The European Union’s Farm to Fork strategy has been all but abandoned following large-scale farmer protests in many European capital cities.
The protests gained massive public support, with polls showing 70 to 90 per cent of non-farmers backing the demonstrations.
What led to EU governments reversing their course on the Farm to Fork initiative? Were there certain tactics that proved successful that can provide a lesson for North American farmers wanting to influence public policy?
The protests had certain elements in common, including charismatic spokespeople and effective messaging that focused on specific issues, explains Bill Wirtz, European-based senior policy analyst with the Consumer Choice Centre.
Wirtz joined RealAg for a follow-up discussion after his keynote presentation at the CropConnect Conference in Winnipeg last month, focusing specifically on the tactics used by European farmers that led to their governments’ changing course, and how those lessons could be applied in North America:
Related: “All the political parties now pretend they’re farmer parties”: Lessons learned in EU ag policy
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