Inside the domes, researchers are growing pears in a controlled environment that simulates how climate change will affect the region in 2040. Their aim is to see what global warming has in store for Europe’s fruit growers.

“We expect more heatwaves and less even precipitation, so more droughts and floods as well. And overall, slightly higher temperatures,” Francois Rineau, associate professor at the University of Hasselt, said of the simulated climate inside the domes.

Early results from the scientists’ first harvest in 2023 suggest Belgian pears may be spared some of the worst impacts of climate change – which scientists expect to cut some crop yields and hike growers’ costs for irrigation to combat drought.

“The effect of climate change at the 2040 horizon on the quality of pears was very minor. However, we found a difference in how the ecosystem was functioning,” Rineau said, noting that an earlier growing season in the 2040 simulation appeared to result in the ecosystem absorbing more CO2.

Year-to-year variability means that one year alone cannot capture intermittent extreme weather and other changes in the climate which can wreak havoc on crops. The three-year experiment will cover three harvests.

This year’s harvest of 2040-era pears is being studied at the Flanders Centre of Postharvest Technology (VCBT), to check the fruits’ size, firmness and sugar content – and compare them to pears grown in domes simulating today’s climate.

“If we have a higher temperature on the trees, pears tend to be less firm and have more sugar,” VCBT researcher Dorien Vanhees said.

That’s bad news for growers. Less-firm fruit survives a shorter period in storage, reducing the quantity of pears growers can sell.

Floods, hail and drought have already affected European pear growers in recent years, as climate change begins to leave fingerprints on growing patterns.

Belgium’s pear production is expected to plunge by 27 per cent this year, according to the World Apple and Pear Association, owing to factors including an unusually early bloom and unusually late frost.

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EU members are debating how to grant Ukraine a further year-long extension of tariff-free access to its markets while also placating farmers who have protested for months against EU environmental rules and cheap imports.

French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau told reporters before a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels that destabilized markets could erode public support for Kyiv, which would neither be in the interests of the EU nor of Ukrainians.

Nearby, farmers jammed the EU district with about 250 tractors, including a main road into Brussels and the square in front of the European Parliament. A number dropped sugar beets, hay and wooden pallets beside a police barricade.

The European Commission has proposed suspending duties on Ukrainian farm produce for a further year to June 2025, with a new “emergency brake” for poultry, eggs and sugar leading to tariffs if imports exceed the average levels of 2022 and 2023.

Oats, maize, groats and honey have since been added to the list.

Fesneau said wheat should also be included and insisted that the brake threshold should be the average of 2021-2023. This would include the year before Russia’s invasion, when Ukrainian exports to the EU were curbed by tariffs and quotas.

Hungarian minister Istvan Nagy said Budapest would only back an extension for Ukraine with limits on wheat.

David Clarinval, the agriculture minister of Belgium, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, said he expected a solution to be found in the coming days, without detailing what such a solution would entail.

—Additional reporting for Reuters by Kate Abnett

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The EU has already watered down some environmental policies in response to the sometimes violent protests, but with farmers still taking to the streets this week in Belgium and France, Brussels is under pressure to do more.

Draft conclusions for an EU summit on 21-22 March, seen by Reuters, showed EU country leaders plan to ask the European Commission to work without delay on “all possible short-term measures, including those to reduce the administrative burden and achieve simplification for farmers”.

The EU should also take action to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain, and ensure they can earn a fair income, the draft said.

Having already withdrawn a law to reduce pesticides and weakened some nature protection measures, the EU is looking at new proposals to ease pressures on European farmers, including a reduction in farm inspections and the possibility of exempting small farms from some environmental standards.

The crisis in the sector comes as Europe faces increasingly dire warnings from scientists about the environmental damage industrial farming is causing, and the urgent need to protect nature in the face of worsening climate change.

The EU Environment Agency this week said current EU food policies are failing to address climate change risks.

It suggested Europe consider policies to encourage less livestock farming, since shifting to plant-based proteins could help farmers reduce their reliance on imported animal feed and use less water, which climate change is making an increasingly scarce resource in drought-stricken southern Europe.

Angry farmers have staged protests from Poland, to Germany, to France and Slovenia in recent months to draw attention to numerous complaints, including cheap supermarket prices, low-cost imports from outside of Europe, and EU green policies some say are excessive.

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Agricultural ministers from across the European Union pledged to do more to cut red tape and help farmers as they convened in Brussels to discuss the crisis in the sector after weeks of angry protests.

The 27-nation EU has already weakened some parts of its flagship Green Deal environmental policies, removing a goal to cut farming emissions from its 2040 climate roadmap.

