How to save the farm and the planet? Angry agriculture workers struggle to compete
Don't bet the family farm on it. Politicians in Paris, Warsaw, Brussels and New Delhi won't magically find the quick fix for an agriculture sector that's gone global at the expense of small producers. Why is it erupting all over, including here in France?
Many of those who heckled President Emmanuel Macron at the opening of Paris's big annual agriculture fair last Saturday say they wish they could live from the fruit of their labour, but that new environmental norms and open borders make it impossible to compete. Many of them cheered the far right's leader when he showed up the next day.
In India, those protesting lean more towards the left. The enemy, they say, isn’t sorely-needed food safety and biodiversity standards but World Trade Organization rules that let the foxes in amongst the chickens: global wholesalers and distributors who – they say – write the rules and impose their will.
So how best to protect small farming in the 21st century?
Produced by Charles Wente, Rebecca Gnignati and Louise Guibert