Lhe mobilization of farmers which has just ended – no doubt temporarily – cannot be reduced to a simple peasant revolt. Affecting several countries of the European Union, this crisis fully reveals the end of an agricultural model, inherited from the 1960s. It finds its origin in a structural dynamic, over a long period of time and in a deep contradiction which is accentuated since the 2000s between the future of agriculture and the globalization of trade in agricultural products thanks to international trade agreements.
What contradiction is this? On the one hand, an agroecological perspective responding to strong societal expectations, new imperatives of decarbonization and stemming the decline in biodiversity and natural environments. The Green Deal is the European incarnation, which aims to reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides, increase areas of organic farming, etc. On the other, globalization which fuels competitive tensions and pushes farmers to increasingly lower their production costs, which more ambitious environmental and health standards can make more expensive. Standards which are often not respected by third countries. The objective? A growing supply of agricultural and food products at lower costs.
Added to this contradiction is the fact that the States which have embraced the sirens of globalization no longer control either its organization or the consequences on productive systems. Started with the signing of the Marrakech agreements in 1994, the commercial opening of agriculture – at the time demanded by the United States which saw its market shares melt away to the benefit of the European Union – gradually precipitated producers agricultural sectors in devastating competition and repeated crises. The succession of free trade agreements, more and more bilateral, and the war in Ukraine, have taken us to a new stage.
European dependencies
This is the issue, widely debated today, of all trade liberalization agreements negotiated and signed by the European Commission. Added to these agreements is a total opening of agricultural trade with Ukraine since 2022, as a sign of solidarity with the country’s economy. As a result, imports of sugar and poultry surged, destabilizing European Union markets and agriculture. Sugar imports, for example, rose before the war from 21,000 tonnes to more than 400,000 tonnes in 2023, making this country the second supplier to the EU behind Brazil. An issue which is coupled with the prospect of kyiv joining the EU. We must not forget that the epicenter of the agricultural crisis was located, from 2023, in Poland, Hungary and Romania, due to the repercussions of the transit of Ukrainian cereals on these markets, facilitated by the EU under of the aid provided to kyiv.
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