BERLIN—It’s freezing cold this evening on a hilltop in Thuringia, about 170 miles south of Berlin, but the atmosphere is warm. Micha Engelhardt is there with his tractor beside the bonfire on this cold January day, and there are sausages and pumpkin soup.
The village has three farmers, and all of them are here. But that’s not all—more than expected have shown up. There are tradesmen, truck drivers, the local carpenter, the village butcher, families, even the mayor. The police stop by, nod, and drive off again.
Many who drive past on the federal highway honk their horns in support, and everyone knows that the next bonfire, the next farmers’ action, is only a 15-minute drive. There are hundreds of them all over Germany.
The following day, Jan. 15, the farmers meet again, this time in the capital. Hundreds of them from all over Germany have driven their tractors for hours overnight to the iconic Brandenburg Gate. Some of them from this bonfire in Thuringia also are there.
Mr. Engelhardt, and many farmers like him who are protesting all over the country are saying that they are the ones who earn the money that the government is throwing out the window.
Germany just witnessed the first week of action organized by the German Farmers’ Association. They blocked highways, road junctions, and central warehouses of supermarket chains with tractors. They organized rallies and paralyzed access roads to city centers or entire towns.
What’s Happening in Germany?
The German government is deeply unpopular. More than three-quarters of respondents—76 percent—disapprove of its current policies, according to a recent poll by the INSA opinion research institute. Seventy-two percent are unhappy with the work of Chancellor Olaf Scholz—and that number is rising. Calls for new elections are getting louder.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck from the Greens last week received an open letter from his constituency near the Danish border in response to the protests: The head of the district and all 13 mayors have joined the farmers. Their letter is a reckoning with what is popularly known as the “Berlin political bubble.” One of the examples they list: Following the Baltic Sea floods in October 2023, the German government refused to provide aid to strengthen the dikes. Meanwhile, Germany will dish out $10 billion in aid to India to help counter climate-related threats. That offended many who joined the protests.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for the farmers was subsidy cuts just before Christmas. Since then, unrest has been on the rise.
Government Runs out of Money
Germany’s highest court ruled in November 2023 that the allocation of $60 billion in Berlin’s budget was unconstitutional. While the money had been approved as a COVID-emergency loan, the Scholz government wanted to use it for climate measures and to modernize the economy.Since then, the government has been scrambling to find savings to fill the budget hole. One of the measures was to end the diesel fuel subsidy. For medium-sized farms in Germany, this means at least $3,000 in extra costs per year. Another measure was to abolish the tax discount for agricultural vehicles.
Farmers have firmly budgeted with these funds. On average, subsidies account for 45 percent of farmers’ income. Not all farmers can cover their costs in Germany’s already highly efficient agricultural sector.
From 2010 to 2020, 36,100 farms went out of business in Germany. That corresponds to an average of 10 farms a day—resulting in the loss of 1 in 7 jobs in the sector. Many farmers are unable to find a successor or are struggling due to regulations, bureaucracy, and price pressure from big supermarket chains. More recently, they have also been affected by rising energy costs, inflation, fertilizer regulations, and the cost of purchasing machinery.
How Many Are on the Road?
Here’s a conservative estimate of the number of tractors and other vehicles reported by police at rallies and convoys in seven predominantly agrarian states on Jan. 8.Baden-Württemberg, 33,000 vehicles; Lower Saxony, 24,000 vehicles; North Rhine-Westphalia, 22,000 vehicles (including 17,000 tractors); Rhineland-Palatinate, 13,000 vehicles; Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, 7,300 vehicles; Schleswig-Holstein, up to 10,000 vehicles; and Hesse—at one rally alone—more than 2,000 tractors.
That’s a total of around 110,000 vehicles, mainly tractors and trucks. To put it into perspective, in 2023, there were 255,000 farms and 876,000 agricultural workers in Germany, according to the Federal Statistical Office—in a country with a population of about 84 million.
