Britain’s Prime Minister is ‘famous’ for his catch-phrase “Smash the Gangs”. Why are the West’s farming communities under attack? Does this tell us anything about the times in which we live? Roger Dunsdon investigates.
TENSIONS
In the UK right now, farmers are in the news, courtesy of tax changes that they claim threaten the continuance of small family-owned farms. Beyond this, something is going on in the Western world that we have not seen before. Governments are bearing down hard upon farming communities. Why?
There are varying points of tension. Across the EU farmers have been perceived, with some justification, as a coddled sector with ‘protections’ not afforded to other industries. But famers are also, generally speaking, ‘middle class’, independent minded, and vocal in opposition to government, especially of the left-wing variety. Is there a hidden agenda?
These are the typical flash points:
1. Environmental Regulation
– **USA**: Farmers often feel burdened by environmental laws, such as those under the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act, which can limit how they use their land. Concerns about pesticide and fertilizer restrictions aimed at protecting water and air quality add to the friction. Opposition arises when farmers perceive regulations as excessive or poorly designed, causing unnecessary costs or reducing productivity.
**Europe**: The European Union (EU) has stringent environmental regulations, such as the EU Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy, aimed at reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable agriculture. Policies like reducing nitrogen fertilizers, banning certain pesticides, and cutting livestock numbers to address climate change and biodiversity loss are contentious. Farmers argue these policies threaten their livelihoods.
2. Economic Pressures
– **Subsidies and Market Competition**: Farmers in both regions rely on subsidies to offset volatile market prices. Changes in subsidy structures or perceived unfair competition from imported goods can lead to discontent. In Europe, reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) aiming to link subsidies to environmental goals have sparked resistance among farmers fearing income loss.
– **Small vs. Industrial Farms**: Both regions see a divide between small-scale farmers and large agribusinesses. Government policies often favor larger operations due to economies of scale, marginalizing smallholders.
3. Land Use and Zoning Conflicts
– **Urban Expansion**: In the USA, urban sprawl and zoning laws can encroach on farmland, leading to disputes over land use. In Europe, farmers face challenges from re-wilding initiatives and protected land designations, which limit agricultural activities.
– **Soil and Resource Preservation**: Governments often push for sustainable practices that some farmers view as overly restrictive.
4. Climate Change and Sustainability
– **Mandatory Changes**: Western governments are implementing policies to address climate change, such as reducing methane emissions from livestock and transitioning to renewable energy sources. Farmers are often asked to adopt costly technologies or alter traditional practices, which some see as an unfair burden without sufficient support.
– **Carbon Markets**: While carbon markets offer financial incentives for sustainable practices, many farmers view them as overly complex or favouring larger players.
5. Socio-Cultural Disconnect
Farmers in both the USA and Europe often feel that policymakers are disconnected from the realities of farming life. Decisions are perceived as being made by urban-based governments with limited understanding of rural challenges. Protests by farmers (e.g., tractor convoys in Europe and demonstrations in the USA) highlight a sense of alienation and frustration.
6. Global Trade and Competition
– **International Trade Agreements**: Farmers worry about competition from countries with less stringent environmental or labour standards. For example:
– In the USA, farmers worry about competition from countries with less stringent environmental or labour standards.
– European farmers face similar concerns regarding imports from South America and Africa under trade agreements.
7. Animal Welfare and Ethics
Increasing societal concern for animal welfare has led to stricter regulations on housing, transport, and slaughter practices in Europe and USA. While these changes are popular with the public, they increase costs for farmers and create tension.
8. Digital and Technological Transformation
Governments often promote precision agriculture and digital tools as part of modernization efforts. Farmers who lack access to adequate infrastructure (like rural broadband) or capital to invest in new technologies see these initiatives as exclusionary.
EXAMPLES OF CONFLICT
– **USA**:
– Controversy over the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which defines which water bodies fall under federal regulation.
– Pushback against climate change initiatives like methane reduction mandates.
– **Europe**:
– Dutch farmers protesting nitrogen reduction policies to meet EU environmental targets.
