
The idea of swichting batteries in the field might sound good on paper and might actually work in a controlled environment, but it is woefully unrealistic, even if you buy a small ofrroad crane to lift those 600kg power packs. Agricultural machines get dirty and dinged up. Good luck in changing the battery when something down there is bent or dirty. And lets hope the contacts don't short out and burn your 300k+ machine and whole field down, because you were unlucky.
Additionally electric tractors are currently only available in rather puny kW (or horsepower) ratings. If you for instance are making hay with a big bale-press, you will need some 200 kW of power in your tractor. With many of the larger combustion models for big fields and machines easily topping 400 kW.
But the best electric tractor, currently available from New Holland for instance, is 48 KW. That's not even enough to pull a medium size plough. And it burns through its battery (110 kWh) in about 2 hours of work.
cutting subsidys for farmers but at the same time leaving subsidys for airlines in place, is a very bad joke nobody should tolerate. always stand with those who put food on your table!
Well, of course some foodproduction subsidies are good and necessary, but a lot of western agriculture subsidising has not been directed at this. The EU subsidises mainly to give big corporations an advantage against local farmers and to conduct developement aid unofficially, while many state subsidies mainly aimed at bulliing third world competition out of business or increase export. In other words: Having some agriculture subsidies is good, but the overwhelming majority is bad and not even directed at food security, including paying for fossil fuel tractors instead of all farming vehicles.
@@DieJacke You need local farmers to grow you your local food. No matter how much fuel subsidies it will cost you, because buying it from farmers far away in a cheap labor country will increase emission output through the additional transport efforts. Not to mention additional environmental damages, that aren't strictly regulated as we got here. And cheap labor farmers abroad do also use fossil fuel vehicles.
"including paying for fossil fuel tractors instead of all farming vehicles" - there are no alternative vehicles available. I don't know where rewboss got the information regarding electric tractors, but there are none in existence, that you could possibly buy right now. There is a prototype running at Fendt and John Deere is working on it right now. That's all. If there really is one out there - and rewboss picture is certainly not that vehicle, than it has to be a model, that is not certified for use in Europe.
And ALL farm vehicles receive these "subsidies" - including excavators, bulldozers, and the farmers' jeeps for example. And these aren't even "subsidies". It's a tax-deferred solution, where they claim the energy tax back through their tax declaration. It doesn't match the definition of subsidies at all. I wonder why most media outlets call it as such.
Not taxing something is not a subsidy. Fuel taxes were introduced to make drivers pay for the cost they cause the government in road construction, traffic police, public car parks and so on.. Newsflash: Neither tractors nor airplanes use public roads, so it's absolutely fair to not make them pay for them.
@@xaverlustig3581 "Neither tractors nor airplanes use public roads, so it's absolutely fair to not make them pay for them." - I grew up in the countryside, learnt to drive in the countryside, and being a notoriously bad driver, overtaking a tractor with a trailer was the nightmare of my learning to drive. For tractors never using public streets, I had to do it quite often. And after harves seasons, dangerous muddy roads were - well - produced by PKWs, and the frequent roadsign "Überholverbot - Trecker dürfen überholt werden" is mere decoration since they should actually not be seen there ? ;)
It's probably a regional thing, and where I live now, there are a lot of side roads exclusively for tractors and other Landmaschinen, normally not allowed for other vehicles - but where I grew up, tractors and other farming vehicles use public roads every day and the heavier ones also damage it.
That said, I still think Farmers should keep the tax exemption or at least a reduction, especially if they are small or middle class (Mittelstands) farms that have to pay and provide most of their gear themselves, with no backup by a large company behind them. After all, they do something for society with these vehicles, so society should support them somewhat.
I'd go for the Dienstwagenprivileg instead and would opt for a closer look at that one and for some cuts with respect to this. (Note: We regularly used to have a Dienstwagen onf and off for years, so in contrast to taxing tractors, this could affect me personally, at least in the future.) Many people officially have one but actually do not need it. My husband got one several times only to make his employer and his contract seem more attractive, despite not actually needing one, eg (and he was not the only one among his colleagues). That was nice to have at times, but, seriously, it is absolutely not necessary to reduce or remove taxes for these cases.
@xaverlustig3581 "Public parking" is generally paid for, free parking is incredibly rare nowadays, so your point here is moot.
Research has shown that tractors cause significantly more damage to roads than cars or even fully loaded trucks do. So another one of your points is moot.
They should be pating taxes just as much as the rest of us. Done.
What I do believe is that the government should be investing in more sustainable practices. Give them subsidies to invest in more modern equipment. German farmers are horribly outdated and basically still using the same principles they did 100 years ago, except it's now mechanized.
Give them subsidies to build greenhouses or vertical farms, and incentive them to lend out their millions worth of land to build solar/wind farms.
If they get to keep their short sighted subsidies, guess what, taxes for the rest of us will have to increase. The money has to come from somewhere. At least with the above mentioned investments, it creates some more jobs for the future and introduces a more reliable and steady source of income for farmers.
Thanks for clearing this farmer strike thing up for me, a bit. My wife and me were recently trying to understand what it was all about, but neither could contribute much information.
Personally I'm on the small farmers' side. The big farms are doing well, it's always the small farms that suffer.
The irony regarding the AFD is that they also voted for stopping the subsidized fuel for farmers, btw, so good job if you happen to support them as a farmer with your "vote out of protest".
