Protests by farmers have been sweeping Europe for months.
Tractors have dramatically blockaded cities in France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Romania and more in a show of furious frustration that EU policies, that farmers say, threatened their livelihood. Everything costs more for farmers now. They are hit with higher energy, fertilizer and transport costs. At the same time, some governments and supermarkets have reduced food prices to help the consumers to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
The EU waived duties on cheap agricultural imports from Ukraine which depressed prices and caused deep resentment. There is also increasingly alarm over EU's Farm-to-Fork strategy at the heart of its Green Deal aimed making the climate neutral by 2050. Agriculture in the EU is responsible for 11 percent of CO2 emissions, but farmers are also victims of the impact of climate change and extreme weather.
So, does climate policy need to be more farmer friendly? Or does the already subsidized agricultural sector need to embrace the fast pace of change needed to protect the planet?
To find out, in this edition of The Agenda, Juliet Mann speaks to Christiane Lambert, President of COPA; Dr. Patrick Schröder, Senior Research Fellow at the Environment and Society Centre at Chatham House; and Alvaro Lario, the President of International Fund of Agricultural Development.