The season of the tractor

It was early on the morning of February 7, 1997, when a force of riot police and soldiers started deflating the tires of the tractors of protesting farmers on the national highway at Mikrothives in Central Greece. Most of the farmers in the days-long blockade had gone home to bed, leaving a small group to man the protest line. They were arrested. A few days after this incident, the blockade was called off and the highway reopened.

That blockade had been one of the most emphatic by farmers in decades. At around this time of year, it has become a custom for farmers to rev up their tractor engines and head for the country’s national highways. Their demands do not differ all that much from year to year: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the size of subsidies and compensation, the various crises in the economy, inflation etc. We are now in the grips of another protest cycle and the same themes dominate the public dialogue.

What we’re not hearing is a meaningful discussion on the production model that the country needs to pursue if it wants a sustainable agricultural economy. The climate is changing. In the past few years alone, crops and livestock have suffered tremendous losses. The scenes from last year’s floods in Thessaly and other parts of the country are still fresh, and it is certain that such phenomena will only increase in frequency in the future. The question of restructuring the agricultural sector, redesigning it with a new mindset and new tools, needs to be put on the table. The sector needs systemic change, new environmentally sustainable practices, more variety in crops, less dependence on chemical pesticides, and incentives for young professionals.

The immediate problems, from compensation to the rising cost of materials, are serious, of course, but there are also mounting questions about the future that need to be addressed. The country needs a new agricultural and food production-supply-nutrition model, and it needs it now.