Stupid and uninformed people will always believe what you tell them if they already believe it anyway. That's why the AfD can tell contradicting things to different people and will still be elected. :(
tell me how much the AfD annoys you
on a scale from 1 to Babycry
Honestly i feel like youre babycrying rn @@m0-m0597
@@snakkze are we mad? :( oh no
German government shows higher sympathy with a foreign country than it's own farmers 😂😂😂
if they use public streets to protest they should be paying tax
I don't drive, therefore I do not pay vehicle tax; so does that mean I'm not allowed to take part in a demonstration? Or walk to the next village? Or ride a bike?
@@rewboss Just don't drive a tractor in the demonstration and it's fine. Walking and riding bikes causes way less wear and tear than big vehicles
Its NOT a revolt , its a fricking protest
The German farmers are revolting because they are the second most subsided business in Germany after the automobile industry, and now, subsidies on fuel are cut. But prices for their products paid by the great retailers stay as small as before, the reason subsidies are necessary in the first place.
Thank you for explaining it so easily. I kinda have had problems grasping hwat the problem for the farmers is. And I kinda think its funny how some farmers, who where where anti "Klima-Kleber" are now uisng their tractors to block roads and and smear dung on buldings.... My mom was scared of the farmers protest in her town. Cause there are quite a few industrial farmers around my mums town. And their giant tractors where like tanks to her. And They also had "hanging equipment" and not so nice slogans on their banners. We like to have lively political discussions around the dinner tabel. And I try to understands everyones viewpoint and play devils advocat. So thanks for a few new insights.
There are many hypocrites in Germany. The farmers just have a better image (seen as hardworking, honest, relevant people) than the so-called "Klimakleber" (seen as spoiled, non-working, pest-like students who bark up the wrong tree and piss on the wrong leg).
Yeah, when the kids are afraid they won't have any livable Germany left because of the climate crisis they are "terrorists" and dragged into jail, but when farmers do it for a few cents while sitting in their giant machines with police helping them - well they are obviously couragous heroes. It's bigotry at it's finest and it's sad to see that so many farmers let themselves get puppeteered by the right and libertarians.
The title of the video reminds me of this bit in Chicken Run:
"Mrs Tweedy! The chickens are revolting!"
"Finally, something we agree on."
The profit of €150,000 is an average - there were some making significantly more, some significantly less. Another average value would be the cost per farm if the fuel subsidies would be removed at once: € 1,700 per year. Again, some would lose more, some less - but in average those with the bigger farms and higher profits would lose more than the smaller, less profitable farms. The amount itself is therefore not significant, it is only the starter for protests about the whole situation. This situation was however not caused by the current government - the responsibility lies rather with the former government(s) and the Bauernverband (farmer's association) itself, who lobbied for more than 7 decades for a policy which contributed massively to the economically desperate situation of a majority of the smaller farms. The Bauernverband is not simply a trade union of farmers, but tightly interconnected with the agroindustrial complex, and still propagates the slogan "Wachse oder weiche" - "up or out", instead of supporting smaller family farms. Their lobbying was excessively successful and created the economic environment which led to the decline of medium size farms.
The narrative "in 1900 one farmer fed 4 people, in 1950 10 people, in 2021 140 people" is at least biased. At closer examination it seems rather implausible: The family of a farmer in the year 1900 would itself consist of more than 4 people, not counting the farmhands. The secret is not to count those family members and helpers as consumers, but only as producers. The production surplus in 1950 could feed in average 10 additional persons (again: average. My grandpa's farm was not very big at the time, but he fed dozens of townfolk and refugees during the late 1940s, besides his own family.) Modern agricultural methods facilitate in some sectors yields 4 times the size of those in the 1920s, using far less personnel. At the same time they do often damage massively the soil which will led to declining yields in the near future and even now diminishes possible profits by needing more input (agrochemicals, machines, ...).
Most agricultural subsidies are by the way motivated by the goal of keeping down consumer prices, not by supporting small and medium-sized farms or rural families.
Yep. when the ratio gets to 1 "Farmer" feeds 100 "Other Ranks" you don't have to be a very smart politician to work out that any of the distributable goodies under your control MUST be directed ONLY to sucking up to the "Other Ranks" not the actual producers. 🙄😉😊
But they are not as honest, to give their numers. They protest just anyway, from emotional reasons.
A farmer with a turnover of 1 Million, doesn't hardly notice if fuel tax goes up by 20.000€. It's actually 2%; easy to pass secretly to customers. But they cry as loud, like they are about to be killed.And by purpose, they only tell you the 20.000€, but not the 1 million € in turnover. It generates more empathy.
Climate protestors block the roads: "THESE ECO TERRORISTS!"
Farmers block the roads: "WE NEED TO SAVE THE FARMERS! SOLIDARITY WITH FARMERS!"
Talk about idiocy.
Farmers demand changes that would improve their income while climate protestors demand changes that would change lifestyle of others. It is a lot easier to relate to farmers because they don't want to suddenly and drastically change the direction the world goes.
@@yansakovich Well, if we don't change our lifestyle at least in certain parts, farmers will be out of work in future because of droughts, floods and other catastrophies cause by the changing climate. I understand the climate protesters. I don't support their ways of protesting either although they cause only minor problems compared to threating, war-like behaviour of the farmers.
Are they also protesting outside distributors and supermarkets that under price the food that they grow?
Of course not. The organization behind the protests (Bauernverband) is a conservative lobby organization that is very much in bed with the big sale companies.
