Germany: The biggest farmer protests

Since Monday farmers are protesting all over Germany.

With thousands of tractors they are blocking highways, cities and also distibution centers of supermarkets.

The map on the picture shows the hot spots from yesterday.


What has started the protests?

The German goverment has - due to a special situation - save ca. 17 Billion Euro in the budget and tries to "get" ca. 1 billion from farmers.

It was planned to cut benefits which farmers have from the exemption of fuel tax and taxes on tractors.

This is seen by farmers as not fair. The rational of these taxes in the past have been to maintain roads. As farmers most of the time do not use roads, they have been excempt from this tax.

Besides this there are a number of drives behind. Here is a short list:
1. Respect +social acceptance of farming and food has degraded
2. Increase of regulations without financial compensation
3. Overall challanges with adverse weather + inflation on costs
4. More regulation to come
4. More econmic pressure to come
5. ...