How European Populists Turn Farmers’ Anger into Political Power

In this ECPS Voices of Youth contribution, Kader Gueye examines how European populist movements are transforming genuine agrarian grievances into political capital. From Dutch nitrogen protests to French mobilizations against the EU–Mercosur deal, Gueye shows how populist actors amplify farmers’ discontent by framing it as a moral struggle between “ordinary people” and “distant elites.” While such narratives generate visibility and significant institutional leverage—as illustrated by the rise of the BBB in the Netherlands and the far right’s support for French blockades—they rarely address the structural drivers of rural hardship, such as volatile markets, supply-chain imbalances, and climate pressures. Gueye argues that without constructive long-term solutions, populist exploitation risks deepening divisions and leaving farmers’ core challenges unresolved.

By Kader Gueye*

Across Europe, images of tractors lining highways have become quite familiar. Farmers block roads, dump manure at ministry gates and brandish placards about survival and “fair competition.” Falling incomes, volatile markets, and increasingly demanding environmental and trade rules have defined their grievances. The political environment that has grown around these protests is not solely about farm policy, but how populist actors have turned agrarian discontent into leverage without offering credible plans to solve the underlying crisis. 

Political farmer mobilization has become politically decisive not simply because of their scale, but because populist parties and their allies translate and diffuse their genuine grievances into a simplistic narrative of “the people” versus “distant rule-makers,” and convert that narrative into institutional power. Notably, the Dutch Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging — BBB) and the French debate over the EU-Mercosur trade deal illustrate this translation and provide an example onto why farmers’ structural problems are often left unresolved. 

Populism and Agrarian Discontent

Political scientists usually describe populism as a “thin” ideology that divides society into two camps: a virtuous people and a corrupt elite, and that insists politics should express the general will of those people (Mudde, 2004). Because it is “thin,” populism needs a host ideology or a concrete issue to attach to. Agrarian discontent has become one of those issues in Europe.

Farmers are often portrayed as the most authentic part of “the people,” especially in countries with a strong rural identity. When farm incomes stagnate, or when new rules arrive from, say, Amsterdam or Paris in the name of environmental protection, it becomes easy to cast farmers as victims of remote decision-makers who may not truly understand life outside the cities.

However, real agrarian grievances are complicated. Farmers face pressure ranging from large supermarket chains, extremely volatile export markets and rising input costs, all while they are being asked to cut emissions, protect biodiversity and adapt to extreme weather linked to climate change (Henley & Jones, 2024). Populist actors rarely talk about all of these drivers at once. They select the parts that fit their story about out-of-touch elites and elevate those parts into a moral conflict. That is the “translation” this article will focus on.

Agrarian Populism in the Netherlands

The BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) was founded in 2019 by journalist Caroline van der Plas and agrarian advocates. The party initially presented itself as a voice for farmers and rural citizens who felt left behind by the urban political elites. Its platform opposed compulsory farm buyouts and demanded a slower transition on nitrogen regulations, with an increased emphasis on technological solutions and voluntary change (Hendrix, 2023).

During the nitrogen protests, BBB politicians regularly appeared at demonstrations, amplified farmers’ slogans and insisted that ministers and unelected EU bureaucrats did not understand rural life. The core message of the BBB was that the government was threatening food producers, while protecting abstract environmental goals. That narrative connected easily with populist language about “ordinary citizens” versus “climate elites.”

The crucial step came during the 2023 provincial elections. BBB transformed the visibility of road blockades into electoral support and won more seats than any other party across all provinces. Because provincial councils elect the Dutch Senate, the party also became the largest group in the upper house (Reuters, 2023).

In that position, BBB gained significant bargaining power. With its newfound power, it could support, amend or stall national laws, including those related to nitrogen emissions. Analysts at the Clingendael Institute describe this as a shift from street protest to “institutionalized leverage” that changed how the entire party system talked about rural concerns (van der Plas & Candel, 2023).

Yet the deeper policy problem remains. Court rulings still require substantial reductions in nitrogen emissions in sensitive nature areas, and new permits for construction are constrained as long as the problem is not resolved (Candel, 2023). BBB has pushed for looser targets and slower timelines but has not presented a comprehensive plan that both satisfies legal obligations and gives farmers a clear long-term horizon.

In practice, this means farmers continue to face uncertainty about land values, future production levels and investment decisions. Populist framing has helped them obtain more political attention, but it has not delivered a stable settlement that combines environmental goals with rural livelihoods.

Tractor Blockades and ‘Fair Competition’ in France 

In early 2024, French farmers blocked key highways, encircled Paris with tractor convoys and targeted wholesale markets. where they protested low farm incomes as well as complex regulations. Many of the farmers believed they had to follow much stricter environmental and animal welfare guidelines than did many of their international competitors who exported products into the same markets that the French farmers sold into. (Al Jazeera, 2024)

“Fair competition” was the repeating mantra of these protests. French Farmer’s Associations argued that due to strict environmental and animal welfare laws paired with trade agreements signed by the European Union to allow increased imports from countries with looser regulations, French farmers were at a severe competitive disadvantage. 

The main driver of this argument was the European Union-Mercosur Trade Agreement, a proposed deal between the European Union and the Mercosur block composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The agreement would lower tariffs and open markets for crucial goods like beef and various industrial products (European Parliament, 2023). French farmers speculated that the increase in imports of beef, poultry and sugar from South America would put pressure on European farmers to compete with unregulated foreign producers whom they viewed as operating under unfair conditions. 