Hier im Dorf sind auch die Bauern mit Plakaten durchgefahren, und bei einigen musste ich doch kurz auf die Uhr schauen, in was für einem Jahrhundert wir uns eigentlich befinden. Da waren etliche Sprüche dabei, die ich bisher nur aus dem Geschichtsunterricht kannte.. erschreckend.
"i need that money!"
burns diesel on the road blocking it with a vehicle more expensive than a year of rent, instead of getting a real job. that last part i don't believe in, but they like to say it, they must love hearing it back now.
Before suggesting that farmers don't have "real jobs", maybe spend a year actually working on a farm. I doubt you'd last more than three weeks.
getting a "real job", lol. Farming is as real as it gets. What are you doing to talk big shit like that?
Hä?
Economics 101: No subsidies for anyone. They distort the price system and therefore, the whole decision making process.
Farmers are getting a disproportionately large amount of subsidies from the government compared to other professions. And many other professions are also struggling. So what I don't understand is, why are we disproportionately concerned about farmers, just because they have the heavy machines to cause more civil disorder than other professions? If the money isn't saved on these subsidies, it will have to be saved elsewhere, where it will likely negatively impact a lot more people.
I would also have a lot more sympathy for farmers if they hadn't immediately decided to shut down everything every time something inconveniences them. They are blocking progress, even when what they protest against is something good like a reduction of unhealthy pesticides.
We're disproportionately concerned because a society can get by without marketing consultants, but not without food.
@@aoeuable Without marketing consultants, sure. But other critical professions are struggling too. Truck drivers' entire life revolves around burning fuel and they don't get it subsidized. And without them, most of the food that is farmed would rot because it can't be delivered.
Nurses arguably are even more important than farmers. You can import food, but you can't import care. Yet look at what situation they are in.
I'm not wishing hardship on farmer's. But at the end of the day, their protests come from a place of relative privilege which other professions, even crucial ones, don't get to enjoy.
Hi.
First of all: Thanks for taking the time to summarize some of the facts.
Second: I am sorry, but half of what you said is either wrong, missing key elements or is simply goverment propaganda.
Please let me fill in some of the blanks:
1. The farmers are not only protesting the loss of "Substitution", they've been receiving.
They are protesting after the withdraw of support broke the camels back.
It is true, that they do not pay taxes for their vehicles. Rightfully so, if you ask me. Because without them, they cannot do their job.
It is also true, that they got support to shoulder the fuel costs, because there is not substitution. They can only use this kind of fuel and electro traktors are worthless to them. They neither have to Power, not the reach, not do they last long enought or are simply so expensive, that they eat up their entire yearly budget... for one vehicle.
I am sorry, but this is rediculous.
2. They are also protesting ridiculous laws and guidelines, that make it nearly impossible to gain any profits.
The nitrat-law.
The futilizer-law.
The law that forbits them to use a certain amount of their land.
And so on. There are hundrets! And part of a farmers life is spend, filling out forms and paying for surveys to prove, they do keep these rules... also costing them a lot.
Add to that, that they are loosing profits due to less viable products and food guidelines, where food is rejected, because it's crooked or the potato is too large or too small.
And add the fact, that some of those guidelines stop them from producing certain things (e.g. the futelizer-law prevets them from growing wheat, that is viable for human consuption and can only be fed to animals) and the fact, that they are forbidden from raising their prizes, unless it's agreed by the large supermarkets!
Regarding the "Neo-Nazi" problem... I am gonna be frank here.
It has been a rising worry for me, since this is a terrible injustice!
Everytime someone (and it does not matter, who) disagrees with our goverment and gains support, they are called "Neo-Nazis", "right idiots" and suddenly "Neo-Nazis" and their signs were spotted during those protests. This has nothing to do with real Neo Nazis, but is an attempt by the German goverment to simply shut Nay-Sayers up. If you do not agree with them, you are anti-democratic, right, elect the AFD or are a Nazi or Rasist.
Quite frankly, this is simply prove, that they do not have any arguments against those protestors. If they had them, it would not be necessary to use such underhanded and insulting tactics to force them into submission.
Democracy lives from people having diffrent opinions. It is a part of us, that every opinion is heard and a compromise reached. We can not hope to preserve our constetutional state, if we are frightened by people of different opinions.
It is an insult to all the victims during the Nazi-Regime to use their suffering so carelessly!
I would implore our goverment to stop with this and focus on solving such issues, rather then trying to discredit these lawful protestors, but I have never gotten a single reply to any letter I sent.
Please do not let these tactics stop you. Keep your head up and know: Violence is not the right way, but using our constetutional rights to their full potential, will lead to greater compromize and hopefully a good future for all of us in the world.
No farmers no food wake up people!!!
If the farmers flying nazi flag's like them so much, they can be on the receiving end of a camping trip. How dare they fly those flags!
No Farmers . No Food. If truckers and Farmers did this in the US ,The people would back them .
Where does it come from? The palm oil we use in Nutella® is 100% sustainable palm oil, traceable back to the mills. It mainly originates from Malaysia (averaging around 80% of our volumes) followed by Indonesia.
Great information! Thank you.👍
Wait. There are no electric tractors, that you could technically buy in Germany. There is a prototype made by Fendt and we know John Deere is working on the development of those, as well as many others. But there isn't even one available, that you could get, even if you wanted to.
Looks like the German and European agricultural vehicle industry is at the same sleeping pace as the German car industry. Globally there seems to be a rapidly growing selection of options. Some with significantly more than 4 hours runtime. Looks like in ten years time tractors on our fields might come from China or India.