What’s making these people so angry? Hanna Timmermann, an organic farmer from Hamburg, said at the rally in Berlin, “‘The traffic light should go’ is a bit short-sighted.”
The coalition government of Social Democrats, Free Democrats, and Greens is usually referred to as “the traffic light,” since their party colors evoke those of a traffic light.
“We want rational and fact-based policies. It’s not just about the traffic light, not even about parties, but about the fact that decisions have been made for many years that are a burden on agriculture. We want to raise our standards, but we have to be able to afford to do so.”
“This is not just about the survival of one profession,” Angelika Barbe, a well-known civil rights activist from the former East Germany and former member of Parliament, said in front of the Brandenburg Gate. “But it’s also about food. Whether it’s the average citizens who suffer from heating costs, whether it’s the tradesmen who have nothing left and can no longer cope with the construction costs, you can see that there are problems everywhere.”
The farmers are only the tip of the spear, Hans-Joachim Ziehmann says. The entrepreneur and food producer from Berlin believes that “much, much more needs to happen” in the near future to put the country back on a solid footing.
“Nonsensical bureaucracy, escalating taxes, and an unbelievable number of contradictory laws. This can no longer go on like this.”
Concern About New ‘Yellow Vest’ Movement
Mr. Engelhardt’s fellow farmers went to Berlin. The rural population has reached the urban centers. Truck drivers, fishermen, and craftsmen are there. Hunters, small and medium-sized businesses, bakers and butchers, and even preschool teachers have expressed their solidarity with the farmers. Children’s tractor protests attracted international attention.One of the government’s biggest concerns is that the protests will spread—a kind of “yellow vest movement” such as in France.
Farmers and truck drivers are also on the move in Romania. On Jan. 11, hundreds of truckers staged a protest. Farmers from the Netherlands, Hungary, and other countries in Europe also joined the protests in Germany.
“It’s nice to see that here in Germany, German farmers have organized such an impressive display of their own interests,” said a Hungarian in Berlin. “We are a little envious, as this would be virtually impossible in Hungary.”
What Have the Farmers Achieved?
What have the protests achieved? For one thing, the farmers’ protest has evolved into a demonstration of the German middle class and small-business owners. A broad majority of Germans—69 percent—support the protests. Only about a fifth (22 percent) spoke out against them, according to an INSA survey from Jan. 9. Although German mainstream media tried to describe the protests as only “farmers’ protests,” people are seeing other occupational groups showing solidarity.Secondly, the planned removal of the tax discount for agricultural vehicles has been withdrawn. There’s still a dispute about the cut of agricultural diesel subsidies. The German Farmers’ Association is threatening to continue protesting until that measure also is dropped.
Thirdly, the government appears to want to make savings everywhere except at home, something many citizens in the country are noticing, and one reason prompting many to join in. The extension to the Chancellory is expected to cost $800 million, probably $1 billion in the end. That would be roughly the amount that the farmers would have to pay more after the recent cuts.
Fourth, the farmers’ actions have been peaceful. The nationwide protest was supported by many more people than expected. Media framing that the protests were being deliberately stirred up by radical forces or infiltrated by right-wing extremists fell flat. The organizers have clearly distanced themselves from fringe groups and calls for violence.
Taking Discontent Seriously
“Since otherwise we won’t be heard, we have to ‘disturb a little’—but only within the legal framework,” Mr. Engelhardt said. “The primary goal is to withdraw the two measures, [and] secondly, we are generally protesting for more dialogue, practical solutions and more support from politicians.”This should ensure that “such wrongheaded decisions do not happen again.”
“Politicians should rather create framework conditions so that we can keep up with international competition without subsidies,” he said, citing the diesel tax as an example.
“We wouldn’t need a diesel tax refund if the tax wasn’t so high. In hardly any other country is this tax so high.”
“And if that doesn’t help,” he added, “we'll have other surprises.”