– French farmers opposing pesticide bans that they argue jeopardize crop yields.
In both contexts, these tensions reflect the broader challenge of balancing economic, environmental, and social priorities in agriculture.
OTHER AGENDAS?
As someone commented to the author recently, Western governments no longer want farms or farming communities – not in the traditional sense, at any rate. “Farms” are perceived as inefficient, and stand in the way of progress. What the government want are ‘vertical farms’ run as food factories, run by techno-managers and less demanding of horizontal land. These agri-businesses will (it is thought!) be much easier to control, to centrally plan, and to tax.
Climate change is a mantra and a religion. Farmers are seen as standing in the way of ‘progress’ in this key element of social development. That, alone, would be enough to place them in the Government’s cross hairs.
Farm land in places of population density need to be built upon to house new arrivals. In Britain ‘growth’ in the population is totally dependent on strong inwards migration and both political left and right (though for differing reasons) are committed to high inwards migration with no upper limit. As far as we can make out in UK there is no serious thought about how these additional mouths are to be fed, long term. There is an assumption that as a ‘rich’ country UK will always be able to outbid poorer countries for scarce food supplies. But what happens if there is no food to supply? What happens if Britain becomes a relatively poorer nation? Is Britain sowing a wind?
IT IS NOT GOOD!
Also, we are being told that animal husbandry / consumption, now stands in the way of reduction of ‘greenhouse gasses’. It is no joke that we are being told that future nutrient intake is to be sustained from eating insects (presuming we cannot be persuaded to eat just vegetables). These articles illustrate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food
Why do Western (and other) governments so desire their people to consume insects? Again we are back to the idea of greater social control. Historically farmers have considerable independence and cannot easily be bought-off, especially as they control the means of production of food. As we move progressively towards international (and eventually global) government, so ‘local’ governments must grab hold of , and secure, food supply.
Interestingly, insects generally are not good for food. They are singled out in the Bible’s Leviticus as ‘unclean’ for human consumption (with a few exceptions – Leviticus Chapter 11). Do our governments want to place us in the invidious position of having to consume ‘unclean’ food?
DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES
We need only to reflect on how both Communist Russia and Communist China effectively declared war on their farmers, with profoundly disastrous consequences. Example of China’s madness: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422018800259
If modern government apparatchiks have any sense of history (they probably do not!) they think that next time they will ‘get it right’ and successfully transition from farms to food factories run by big corporations and staffed by highly unionised workforces in technocratic vertical ‘farms’ powered by wind energy, and solar.
Biblically, what can we say? Our world is headed towards world government – or at least that is the ambition of the global elite. God may have other plans, of course.
The argument that animals, and especially sheep, goats and cattle, are essentially evil in their endless battle with “mother earth”, represents a form of paganism. Worship of mother earth (nature worship) is as old as Mankind’s Fall (Genesis 3). God declared all He had made to be “good”, animals included, (the sixth day of Genesis 1). So today’s determination that ‘animal’ is evil merely reflects the reality of a World at total disconnect with its Creator (Isaiah 5:20).
WHEN THESE THINGS BEGIN
Rev Paul Langham, in his excellent short book “Understanding Revelation” (Terra Nova, 2005) explores how Revelation describes a future world of haves, and have nots, as a signal of the End Time. The global elites will become ever more elite, with the world divided up between governments and billionaire oligarchs. The two will be so intertwined it will not be possible to distinguish them. China, Russia, and USA each show strong indications that this ‘future’ is becoming our today.
Farming communities represent possible effective resistance to global hegemony and must, therefore, be ‘tamed’ if not definitively destroyed. The same is true of the middle classes generally. Educated, and with a certain amount of disposable income, the middle classes also represent a threat to the global elites as potential organised resistance. Like farmers, the middle classes, too, are today being winnowed out across the planet. We may return to that theme in a future article.
Meantime, in the words of our Lord Jesus “… when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!” (Luke 21: 28). Praise Him, eternally!
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