But farmers are demanding more.

“We’re here again in Brussels today as farmers because the European Union is not listening to our demands. Our demands are for fair revenue,” said Morgan Ody, general coordinator of farming organization La Via Campesina.

“We produce the food and we don’t make a living. Why is that? Because of free trade agreements. Because of deregulation. Because the prices are below the cost of production. So we demand the EU to move on this.”

On the margins of the Brussels rally, riot police fired water cannon at protesters throwing bottles and eggs, while about 900 tractors jammed parts of the Belgian capital, not far from the cordoned-off area where ministers were meeting.

At a protest in Madrid, farmers from across Spain blew whistles, rang cowbells and beat drums, urging the EU to loosen regulations and drop some changes to its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of subsidies and other programs.

“It’s impossible to put up with these rules, they want us to work in the field during the day and deal with paperwork at night – we’re sick of the bureaucracy,” said Roberto Rodriguez, who grows cereal and beetroots in the central province of Avila.

Imports from Ukraine

In Poland, farmers angry with cheap imports from non-EU Ukraine blocked the A2 highway at a border crossing with Germany. The EU decided two years ago to waive duties on Ukraine’s food exports as Kyiv battles a Russian invasion.

“This is a show of common solidarity, that both Polish and German farmers will not allow these goods from Ukraine to continue to enter the European market,” said Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union.

The EU aims to find a more effective solution so that farm products from Ukraine go to their traditional markets outside the EU, Belgian Agriculture Minister David Clarinval said after the ministerial meeting.

The agriculture ministers also debated a new set of proposals to ease financial pressures on European farmers, including a reduction in farm inspections and the possibility of exempting small farms from some environmental standards.

They asked the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to make more ambitious proposals on cutting red tape, Clarinval said.

Time at desk

German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir said the EU needed to ensure farmers could earn good money if they opted for biodiversity and green measures, referring to existing EU farm policy as a “bureaucracy monster”.

“The average farmer spends a quarter of their time at their desks,” he said.

The EU has already scrapped over the past weeks a goal to cut farming emissions out of its 2040 climate roadmap, and has also withdrawn a law to reduce pesticides and delayed a target for farmers to leave some land fallow to improve biodiversity.

At the Madrid protest, some farmers said they just wanted to be allowed to use the same pesticides as counterparts outside the EU whose goods are imported into the bloc.

“We want to compete with the same deck of cards,” said Juan Carlos, a 54-year-old sunflower oil producer. “If they use a certain product (to fumigate), I want to be able to use the same one.”

Grievances vary from country to country, and not all farmers call for an end to green rules. La Via Campesina’s Ody called on the EU to set up minimum support prices.

“We are not against climate policies. But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way,” she said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Kate Abnett, Yves Herman, Christian Levaux, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, David Latona in Madrid, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Pawel Florkiewicz and Marek Strzeleck in Warsaw.

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Prime Minister Gabriel Attal attempted to quell the unrest by granting emergency subsidies for organic farmers, cattle farmers hit by epizootic hemorrhagic disease and bad weather, and suspending a tax hike on tractor fuel.

To the trade unions steering the protests, it was too little, too late.

The demonstrations have been in the making for some time and the uproar isn’t unique to France. Since 2022, farmers in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and Lithuania have been setting up shop outside government quarters and camping tractors on main roads.

Buoyed by the actions of their French peers across the border, Belgian farmers also blocked the roads to Zeebrugge port on Jan. 30.

While these movements are not new, they are becoming increasingly confrontational.

French farmers know they largely have the public’s support, and it’s relatively easy for them to gain the attention of politicians and the media. However, past examples show such movements can be quickly forgotten once the heat of the protest is past.

Whatever farmers grow in France and however they do it, they have to juggle an increasing number of competing demands: feeding France, caring for the environment and complying with ever more burdensome regulatory standards, all while staying financially solvent as they cope with frost, floods, animal disease and drought.

Many farmers believe current economic conditions make it impossible to reconcile the demands of sustainability and development and also be able to pass their farms on to the next generation.

Since 2019, we have been researching how 42 farmers from the Centre–Val de Loire region of France navigate these tensions.

We found that such political movements provide them with an important outlet, allowing them to express the anger they feel. Uniting with others in similar situations allows them to break free from feelings of isolation. They also allow farmers to define for themselves what a viable agricultural model for all would look like.

For politicians and the public, such protests provide an opportunity to show attachment to the farming world as well as a certain rural ideal.