@@patrickhanft There are no electric tractors in China or India either. These vehicles run with a very different user profile, when compared with cars. They run off-road, which triples or quadrouples your power consumption just by driving in heavy terrain. Then they often tow heavy loads as well. And they have to be able to do that 24/7 during harvest. They are the most fuel hungry machines out there. No battery can supply such a machine today. Current development ideas involve huge exchangable battery packs, to solve these issues in the future.
You can buy a Monarch MK-V right now for about 80-100k, though it will take you several months to get your hands on it.
@@Akixkisu You would need to run quite a few of those in a linked rig to even come close to the capabilities of the normal modern Diesel unit on a large-scale farm. Not knocking the potential for electric tractors - just that they are nowhere nearly here yet. Actually in the long term, there is probably a better case for farm tractor use than road vehicles as the inevitable battery weight is needed on a tractor for 'traction" ability! On the road it's just dead weight to have to lug around. Also tractors and the infrastructure to support them can be fairly localized but road vehicles need a huge spaced out spread of infrastructure.
All of it requires oceans of money, so the current generations better get used to pawning all their i-Phones and eschewing any visits to McDonald's for say .. the next hundred years! 😉
@@theoztreecrasher2647 depends on the farm and scale. Some are better suited and some are a distant dream. The MK-V convinced me in terms of dairy and vineyards. The type of farmer I empathise with doesn't work on a scale that is unfeasible for current or next gen ev (in most cases).
Wait, German farmers are revolting? I don't find them disagreeable at all, I like food.
Very few people understand the connection that it is a systemic problem. Farmers should protest against the food lobby and fight for fair prices for milk and meat. The stuff is being pushed down by retail chains and buyers to such an extent that some of the richest Germans naturally belong to Aldi and so on. Our agriculture minister in the previous government lobbied for Nestlé, which is the devil among predatory capitalists... But the fight would have no chance and the organisers of the strikes are covering up for the retailers and the buyers. Milk for under €2 and cheap meat make subsidies vital. I have to admit that I find it reasonable that cuts are being made everywhere and that farmers are having to cut back too.
The farmers claim, they couldn't pass their prices to the customers. Only if the procondition is correct, the protests do make any sense.
Consumers are able and willing, to take 1% increas of prices in average, they have no choice.
If at all, food processors - the industry in between - can be considered a problem. But the governement really is the wrong target. But protesting the governement will generate more solidarity, cause everybody can find some personal reason , to protest the governement.
It would bring nothing to protest aganist discounters since you would basically protest against their business model. A discounter not exercising high price pressure is not a discoutner. As you said it is a systemic problem of how to incentivise higher prices and giving more price building power to the single farmer and therefore ultimately a question better balance of supply and demand which is not the case for most agricultural products because the price of agricultural commodities are heavily influenced by the futures markets at stock exchanges.
@@davinnicode It's a disbalance in size. If you have 10000 farmers and 4 discounters, no single farmer dears to raise prices, in expectation to get unlisted/fired.
It's like an army of unskilled workers, having no way to put pressure on the employer. Their only options are to quit or not to quit.
Something like a union organizing strikes doesn't exist.
A stock market only exists for non-parishable goods, like wheat, oil, milk, maybe butter. If farmers join this market they know what they are doing. And there they had the option, to change to fresh vegetables or organic food, to get more distance from the global market.
You know Germans eat raw pork, but definitly not from outside Germany.
The moment I saw Nestlé, the moment I retched and gagged.
I am not a farmer but the cut the subsidiaries on farm equipment full "diesel" how about they cut it on cars for companies and private planes as well
only for unleaded or also for leaded plane fuel?
All of it @@HappyBeezerStudios
Ironically, most farms were forced into banktruptcy by and during CDU/CSU governments. The same parties farmers predominantly vote for. The irony is really lost on them.
Seeing that a lot of farming vehicles are currenty cloging our cities and highways, they should absolutely not be exempt from vehicle tax anymore.
In fact, they are being told they will have to pay vehicle tax for the month of January, at least.
@@rewboss Oh really? That is news to me, but I am absolutely delighted to hear that.
The farmers have a funny definition of income. They confuse sales revenue with profit whatever suits them.
To quote the head of police in Oldenburg: Can farmers not protest on foot?
Visually, it makes a big difference whether there are 100 little people standing in the corner of a square or whether there are 100 large and loud tractors clogging the street.
The farmers take this effect with them.
The tractors of today also have little to do with the melancholic feeling when I think back to when I drove a tractor (illegally, of course) at the age of 14.
Because then it's obvious how much of a minority they are and it shows that they are practically trying to scare everyone to their demands.
@@galdavonalgerri2101 Does your Family owned a Farm at that time? Or was it on Private Property?
@@galdavonalgerri2101Well the farmers could glue themselves to the street to clog it. But I guess the farmers aren't that bold and couragous...
"100 tractors" top kek
You're more capable than the established media landscape.
The tax on fuel is to be used for maintaining roads and bridges; that's how it started. Since farmers and those working in forests almost exclusively use their vehicles offroad they have always been exempt from this tax - it never was a subsidy !!!
But nobody speaks about this aspect and today most Germans don't even know about this fact....
good music
Most of the subsidised diesel is used for the production of animal feed and biodiesel/biogas. I see no reason why this production should be supported with climate-damaging subsidies.
Where did you get this information from?
@@rewboss I thought that was obvious. But if you need a source, let's take a look at grain production:
Source: "Was wächst auf Deutschlands Feldern" (landwirtschaftDE):
"Auf einem Großteil der Fläche wächst Tierfutter"
In 2022/23, only 22.1% of grain production was destined for food.
