![Anthony Lee stands in front of a barn on his family farm in Lower Saxony, Germany. Lee has been an outspoken critic of the European Union's climate change policies and has been a leader in the European farmers' protest movement. He is running for the EU Parliament for the right-wing Free Voters party and his YouTube channel has over 24 million views.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4032x3024+0+0/resize/1100/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcb%2Ff3%2F9eddfea04a90b4bcacae66898877%2F2.jpeg)
Anthony Lee stands in front of a barn on his family farm in Lower Saxony, Germany. Lee has been an outspoken critic of the European Union's climate change policies and has been a leader in the European farmers' protest movement. He is running for the EU Parliament for the right-wing Free Voters party and his YouTube channel has over 24 million views.
Rob Schmitz/NPR
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Rob Schmitz/NPR
HANOVER, Germany — Last year, Anthony Lee received a letter from the Ministry of Agriculture in the German state of Lower Saxony, where he runs his family farm. The letter stated that a tree had fallen on his land, rendering hundreds of square feet of sugar beet field uncultivable, which would reduce his annual farm subsidy by about $10.
“Every three days, a satellite flies over our property and fields,” Lee says, pointing to the sky. “Then every farmer has to download the app and we get a push message saying, ‘There’s something wrong with your field on these days.’ Please take a picture and send it to us.' “It’s so weird now.”
21st century agriculture in Europe means GPS-enabled tractors, climate change-inspired rules and crop rotations monitored by space cameras.
“If the satellite images show or show the government that something is wrong, then we can grow wheat and [instead] Growing corn automatically sends a message that something is wrong,” says Lee. “Or if you bring manure, [at] “We’re being honest about telling them not to plow at a certain time or on a field that’s not allowed.”
Lee, a candidate in this week's European Parliament elections, is a spokesperson for the German Farmers' Association, which has been organizing farmers' protests.
He said it began to feel like the state was slowly taking over his farm. He is not alone.
So far this year, farmers across Europe have staged more than 4,000 protests, a 300% increase on last year, according to global risk data company Verisk Maplecroft. They are angry about new environmental regulations, the elimination of subsidies and cheap agricultural imports that do not meet the same standards as the requirements of the food they produce. As the European Union (EU) holds general elections this week, opinion polls and analysts are predicting a rightward shift. Vocal farmers can be a powerful force that helps sway votes.
![Farmers park their tractors near the European Parliament during a protest by numerous European farmers' associations in Brussels on Tuesday.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4838x3225+180+0/resize/1100/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F39%2Fdb%2F75ec9da6454cbb726ef0ce1a6c01%2Fgettyimages-2155410157.jpg)
Farmers park their tractors near the European Parliament during a protest by numerous European farmers' associations in Brussels on Tuesday.
Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu (via Getty Images)
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Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu (via Getty Images)
Armed with beets and manure
European officials have set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half by 2030. Scientists say Europe has become the fastest warming continent on Earth. But the EU has weakened or shelved some proposed agricultural policies as concessions to protesting farmers.
![People walk through coolant fog in Las Vegas on June 4, 2024.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3802x3802+873+0/resize/100/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb0%2Fcc%2Fb8267b514f97b948bd7858be02de%2Fap24156753228052.jpg)
Some protests have turned violent, such as those held in Brussels, where EU governments are located, in February and March. Farmers threw sugar beets and sprayed liquid fertilizer at police, but police responded with tear gas and water cannons.
“I mean, when you talk about European farmers, you’re talking about relatively small farmers who are skilled at farming,” says Alan Matthews, a retired professor of European agricultural policy at Trinity College Dublin.
“But now, in addition to being farmers and financial managers, we are asking them to be ecologists and conservationists,” says Matthews. “They need to know what impact it has on greenhouse gas emissions. So, if you will, we have a variety of additional obligations and requirements that we place on our farmers.”
According to the European Commission, agriculture accounts for 10% of the EU's total greenhouse gas emissions, mainly through methane and nitrous oxide.
From climate change marches to protests against climate law.
In the last European Parliament elections in 2019, environmentally friendly Green party politicians had their strongest showing amid mass student-led protests around the world demanding action on climate change. Now the pendulum may swing.
![Skipping school around the world to drive action on climate change](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/03/15/ap_19074244383637_sq-2c2634a317f2d44a732d21c5ccbcaab7ffafbc0e.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
Matthews said the farmer protests that took place across Europe in the months leading up to the election were reminiscent of climate change protests during previous polls. “We now have farmer protests instead of youth protests ahead of the European elections,” says Matthews. “But I think the protests themselves are likely to have a similar impact in the opposite direction.”
Matthews sees the pendulum swinging on the draft five-year strategic agenda published by the European Council, the EU's highest decision-making body. The past five-year agenda outlined a transition to a greener, more sustainable Europe, but “all that language has now disappeared from the next draft strategic agenda,” says Matthews. “There is a much greater focus on competitiveness, sovereignty and trade issues, and this is also reflected in the food and agriculture agenda.”
This change has surprised many politicians who care about the environment. Michael Bloss, a member of the German Green Party's EU parliament, said delaying climate change policies to appease protesting farmers would be a step backwards. “This is bad for environmental policy,” he says. “Their whole sector is really unregulated in terms of climate, so climate policy can’t upset them. But certainly we are fighting with them to get better prices for their production. “But it’s not the Greens who are to blame here, it’s the big retailers who aren’t giving enough money for their produce.”
Low agricultural prices are another problem for farmer Lee, so he has turned to other sources of income, such as a small hotel and beer garden he has built on his farm to attract tourists to the area.
However, Rep. Lee says the bigger problem is the Green Party itself. “Getting rid of small agricultural businesses is definitely on the agenda,” he says of the Green Party’s policies. “They tell us the opposite. “The first farms to go bankrupt are small farms because they cannot afford this system.”
![Anthony Lee's farm in Lower Saxony, Germany.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4032x3024+0+0/resize/1100/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb8%2Fd4%2Ff75a9f11483788e2a315a0a7ca55%2F3.jpeg)
Anthony Lee's farm in Lower Saxony, Germany.
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Lee took to YouTube to express his displeasure. On YouTube, his hundreds of videos have garnered more than 24 million total views.
He is running for the EU Parliament for the right-wing Free Voters party. He attracted media attention by accusing politicians of trying to take away farmers' land to build housing for refugees, but provided no evidence for this.
Mr. Lee dismisses this criticism, saying he does not belong to the extreme right wing. He said he was just a family farmer who wanted the EU to return more decision-making power to the people who farm the land and feed Europe.
Esme Nicholson contributed to this report from Berlin.