If anything is to come out from these protests, politicians and citizens will need to play their part in facing up to their own contradictions. A November 2023 survey found that the French are asking for more financial support from the public authorities (56 per cent), but there is still a high proportion in favour (25 per cent) of maintaining aid to farmers as it is.

So what is to be done? It could be a matter of empowering farmers in the face of supermarkets and retailers pushing for cutthroat prices. It could also be a matter of consumers consuming locally and at the right price, and accepting a countryside in which farming is a profession and not just an aesthetic.

And it might also be a question of providing greater support for research and development to ease the agro-ecological transition.

–This story is part of a longer article first published by the the Conversation, by Reuters, and has been edited for length.

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Farmers from agricultural regions such as Tuscany headed south towards the capital, flying the Italian flag and carrying hand-written signs with slogans including “No farmer, No food”.

They were expected to congregate on the outskirts of Rome pending further protests later in the week.

“We are going to Rome to seek a confrontation with our politicians to resolve our problems,” said Tuscan farmer Davide Rosati.

The Italian farmers share many of the grievances expressed by their counterparts in other parts of Europe during a wave of protests over the past few weeks.

They complain that their products are being undercut by cheaper imports from areas outside the European Union such as north Africa, rising fuel costs and the impact of EU measures designed to protect the environment and counter climate change.

The protests have eased in France and Germany for now but appear to be growing in intensity in other parts of the EU. Angry farmers on Monday again blocked the Dutch-Belgian motorway border crossing between Maastricht and Liege.

Cow in the city

In Milan, Italy’s financial capital, a small group of farmers took a cow to a protest outside the offices of the Lombardy regional government, an incongruous sight in a part of the city dominated by modern high-rise buildings.

The Italian farmers are also pressing for the reinstatement of an income tax break introduced in 2017, which the government dropped in the budget law for 2024.

Speaking during a visit to Japan on Monday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Italy had done more than some of its EU neighbours to support its farmers.

“Of course, there is always room for improvement, and I am always willing to listen to the demands coming from workers who are essential to us,” she said.

She noted that her government had maintained fuel subsidies for farmers and increased the funds earmarked for agriculture in the post-Covid recovery plan to 8 billion euros from 5 billion.

The farmers’ protests in Italy are being led by a number of individual groups and not organized by Italy’s main farming lobby, Coldiretti, which has a close relationship with the government.

–Additional reporting for Reuters by Geert de Clercq, Crispian Balmer and Alvise Armelli.

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Farmers’ protests have erupted in several countries, exposing anger about low prices for produce, rising costs, import of cheap foodstuffs from and constraints imposed by the European Union’s drive to fight climate change.

While French farmers started lifting blockades on Friday after the government made further concessions, Belgian and Dutch farmers blocked motorway border crossings between their countries.

At one roadblock, Dutch pig farmer Johan Van Enckevort, 25, warned the European Union and Dutch politicians holding cabinet formation talks not to ignore farmers’ needs.

“We have very nice products here in the EU and we want to continue to make those products. But it has to be done in a fair way, in a decent way and not with so many rules. It just can’t go on like this,” he said.

The frustration came to a head in Brussels this week, where farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament and set off fireworks as they demanded EU leaders at a summit nearby do more to help them.

“The Common Agricultural Policy has gradually become a Common Ecological Policy, without any recognition for us food producers,” Belgian farmers union ABS said in a statement.

At the North Sea port of Zeebrugge in Belgium – which handles car imports and some fresh produce from the United Kingdom and elsewhere – farmers continued to prevent trucks from entering or leaving.

Carmakers sending deliveries through Zeebrugge include Tesla, Mercedes, Hyundai and Volvo, a port spokesperson said, adding that the port’s capacity was fast filling up with vehicles stuck on the quay. Around 2,000 trucks were backed up outside the port.

Polish farmers’ union Solidarity on Friday announced a general strike starting next Friday with a blockade of border crossings between Poland and Ukraine.

“Our patience has run out,” it said, referring to the import of Ukrainian produce.

In Greece, farmers have set up blockades in the centre and north of the country, calling for a permanent exemption on diesel taxes and faster compensation for flood-related losses.

In Portugal, where farmers used tractors to block at least three roads linking Portugal to Spain on Thursday, one road in the southern region of Alentejo near the border with Spain remained blocked on Friday, and farmers staged slow marches in several places across the country.

Spanish farmers said earlier this week they would take to the streets in February in protest against strict European regulations and lack of government support.

French farmers, meanwhile, were on Friday dismantling roadblocks at dozens of sites across France, including several highways leading into Paris, pausing their protests after receiving more government pledges.