@@clemensmuller2543 Yeah, livestock also has to be fed. If you're arguing that we should go vegan, that's an entirely different point, and in any case farmers still have to power their machinery.
@@clemensmuller2543 Yeah, livestock also has to be fed. If you're arguing that we should go vegan, that's an entirely different point, and in any case farmers still have to power their machinery.
@@rewboss I'm not saying that we should become vegan. But why should we subsidise the production of animal foods? Milk and pork are already subsidised.
And why should we subsidise the 22% of grain production that is destined for industry or the energy sector?
rather interestingly, members of Letzte Generation voiced support of the protests, arguing that cutting these specific fuel subsidies would barely help the climate in comparison to other measures, and would therefore put an unnecessary strain on the farmers.
it should also be noted that there has been some (some!) timid far-left support of the farmers, for example a local (and rather small) FAU delegation (Freie ArbeiterInnen Union, an anarcho syndicalist trade union) supporting the farmer's protests in Freiburg.
"arguing that cutting these specific fuel subsidies would barely help the climate in comparison to other measures"
Maybe, but these specific fuel subsidies are exactly part of the huge number of climate-damaging subsidies that are rightly criticized by these groups when it comes to the question of which huge amount of money we should use to achieve the transformation to a sustainable economy.
Where do we make the cut? Should farmers also continue to be exempt from the gradually increasing CO₂ price on agricultural diesel in the future because the specific effects of agricultural diesel are not so significant? Because that would directly be the next change impacting the farmers at the exact same spot! Or should subsidies be changed to help accelerate the technological transformation? We should not deny that fuel consumption is a huge problem everywhere.
In the end, we must not forget one thing: These cuts are the direct result of the Federal Constitutional Court ruling based on the so-called debt brake - ideologically driven by the CDU/CSU and FDP in particular.
Why do we now have to drastically reduce government spending and cannot increase government revenue so that we can both secure a reasonable livelihood for farmers and make government investments in climate protection? Quite simply: because the wealthy do not want progress.
Then they aren't anarcho or left. A trade-union party in itself is libertarian. Those farmers aren't loosing. They just want profit.
@@patrickhanft "Climate damaging subsidies". How can anyone say such utter nonsense with straight face?
Mate I love your videos
But you might wish to rethink the wording of the title
Canada doesnt have any coverage. Were rooting for you❤
Because they don't bathe enough 🥁
well it's probably the cow manure they use, but you get used to the smell after a while. Wait, not that type of revolting? ooh
"The farmers are revolting!" "No, they're not that bad!"
So you misunderstood something. The vehicle tax exam has been made 1922 in order to motorize the farmers, who had to pay much of their earnings to modernize. (Which is nowadays even more expensive). The fuel tax is a tax that was invented to specifically maintain the road, as farmers don't use much the roads and have to maintain their own dirtroads they got some of it back after a year with their tax declaration.
Yeah, just as we see how thousands take their tractors from everywhere around the country to Berlin...
I think this video offers a quite neutral look on the facts. Just because it doesn't deliver the conclusion you would like to hear, it doesn't mean there is any kind of misunderstanding.
@@mariof2921 that's too demonstrate that bullshit. It's even according to law, as they do it for their work.
@@mariof2921 I'm more expert than this gentleman, who doesn't know the background story about this taxes. I worked in German farming. What kind of brilliant expert on the topic are you?
If the farmers demanded to be compensated for the loss of income, I would support the protests. But since they are protesting the abolition of a subsidy on burning fossil fuels, I do not. They are being unreasonable and unconstructive in their demands and in their methods.
Well considering there are no alternatives there is a total of 2 or 3 electric tractors on the market all so small that only vineyards and other speciality farms could actually find any use for them with a range of way less than the average hourly use of a tractor on a full working day in harvest or other high-demand times of the year and all that for the price of two regular tractors..
It would be a different story if tractors running on something else than diesel were available and working just as well.
@@modelleicher I wouldn't be suprised if the diesel subsidies are the reason why there are no viable electric alternatives.
The engine and battery technology exists now for many years but can't compete with the heavily subsidized diesel engines.
If you want farmers to switch to electric tractors, you're going to have to give them all massive grants -- and I mean massive.
We start with the fact that the few electric tractors currently on the market are prohibitively expensive. On a typical farm, tractors are often running pretty much all day, but on current models the battery lasts only a few hours between charges depending on the terrain, the soil, and any attachments they are powering.
This means farmers would also have to buy at least one spare battery, another four or five-figure sum. These batteries are very heavy: the one for the model I showed weighs in at over 600 kg. So to swap the batteries out, you need some kind of mobile crane, and another vehicle to ferry the batteries between the tractor and the charging point. If the nearest power supply is too far away to be practicable, you have to build charging points in the fields, with solar panels and a windmill.
The electric tractor I showed costs, as I said, €120,000. That's more than last year's entire record average profit, for just one tractor, without the spare battery and all the other stuff I mentioned. And there isn't much choice on the market at the moment: bigger and more powerful electric tractors are in development, and they should have a better battery life, but that's still in the future -- so the smart thing to do is for the farmers to hang on until more and better vehicles come onto the market and their prices start dropping (which is what usually happens with new technologies).
Anyway, if you would support the idea of the government giving farmers €3,000 to compensate for the €3,000 loss in subsidy, what actual difference would that make?
@@rewbossThanks for your detailed reply.
While I do understand that electric tractors that cost an arm and a leg but run for only 4 hours are little use to someone who has to work all day and then some during harvest season, I don't think this means diesel should be subsidised.
