Plunging margins, climate crisis: Why farm stirs are echoing across the globe

They come in long convoys of tractors, sometimes with months of food supplies with them, to stage protests. Their demands may differ, but concerns about rising costs and falling incomes are common. Farmer angst around the world has been intensifying since 2021, from Paris and London to Delhi. And increasingly, their protests have started looking similar.

- Zia Haq

In London, hundreds of farmers stormed Britain's heart of government, Whitehall, this week, protesting a proposed 20% inheritance tax they say will be a stab in their backs.

Their angst reflects broader dissatisfaction among many farming communities around the world, especially since the pandemic, including in India and mainland Europe. According to the Centre for International Policy Studies, dozens of farm groups in six continents have been protesting agricultural policies since 2021.

The London scenes THE brought back memories of a standoff outside Delhi, where an uprising by farm unions during 2020-21 prompted the government to scrap three market-oriented agricultural laws.

There are other echoes of Delhi in London. "No farmers, no food," said a protester on BBC. Another held a placard: "Small farmers will die. They'll have to borrow to pay tax." "Tax businesses not farms. A 20% inheritance tax? It's ridiculous, if you ask me," said Sarah Boulden, a farmer from Wiltshire, southwest England.

These concerns are similar to the core issues raised by farmers in food bowl states, such as Punjab. "The reasons vary. The demands differ. But what may be common (about the disenchantment) is the feeling that governments don't realise the old ways are gone, and the new problems are new," said Jeremy Clark, a London-based campaigner with the World Farmers' Organisation (WFO), over the phone.

The latest challenges all over the world, to a large extent, have emanated from changing markets, declining profits and climate change, resulting in a "unappreci ated crises", Clark said.

The protest in London was joined by celebrity TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson and James Dyson, a prominent business tycoon who supported Brexit.

Farm unions in India, the world's second-biggest wheat and rice producer, are seeking guarantees, backed by law, for minimum purchase prices of crops.