The French farmers said President Emmanuel Macron’s government now needed to act fast on its pledges, which have included scrapping plans to reduce tax discounts on tractor diesel, an easing of pesticide regulations, a pause on new fallow land rules, and more safety checks on food imports.

Farmer Guillaume Chantereau, 31, who grows cereals and raises chickens for eggs, said a lot of work was waiting for him at the farm, but added that he would be back on the barricades if the government does not deliver.

“For now, we ease off, but we will not give up. We are used to hearing nice speeches, and these are not always respected, so better watch out,” he said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Christian Levaux in Belgium, Noemi Olive in France, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk in Poland and Andrey Khalip and Patricia Rua in Portugal; Writing by Geert De Clercq.

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The Commission said it would extend the suspension of import duties on Ukrainian exports for another year to June 2025. They were originally suspended in 2022 to support Ukraine’s economy following the Russian invasion, which has hit shipments via the traditional Black Sea route.

The Commission proposal, which will require approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, introduces an “emergency brake” for the most sensitive products – poultry, eggs and sugar – allowing tariffs if imports exceed the average levels of 2022 and 2023.

It also allows the Commission to impose measures if the markets of one or more EU members are disrupted by a surge of imports of other farm produce, such as grains. In critical cases, these could be in place 21 days after a request is made.

Ukraine’s EU neighbours – Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – have complained that the farm imports have upset their markets, leading to protests by farmers and truckers.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal welcomed the proposed extension and expressed hope that the controls would avoid future conflicts.

“We also expect that the measures developed will remove harmful unilateral bans on the import of our agricultural products from Poland, Slovakia and Hungary,” he said in a post on Telegram messenger.

With polls pointing to gains by the far-right in European Parliament elections in June, French President Emmanuel Macron, also called on Tuesday for clear measures on Ukrainian imports. French farmers have been protesting for more than two weeks over rising costs and cheap food imports.

Arnaud Rousseau, head of France’s main farmers’ union FNSEA, said the Commission was acting “woefully” late, that controls were required immediately and that the emergency brake limits should be set at 2022 levels.

EU sugar imports from Ukraine rose 1,000% in 2023, while egg imports more than doubled and poultry imports were 50% higher.

Philippe Gelin, head of France’s largest poultry group LDC LOUP.PA, also called the reference dates, including 2023, problematic.

French and Belgian farmers set up dozens of blockades on highways and on access roads to a container port on Wednesday, a day before an EU summit.

The Commission also proposed exempting EU farmers for 2024 from a requirement to keep a minimum share of their land fallow while still receiving EU farm support payments.

Farmers could instead grow nitrogen-fixing crops such as lentils or peas or catch crops that grow between plantings of a main crop, without applying plant protection products.

The Commission has also proposed to renew for a year the duty suspension for imports from Moldova until July 2025.

–Additional reporting for Reuters by Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv, Gus Trompiz, Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.

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Farmers organizing the protest told Reuters they planned to bar access to the North Sea port, the country’s second-largest, for at least 36 hours. They said the port was targeted because they feel it receives economic support at the expense of farmers.

A port authority spokesman said protesters had blocked five roads to trucks, but were letting cars through. He said it was not yet clear what the consequences on the operations of the port would be, and the port was indirectly in touch with the organizers through the police.

The Algemeen Boerensyndicaat (ABS, General Farmers Syndicate) union has called on its members to join the protest.

“The farmers are desperate, really desperate. We’ve warned the government for years that this would happen,” ABS policy officer Mark Wulfrancke said.

Wulfrancke urged policymakers to ensure the price of food reflects the additional costs European farmers face to comply with Europe’s rising environmental standards.

“We want respect from our government, the European government. The only way to show that respect is to make a policy that is farmer friendly, food friendly. We need a correct price,” he told Reuters.

The Belgian protest movement has been boosted by similar action in France, where farmers have set up dozens of roadblocks and disrupted traffic around Paris, putting the government under pressure.

Belgian farmers also disrupted traffic during the morning rush hour on Tuesday. One of the blockades was close to the Dutch border on the E19 highway, media said.

Prime Minister Alexander De Croo is set to meet with farmers’ associations on Tuesday.

“It is important that they are listened to,” De Croo told reporters, referring to the challenges farmers face.

He said Belgium, which currently holds the six-month presidency of the Council of the EU, will discuss a number of European agricultural rules with the European Commission.

A group of farmers blocking a square in central Brussels with tractors said they would stay put until at least Thursday, when EU government leaders meet in the city.