The difference abolishing cheap diesel for farmers and compensating them financially would make, is that you are no longer paying them to burn diesel. Saving diesel will save farmers more money if the diesel is not subsidised. Therefore, diesel costs will weigh heavier in decisions on e.g. which crops to grow and how to grow them.
I do believe farmers are being exploited by market forces and realise there is no easy fix, but subsidising fossil fuels is not the solution.
@@Welgeldiguniekalias Yes, sure. But then farmers have to be able to increase the costs for their products to compensate. Just like every other business out there is compensating increasing costs for fossil fuels, increasing toll costs and increasing CO2 taxation. Unfortunately, that's impossible for them, as prices are being dictated for them. Hence their protest.
With the battery powered ones.. My coworker used to work as farmer and his comment was that even years ago there were battery-electric tractors with 10h runtime and they still found no adoption because big industrialised farmers found that not enough for their employees because apparently farmers like to heavily ignore that German laws state 8h a day, 10h tops. These farmers should protest for subsidies for battery-electric or hydrogen fueled tractors and easier access to and subsidies for solar and wind.
But instead of better access to future proofing their businesses they fight for outdated tech that will deffo cost them more in the long run and that will definitely fuck us all up(including their fields and yields). We just cannot fucking afford to put more CO2 in the atmosphere when we're going to cross that 1.5C line this year, yet these people, who really should know better, let themselves get dragged down to this bs by demagogues from the right who just want to keep their fucking oil buddies in business...
Most small self-employed farmers definitely ignore the 10h a day rule during the times, when they actually need their tractors. Tractors are used extremely intensively for a small subset of the year. At succh times at our farm our tractors regularly run deep into the night with everyone on the farm taking shifts driving them. Most farmers are actually self-employed so they can ignore those 10h workdays.
And that the charging infrastructure for a good electric tractor would need a substantially beefier grid-infrastructure. A grid-infrastructure that allready struggles with farmers trying to deploy larger solar-power on their barns.
I should know. I have been looking at electric tractors and trying to cover our barn with solar for years.
It took around 8 years from trying to get the infrastructure to handle our planned PV system to it actually going online. And that's even though we are very close to very beefy power-infrastructure. In our neighbouring valley there currently is a more than 5 year ban on new PV happening, because the grid simply can't keep up.
The situation actually is so bad, that you currently can't even get a new economic or electric 4x4, that is actually up to the task of serious offroad use. We bought two and sold both after fining out, that they don't hold up. And I currently have to drive a 14l/100km pickup, because, for some reason only politicians will understand, the Suzuki Jimny, which only needs some 7l/100km offroad and is probably the most fuel- and ressource.efficient 4x4 available on the market, was too fuel-inneficient.
electric tractors, real 🤡hours. Heavy machines like that have the best arguments to use fossil fuels. But instead you use this silly talk to attack the only industry who actually manages to achieve its climate goals lmao
@@AntonGudenusHow could 7l/100km possibly be too fuel inefficient? My (very weak and fuel-efficient) Astra consumes this much, while driving on paved roads, lol.
[ ] du hast Ahnung
[x] wenn man keine Ahnung hat, einfach mal die Schnauze halten
The problem that no farmer seems to be thinking about is this: How are you going to grow the crops you're used to in an environment that can no longer support those plants?
Here in the US, we only _recently_ changed our growing zones. And we had to "sneak" the change in by pretending it wasn't due to Climate Change. Yet, both insects and plants are now growing further north than they used do, and some plants are refusing to grow where they do now because they require a different climate. So the plants and the insects were telling us, "No, Zone-4 is _now_ 200km north of where you insist it is," while the politicians were going, "No! *_No!No!No!No!No!No!No!No!_* It's _not_ real! It's Not! It's Not! It's Not! It's Not! It's Not!"
Your growing-zones are going to change, too, Europe.
And just to make matters worse: nothing I've said takes precipitation into account. Nor does it account for what's happening to glaciers, the reservoirs of fresh water for all of human history. Expect winter floods and summers with rivers running dry.
How do you farm when all of your crops and techniques are applicable for a planet that no longer exists?
You forgot to mention that this average profit was mainly made by big farming companies (the ones also getting the most subsidies) while small farms didn't get so much.
Also the small farmers took part in the protests organized by the farmer's association while this association is only interested in the needs of the big farmers.
So, instead of blocking roads, the small farmers should probably demonstrate against the politics of the farmer's association so that their issues finally get the necessary attention, e.g. prices for milk and grain with which also small farmers can maintain a profitable farm without getting big and/or "animal unfriendly".
What I find the most annoying about this is that the people supporting this are the same people who's been very vocal abut how murder would be an appropriate response whenever protestors have blocked the roads before.
I would agree with the fuel subsidies, if the government would actually hold itself to the same standard and punish fuel services from violating the Spritpreisverordnung.
I live in a rural village and the vehicles most definitely use the public roads for more than just getting to another field, nonetheless I support farmers. There have been reductionns, taxes and price changes for years that did not solve any problem and virtually only existed to aggravate farming industry workers.
I don't agree with blocking roads or destroying paintings for any protested subject.
Let's face the fact: if farmers would have nothing to complain about, that would be a sign of the endtimes.
As a lot of commenters pointed out, it's not that farmers would pay more, it's that they would be subsidised less.