Here, far-right populist parties saw a chance to expand their rural base. Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National (RN) party, openly expressed her support of the farmers’ blockades and argued that the protesters were evidence of how the EU’s “green bureaucrats” and “globalists” were harming the interests of French farmers and ultimately threatening the native French way of life (Harlan, 2024). Le Pen and the RN leadership described themselves as champions of the “Real France,” defending its people against technocratic elites in Brussels and disconnected elite groups in Paris, a theme that is often repeated by populists.

What Are the Consequences? 

Across these two examples, the populist translation of farmer grievances into policy leverage had a number of consequences, the first of which was the simplification of the intricate causes of farmers’ issues. Global market dynamics, domestic policy decisions, corporate concentration, and environmental constraints all contribute to agrarian hardship. Populist narratives, however, focus more on the role of Brussels or environmental regulations and less on the domestic supply chain power or the climate crisis itself (Henley & Jones, 2024; van der Ploeg, 2020). This selective focus makes it easier to mobilize anger, but it restricts the range of solutions that are politically thinkable. 

This phenomenon also makes long-term transition planning more challenging. For instance, populists in the Netherlands claimed that any attempt to establish legally binding emission reduction pathways was evidence that the elites were attempting to "shut down" family farms and any trade agreements are viewed as betrayals of the rural populace in France. These populist portrayals leave little room for negotiated packages that can combine stricter rules with strong support for innovation and major diversification (Hendrix, 2023; van der Plas & Candel, 2023).

The last, and perhaps most apparent effect of this framing is the deepening of social divisions. Here, farmers are pitted against urban consumers and environmental activists, despite the fact that both groups may be interested in a more resilient and sustainable food system. The differences among farmers themselves get blurred as well. Large and intensive operations and small farms have very different capacities and interests, yet populist discourse typically frames them as a monolith, a single, unified “people of the land.”

Towards More Constructive Leverage

None of this implies that populist parties never raise legitimate concerns or that farmer protests are illegitimate. The demonstrations show genuine worry about rural futures as well as genuine dissatisfaction with the way trade and environmental policies have been presented and organized. The question is how to turn this mobilization into leverage that produces lasting solutions rather than recurring crises. In the current policy discussions, a few options stand out.

Combining comprehensive rural transition contracts with environmental targets is one strategy. For instance, policy analysts in the Netherlands have proposed packages that combine investments in non-agricultural rural jobs, incentives for nature-inclusive farming, and targeted buyouts. The aim being to give farmers a predictable route as opposed to a string of brief shocks (Candel, 2023).

Another approach is to address power imbalances in the food chain. More transparency in pricing, support for producer organizations, and stricter regulations on supermarket purchasing practices could put some pressure on big retailers and processors, who currently hold a significant portion of value added, rather than individual farms (Henley & Jones, 2024).

Lastly, democratic actors require narratives that link rural justice with biodiversity and climate goals. This entails acknowledging that rural areas have historically been neglected, valuing farmers’ knowledge, and incorporating them early in the policy-making process. It becomes more difficult for populists to claim that the countryside can only be protected through complete resistance when transitions are co-designed rather than imposed (European Center for Populism Studies, n.d.; Van der Ploeg, 2020).

As European societies struggle with issues like food security, climate targets, and shifting trade patterns, farmer protests are likely to continue. The key issue is not whether or not farmers voice their dissatisfaction, but rather who uses it as political leverage and for what purposes. Currently, populist actors are adept at turning rage into visibility and temporary power. When it comes to providing reliable, widely accepted roadmaps for the future of European agriculture, they are far less persuasive.

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(*) Kader Gueye is an IBDP student at Upper Canada College in Toronto and an aspiring diplomat. He has contributed to briefing work in a federal office and organized student programming on global child protection and civic engagement. His current work examines how institutions stay resilient when politics are under strain.

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References 

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Candel, J. (2023, June 13). Nitrogen wars: How the Netherlands hit the limits to growth. Green European Journal.

European Centre for Populism Studies. (n.d.). Agrarian populism. European Centre for Populism Studies.

European Parliament Research Service. (2024, December 19). EU–Mercosur trade deal: Answering citizens’ concerns.European Parliament.

Farmer–Citizen Movement. (n.d.). Farmer–Citizen Movement. In Wikipedia.

Harlan, C. (2024, April 11). Europe’s farmers are in revolt and the far right is trying to harness the anger. The Washington Post.

Henley, J., & Jones, S. (2024, February 10). ‘They are drowning us in regulations’: How Europe’s furious farmers took on Brussels and won. The Guardian.

Hendrix, T. (2023). The Dutch farmers movement (Master’s thesis). Wageningen University.

Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x

Reuters. (2023, March 16). Dutch farmers’ protest party scores big election win, shaking up Senate. Reuters.

Reuters. (2023b, June 29). Macron says current Mercosur deal impossible as is. Reuters.

Reuters. (2024, January 26). Europe’s angry farmers fuel backlash against EU ahead of elections. Reuters.

Reuters. (2024b, January 24). French farmers protest as anger grows over costs and regulations. Reuters.

Rooduijn, M., & de Lange, S. L. (2023, September 28). The resurgence of agrarian populism. The Loop.

van der Plas, C., & Candel, J. (2023, May 6). How Dutch farmers’ protests evolved into political mobilisation: A prologue for Europe?. Klingender Institute.

van der Ploeg, J. D. (2020). Farmers’ upheaval, climate crisis and populism. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(3), 589–605. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1725490

Wikipedia contributors. (2024). 2024 European farmers’ protests. In Wikipedia.

Wikipedia contributors. (2024). 2024 French farmers’ protests