Climate & Environment

Aidan Regan: We cannot allow climate crisis to turn farming community into the enemy

There is no way Ireland can achieve its climate targets without huge disruptions to farming – but we need to take care of farmers while we do it or we will politically pay the price

Caroline Van Der Plas of the BBB: the new party rode a wave of popular discontent among rural Dutch voters who feel left behind by the urban ‘green agenda’. Picture: Getty

There is a growing political backlash among farmers in Europe against climate policies in the agricultural sector. This was crystallised in the recent Dutch provincial elections, when the newly formed BBB, or Farmer-Citizen Movement, took 15 out of 75 seats in the Senate, winning more than prime minister Mark Rutte’s conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

The context for their victory was a recent ruling by the Dutch Supreme Court that stated the ...