Tractors and farmers.
The media coverage of the tractors and farmers affair in the Italian press has been scandalous to say the least. For example, in portraying the event on a European scale it was said that the farmers are all protesting for the same thing, which is not true. They all protested at the same time, and therefore we need to ask ourselves who orchestrated it (but the presence of the League makes us think of Moscow), but not all for the same reasons. Which are not noble, under any circumstances. Let's go into the facts a little.
Let's start from Germany. German farmers have opened the dance, as they protest against the end of diesel fuel subsidies. You could say that they are right because in the world of tractors there are no great alternatives to naphtha, but that's not true.
The problem is that in Germany there are mega companies, with 43,000 hectares (the largest) that produce agricultural products. The problem is that these giant companies have economies of scale (they sell waste to power plants, they sell the methane produced by cows, they sell skins on a scale, they sell the bones of slaughtered cows to companies like Haribo which makes jellies, etc. ). Then there are those that have remained small, and cannot compete on prices because they have no economy of scale.
But this is their fault: there is the possibility, even here in Germany, of setting up cooperatives and pooling resources. If they don't do it and sentence themselves to death, it's unclear why the government should subsidize them.
German farmers, ultimately, are fighting for their right to pollute the air with tractors, using more tractors than necessary, because they don't join together in cooperatives.
Dutch farmers, on the other hand, are protesting due to laws that aim to limit nitrogen pollution and related emissions. This is one of the areas with the most nitrogen pollution in Europe, and as you can imagine this is not good for people.
That is, Dutch farmers are fighting to defend their "right to pollute the soil".
French farmers, however, are protesting against the obligation to maintain 4% of the country's surface as forest, where agriculture is destroying every tree-lined and meadow space, exterminating the bees. For the record, without bees the earth becomes a desert. So we need meadows with flowers and we need woods for pollinators.
French farmers, therefore, fight for the right to devastate the environment and exterminate pollinating insects. Without pollinators you have to buy seeds produced in the laboratory. Monsanto thanks.
Italian farmers, however, fight for two things.
The first thing is – as usual – the pill. Money. 50 billion a year in subsidies. The reason is the same as the German farmers. In the world (but not in Italy) there are companies that have 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 cows, and they operate economies of scale. There are companies that cultivate even one million hectares of land. By doing economies of scale, they make prices fall, and they don't like it.
Instead of joining cooperatives and creating economies of scale, they too ask for subsidies from the government. In practice, the farmer is a pensioner. With taxpayers' money.
Now people will justify them by saying that you don't have evil food produced by large multinationals, but here the second protest comes into play.
The second reason for the farmers' protest is that they want to withdraw laws that would prohibit them from poisoning the soil and people with various dangerous pesticides.
Italian farmers, therefore, are fighting for the right to poison you, to poison the food you eat, the land and the air. And they also want to get paid to do it.
Someone made the protests coincide, true, and since the League is involved, we can easily understand that it was someone in Moscow. But the point is that the reasons for this protest are ignoble, disgusting and bitchy. As well as morally criminals.
We go from farmers fighting for the right to pollute the air with diesel to farmers fighting for the right to poison food, or poison the earth with nitrogen compounds.
All this while an increase in food prices and a green transition are imposed on the rest of the population to obtain the opposite effects.
However, since the League is close to the farmers of the North and the FDI is close to those of the South, therefore the farmers are the darlings of the current government, and all the ass-kissing media are "accidentally omitting" the real reasons for a protest which, in my opinion, should have been stamped out in blood.
For once, Russian methods were used against those who protest, they have all become super democrats.
Now you find the cow in Sanremo cute. But if pesticides continue to saturate soil and aquifers, I hope you will also find the one who will visit you in the oncology department nice.
Because this is what “polluting with pesticides” means.
More cancer for everyone.