Governments across globe continue assault on farmers: Ezra Levant
Around the world, farmers are pushing back against the elites that seem increasingly determined to throttle the very people who feed their nations.
On last night's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra discussed why governments keep picking fights with farmers. It’s a question worth asking as massive agricultural protests sweep across Europe once again. And it’s not new. Farmer uprisings have become a recurring feature of modern politics. To understand why, it helps to look at a country whose farmers have been on the front lines for years: the Netherlands.
For such a geographically tiny nation with under 20 million people, the Netherlands is an agricultural giant. It’s the third-largest exporter of food on the planet, behind only the United States and Brazil. They dominate global dairy and egg production, excel in livestock, and even lead the world in flowers. The strength of this sector is rooted in the country’s long history. The Dutch once had an empire stretching from South Africa to Indonesia, but today’s farmers are fighting for something more basic: survival.
What sparked the Dutch revolt was an ideological war waged under the banner of environmentalism. While Canada obsesses over carbon, Dutch bureaucrats fixated on nitrogen, despite the fact that nitrogen, like carbon, is foundational to life itself. Yet farmers were ordered to slash livestock numbers and accept sweeping restrictions on the fertilizers they depend on. In some cases, the plan literally involved forcing family farms to shut down.
Dutch farmers didn’t just protest. They organized. The Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), formed in 2019, stunned the political class by becoming the largest party in the Dutch Senate. Their rise was fuelled by a simple idea: ordinary citizens standing up to destructive policies imposed by elites who know nothing about farming.
The pattern is repeating elsewhere. In the UK, farmers are now protesting a new Labour policy that would impose a 20% inheritance tax on family farms — a move that would financially ruin generational farming operations and clear the path for corporate agribusiness to swallow them up. Farmers flooded London in a massive demonstration, waving Union Jacks and defying a last-minute police edict banning them from entering the city with their vehicles. Police, who routinely allow enormous pro-Hamas marches, suddenly cracked down the moment tractors appeared.
It’s not hard to see why governments target farmers. Farmers are independent, self-reliant, armed with practical skills and capable of feeding vast populations. They aren’t dependent on government. They don’t bend easily. Everything about them, from their work ethic to their cultural values, frustrates bureaucrats who dream of micromanaging society from above.
Farmers feed nations. And increasingly, they are reminding governments that they won’t be pushed around.
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COMMENTS
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Bruce Atchison commented 2025-11-27 19:50:02 -0500Control food and you control the people. Independent farmers can’t be easily controlled. So totalitarians like the WEF and WHO try hard to put those brave folks out of business.