And the allegiance of a lot of farmers to some parties always baffles me. Parties that cry 'No handouts!' of any kind, especially not towards refugees, cultural or educational organisations, marginalised groups or others out of 'financial competency', yet here we have ludicrous amounts of money going into the agricultural sector to help keeping farm alive that would have otherwise vanished a long time ago. Money paying for produce that in part just gets destroyed because there's no market for it.
Parties that spew hat against everything foreign, parroting those ideas about boarder control and sovereignty, and yet here we have an industry that in parts relies on manual labour and could not survive without the seasonal workers out of the more eastern countries.
Ah, in the Netherlands we had those already. But here it was about nitrogen emissions (manure, mainly). The EU demands that the nitrogen content of nature reserve area's soil is reduced. And rightly so, it is waaaay too high for a healthy environment (also elsewhere, but that is besides the point). So, some farmers near nature reserve areas will have to go over to ecological farming or stop alltogether. It lamed the country many days.... Now the farmer's party is the largest in the first chamber of parliament..... It even went so far that farmes rammed the seat of province of Groningen with their tractors, damaging the building. But we had no neo nazi farmers, as far as I could see.
Auch in Deutschland gibt es keine Neo-Nazi-Bauern. Die Diffamierung, ein Nazi zu sein, ereilt jeden, der nicht der Meinung der Regierenden ist.
Wer sich eine eigene, wirklich qualifizierte Meinung bilden möchte, der schaue sich bitte den YT-Kabal von Anthony Lee an. Er war früher Polizist und ist seit einigen Jahren selber Farmer.
Alles andere ist den öffentlichen Medien, die das Sprachrohr der Regierung bilden und die nicht mehr objektiv berichten nachgeplappert.
Und : bei jedem Protest kann es oasdieren, dass sich Menschen mit einer bestimmten Auffassung und Ideologie,darunter mischen. Das geschieht immer und überall. Und, darauf geben die Organisatoren gar keinen Einfluss.
The neonazi blabla is a very transparent tactic to get people to not associate or distance themselves preemptively
For Netherlands the major problem is poultry and for Germany it's pigs. Just to many animals, way more than needed inside of the country thus beeing heavily dependent on exports...
Regarding the Far right symbols, looking at the protests as a whole, statistics dictates there must be a few black sheep. Looking at Footage, I've not yet seen those symbols (although obviously I have not looked at every protest all over Germany), and for it being called out I always see the same roughly 10 pictures recirculated. Yet I do recognize them as obviously terrible. At the same time, I'm really torn on the symbolism of the gallows
There are always black sheeps. Does this violation by a few idiots destroy the whole protest act for you? I guess I need to show up with such a flag or symbol during the next climate activist glue-yourself-to-the-street show, and wait for media to call it right-wing protest then.
The threat or implication that something is or might even be construed as "right wing" is enough for many germans to preemptively cower and distance themselves, almost doesn't matter what the cause is. There are probably few peoples in europe that have less solidarity than germans, the french would just laugh at this transparent media spin
Apparently there are two comments here, but UA-cam doesn't load them...
@@alittlebitintellectual7361 Sort the comments by newest first and you'll see them. Yeah, it's an odd thing UA-cam has.
@@dnocturn84 That's actually a Hilarious Idea.
Taking away subsidy's does not make sense but neither does Nazism in a protest. I always thought Germany was further along but I stand corrected. Shame really.
The real issue with farming ia the oligopoly im supermarkets but for some reason the kartellamt is silent.
While I don't agree with the farmers, calling them revolting seems a tad rude.
Most German people especially workers, nurses, cleaners and handcrafters support the farmers. Because the whole Germans see the government millions of euros to Ukraine, China, India & elsewhere. At the same time the gap between rich and poor people in Germany becomes larger, rental flats/houses, food, gas, oil for normal people become more expensive and invaluable.
I think similar like in other European countries....
And every German lived in the 60s/70s/80s now see the the decay of a strong economic nation. They feel their country smashing into the mud by the red & green government.
And If you are afraid loosing of this what your parents and grandparents established last 50 Years you will be marked as a Nazi.
....and of course our public television is owned by our government. They will use the words in the reports as they need
Perhaps the German farmers have just been taking lessons from their French counterparts.
Farming is so unprofitable that I’m surprised people keep doing it. Most farmers are so far into debt it’s not even funny.
You realize farmers are the main source of food, right
3000 Euros is not the average increase in fuel cost without the subsidies, as someone in the comments here mentioned 1700-2000 euros would be the one realistic range to hurt the smaller farms.
What I don't like is the lack of solidarity by every part of society that has enjoyed subsidies for so long! Many people can't afford to protest or don't have the leeway to protest in such a manner knowing it won't influence the government because a large chunk of immigrants in Germany without citizenship who pay equal taxes to citizens, still can't vote in the general elections.
Farming subsidies are an idiotic problem. Farmers make money when crop prices are high. Farm subsidies make food extremely cheap, which makes the farmers dependent on more subsidies. In poor countries, farmers cannot compete and go out of business. Then the rich countries that drove them out of business flood their countries with free food, keeping them out of business and in need of handouts while patting themselves on the back for their generosity.
The US government has, by far, the most expensive military in the world. We outspend practically outspend all of the rest of the world combined, but military spending is not the most expensive thing in the US government. The farm bill is.
But we can't stop this merry-go round. Any nation that stops farm subsidies will drive all its farmers out of business because they couldn't compete with all the rest of the world's subsidized farmers. It would be like lowering the dike on your side of the river during a flood.
Stressful times ahead
120k is twice much expansive as 40k, EXCUSE ME, that 3 time more expansive.