“We are asking them to review their laws,” said Nicolas Fryers, a farmer at the protest. “They talk about being greener but if that happens then there will be land which isn’t worked any more and it’s difficult enough as it is.”

The European Commission appeared poised to offer some policy changes in response, by proposing an exemption on Thursday on rules requiring farmers to leave part of their land fallow if they apply for EU subsidies.

The rules on fallow land were part of the grievances that led to protests in France and elsewhere in recent weeks.

Spanish farmers plan protest

Spanish farmers’ associations said on Tuesday they were planning to take to the streets in February in protest against strict European regulations and lack of government support.

“Mobilizations will take place as soon as possible,” Pedro Barato, president of Asaja, a Spanish association representing around 200,000 farmers and cattle breeders, said in a radio interview. “The actions will not be very different from what is happening in other EU countries.”

The protests are set to take place in the coming weeks, the organizations said in a joint statement. Asaja members are due to meet on Feb. 1 to make preparations.

Drought in southern Spain has hit farmers, with production of several crops such as rice and olives dropping over the past two years.

The largest farmers’ groups in Spain – Asaja, COAG and UPA – also share the same as grievances as their peers in other European countries, claiming environmental regulations imposed by Brussels are undermining the profitability of crops and increasing food prices.

Spanish farmers said they were also struggling to compete with products imported from outside the EU at lower prices.

As the French protests have intensified, some 20,000 Spanish trucks that cross the border every day have struggled to transport fruit, vegetables and other goods. Spanish transport association, Fenadismer, estimates the blockades cause daily losses of 10 million euros (CAD $14.6 million) for Spanish companies.

Among other demands, the Spanish organizations plan to ask Brussels to halt negotiations with the Mercosur trade bloc, as well as trade agreements with Chile, Kenya, Mexico, India and Australia.

“It is time for them (European and national authorities) to take note, rectify and reform their strategies,” Asaja said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Corina Pons, Emma Pinedo, Tassilo Hummel, Geert De Clercq and Kate Abnett.

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France’s protests follow similar action in other European countries, including Germany and Poland, ahead of European Parliament elections in June in which the far right, for whom farmers represent a growing constituency, is seen making gains.

“We’re here because we’re unhappy with agricultural policies,” Pascal Desprez, a 65-year-old grain farmer who has been working in agriculture for 42 years, said on the A10 highway near Paris.

Farmers, he said, want President Emmanuel Macron to step in – including to loosen regulations.

“We’re calling on Macron to put in place more realistic norms,” he added.

The government, wary of seeing the protests escalate and with an eye on European elections, has already dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised to ease environmental regulations.

France also said it would push its European Union peers to agree to ease regulations on fallow farmland.

But farmers’ organizations said that was not enough.

“Our objective is to put pressure on the government, so that we can quickly find a solution for a way out of the crisis,” Arnaud Rousseau, head of the powerful farmers’ union FNSEA, said on RTL radio.

The FNSEA said farmers had set up eight roadblocks in the wider Paris region.

In Longvilliers, southwest of Paris, Reuters footage showed tractors, some with trailers, blocking the A10 highway in both directions, with traffic diverted to smaller roads.

Many farmers had attached flags and banners to their tractors. One tractor was carrying a sign that read “Angry farmer”, another read: “Farmer: when I was young I dreamed of it and today I’m dying of it.”

EU talks

Speaking at a blockade near Beauvais north of Paris, Regis Desrumaux, head of the FDSEA union in the Oise region, said the farmers’ concerns are broad and include cheap imports, fallow land and red tape.

Macron will make a push for more pro-farming policies at a summit of EU leaders on Thursday, Farming Minister Marc Fesneau said.

Farmers must meet certain conditions to receive EU subsidies – including a requirement to devote four per cent of farmland to “non-productive” areas where nature can recover. That can be done by leaving land lying fallow.

Two EU officials told Reuters the EU’s executive Commission was looking into changing the fallow land rule, as requested by France, among other options to respond to the farmers’ concerns.

The Commission had already temporarily exempted farmers from the rule in response to the Ukraine war and food security concerns.

Unhappy Belgian farmers also blocked highways in southern Belgium and parked tractors near to the EU Parliament in Brussels. Some 30-40 tractors were parked up on the E19 road just south of the Belgian capital on Monday morning, many farmers having spent the night sleeping in their cabs.

–Reporting for Reuters by Noemie Olive, Marco Trujillo, Sarah Meyssonnier, Gus Trompiz, Tassilo Hummel, Geert de Clercq, Sybille de la Hamaide and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris and Sudip Kar-Gupta and Kate Abnett in Brussels.

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