When I think farmers, I think bourgeoisie. SMH
The farmers are as necessary as water supply.
I think the biggest problem we have is the insanity of the "schwarze null", meaning the reduction of public dept. We had a decade of cheap money and didn't use it, now we have to fix the problems that created with more expensive money and we still are reluctant to spend it. It won't get better if we wait even longer so we have to make cuts everywhere.
Ironic, how in similar way farmers have had "cheap money" in form of subsidies and did not transform their business too
Who is gonna pay the dept in the Future? Who is paying the loss in purchasing power? I dont think scrapping the Schwarze Null is gonna solve anything, its only pushing the the problem to the Future
@@michaelmichael2382 Public dept works different than you personal depts. They are a valid and reasonable way to invest in your economy. And maintenance has to be done, no way around it.
When same thing happened in asia you people said the government is fascist, when it happens in "civilizational" west the farmers are fascist. Wow what a logic
Telling the farmers to just buy electric tractors is to laugh on their faces, isn't it? If the farmer ends up with some profit but still has bills to pay like everybody else, how is that good? Do you like to work indentured to the banks? How about failure to pay will lose your farm and a roof over your head? The way this was explained sounds like Profit is a dirty word.
You said, "Makes the AFD look like Hilliary Clinton" like that wasn't a bad thing.
They are NOT over the top!!! Misleading..
Having to modernize isnt exactly something that comes from "having to feed more people", its an inevitable cost of doing business.
When you dont have slaves, you have to improve profitability and productivity otherwise.
Just saying, the framing of that statement was kinda weird. It sounded like modernization is something that costs farmers, when in fact its beneficial to their bottom line by virtue of how businesses work. Not to mention the fact that most people dont make major investments like vehicles using reserves, but rather credit.
Also calling the Bauernverband a union might be slightly off, its more akin to a lobbying organisation.
Other than that, pretty good. I wasn't exactly aware of high clear-cut the rightwing symbolism has been, thanks for the examples.
The problem with farming is that the large profits made one year have to go, almost completely, to paying off the debts accrued in previous years.
Farming is completely at the mercy of the behavior of the seasons from year to year. And due to climate-change, the behavior of the seasons from year to year is changing from consistent to swinging-between-extremes.
Could I perhaps have a source on some farmers supporting the ideology of gregor strasser?
It's not that I don't believe you. I want to use it as a source in an article I'm writing.
Electric tractors would weigh too much
Well, if the FDP is not willing to negotiate a reform of the debt break then the missing money has to be taken from somewhere. Many people showing solidarity with the farmers now claiming that "It's not only their cause, it affects us all" don't seem to understand that it would equally affect us all if the government were to cut, for instance, social support (which incidentally is exactly what CDU has proposed in parliament...).
Whether the government plunders social support, or ends farming subsidies thus driving up food prices, it is punishing the poorest in society for its own mistakes at a time when poverty rates are already increasing. In pursuing policies like this, it is galvanizing support for dangerous populist movements, especially those on the right.
There are other options, but the reason we're in this mess is that the government went against expert advice and tried to finance its ambitious policies illegally. I don't see why our most vulnerable should be the ones to bear the consequences.
@rewboss I definitely agree with you on the point that attempts to save money at the cost of poor people is wrong. But simply saying that the government is trying to punish people for their own mistakes is a weird framing. I don't think that they have some billions of euros lying around personally that they can use to stuff the money hole. The ambitious policies that you are critising include things like the implementation of a basic child protection (Kindergrundsicherung) and investments to transform our economy to be able to reach net zero (which is our obligation according to the Paris climate treaty). The situation is actually quite simple: The budget was supposed to be financed in part by the help of loans. Now we can either reform the debt break so we are still able to do that or we can cut expenses somewhere. And there is actually a third solution which is to increase top income taxes and introduce a financial transaction tax but guess who does not want that either (FPD and CDU).
@@FilemonHD They don't have 60 billion euros lying around, no; but if they're looking for money to plug that gap, they should perhaps start with the people who have more money than they need, not those who don't have enough.
For example, "Kindergrundsicherung", which is an attempt to alleviate child poverty, can't be financed with policies that push _more_ young families into poverty.
I hear they're incredibly foul mouthed, that's what revolts me at least
Is it because they're covered in manure?
The privileged are getting their privileges revoked...that is what is happening.
So, they have to pay an equal amount as all the others? I cannot say I am angry at the government
Also, have you ever encountered a poor farmer?
Well, I haven't met one yet. All are rich af.
Compassion for them equals to zero.
Heh, that phrasing can mean two things...
Yes, I know, it was deliberate. It's also a very old joke.
someone please tell them that they should prepare food and maybe a donation font, if they want to continue longer. because the politicians know very well that if you don't work you have no money and the motivation to rebel will reduce to naught.
No. The profit is after cost, and that is after wages
Farmers are self-employed, not employers. The profit is after regular costs, for things like seed, animal feed, manure, energy costs, taxes, hire of machinery such as combine harvesters, and so on. If the farm hires actual workers, that (I believe) also comes out before profit.
Out of the profits, though, the farmer has to support any family members that also work on the farm, his (and their) health insurance and pension contributions, and in many cases the "Hofübergeber" (sometimes a farmer is unable to continue running the farm but is too young to retire, so transfers ownership of the farm and is then supported out of the farm's profits until he can start drawing a pension). Then come things like debt repayments, and what's left over goes into a reserve fund for those very expensive extra-ordinary costs.
If you deduct all of those costs from the official profits, most farms struggle to break even.