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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Imports of tomato and carrot seeds will be banned from a nursery of Satimex Quedlinburg, in Germany, as well as seeds for corn from a nursery of Limagrain Europe, in France, tomato seeds from a nursery of Axia Vegetable Seeds, in the Netherlands, and seeds for soybeans from a nursery of Semences Prograin, in Canada, Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement.

Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, has long aimed to become less dependent on imported seeds for a number of crops but it still relies on foreign seeds for corn, some vegetables, sugar beet and sunflower.

Last week, Russia’s agriculture ministry proposed that the government limits seed imports by setting up quotas, aiming to stimulate domestic production.

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“Clearing the infected farms is in the interest of both human health and animal health,” Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten said in a letter to parliament, adding the cull would commence on Friday and farmers would be compensated.

Each farm houses several thousand of the ferret-like animals, which are bred for their fur.

“The Animal Welfare Commission has been informed and will see to it that the animals are treated in a responsible manner and killed,” Schouten said.

Coronavirus outbreaks have occurred on eight farms in the Netherlands, and Wednesday’s letter confirmed a ninth.

“The expectation is that further infections will be seen in the coming weeks,” Schouten said.

Last month her ministry reported two cases where mink were believed to have transmitted the disease to humans, in what are the only animal-to-human cases on record since the global outbreak began in China.

The outbreaks on the Dutch mink farms are all thought to have originated from their human handlers and then spread among the minks. The country’s National Institute for Health (RIVM) has said that the risk of animal-to-human and human-to-animal transmission remains “minimal.”

The Dutch mink farm outbreaks were first reported in April, when keepers noticed animals having difficulty breathing, prompting a wider investigation.

A law banning mink farming in the Netherlands was passed in 2013 and the remaining 120 farms are due to cease operations in 2023. The government said it is considering buying out the remaining mink farms and a preventative cull of their minks.

The Dutch mink industry says pelts are sold in European countries and to North America, with China an important growth market.

Canada, at the end of 2018, had 98 mink farms, down from 237 in 2014, according to Statistics Canada. Of those 98, 43 were in Nova Scotia and 28 in Ontario.

Canada’s National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) maintains a code of practice for the care and handling of farmed mink. A five-year review was completed in 2018.

NFACC, on its website, says the code is “currently undergoing an amendment” expected to be completed in March next year. Issues flagged as “major challenges” which are expected to be addressed in those amendments include pen sizes, access to nest boxes and methods of euthanizing mink.

— Toby Sterling is a Reuters correspondent in Amsterdam. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Mink carrying the virus were found on four of the 155 farms in the country where they are bred for their fur, Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten said in a letter to parliament that detailed the two cases.

She said the risk of such animal-to-human transmission of the virus outside the farms was “negligible.”

On three of the four infected farms, the source of infection has been shown to be a sick human, while the fourth is still under investigation, the minister said.

The Netherlands’ Institute for Health’s (RIVM) director Jaap van Dissel said that, while a few cats and other animals had been infected with COVID-19 by humans, the Dutch mink-to-human transmissions were practically unique.

“This is the first time we’ve found, at least we’ve shown that it’s likely, that in two cases the infection has gone from animal to human,” he said in testimony to parliament on Monday.

“Of course the original source of infection in China was also very likely animals.”

A law banning mink farming in the Netherlands was passed in 2013, and the remaining farms are due to cease operations in 2023.

Canada, at the end of 2018, had 98 mink farms, down from 237 in 2014, according to data from Statistics Canada. Of those 98, 43 were in Nova Scotia and 28 in Ontario.

Canada’s National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) maintains a code of practice for the care and handling of farmed mink. A five-year review was completed in 2018.

NFACC, on its website, says the code is “currently undergoing an amendment” expected to be completed in March next year. Issues flagged as “major challenges” which are expected to be addressed in those amendments include pen sizes, access to nest boxes and methods of euthanizing mink.

— Reporting for Reuters by Toby Sterling. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Votes by members of the country’s governing coalition were enough to approve the deal, which was rejected by opposition parties on the left and right on concerns ranging from investor protection to food safety standards and pollution.

Ratification by the traditionally pro-free trade Netherlands remains uncertain, however, as opponents of the deal still have the upper hand in the country’s Senate, which will make a final decision at a later date.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) sets out the removal of tariffs on 99 per cent of all goods types traded between the EU and Canada, some over a period of up to seven years.

It has been provisionally in force since September 2017, but so far has only been ratified by 13 of the 27 EU countries and Canada.

Proponents of the agreement say it is essential for future trade agreements, but critics say it unfairly favours multinationals and threatens to lower standards on food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection.

Such concerns have forged an unlikely coalition of environmentalists, animal rights activists and far-right anti-EU parties in the Netherlands, all of them campaigning for the deal’s rejection.

The agreement could be scuppered altogether in theory if an EU member country formally notifies Brussels that it has permanently rejected it, although the wording of the accord could leave room for workarounds.

— Reporting for Reuters by Bart Meijer.

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The company said it expects to have a capital structure that allows it to compete “on equal footing” with international rivals, adding that tax rates were not the main reason for the potential listing.

While JBS said it would not move its headquarters, the filing noted that the “choice of a country to constitute the vehicle that will be listed” was part of the process of listing its overseas operations.

In the filing, JBS also denied an earlier report by Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo that cited an alleged June plan, mentioning a potential change of headquarters to the Netherlands or Luxembourg.

Two years ago, a transaction proposed by JBS that included transferring its international operations to Ireland was blocked by the Brazilian development bank BNDES, a relevant shareholder in the company.

Among the international JBS operations that have previously been proposed for inclusion in such an IPO is the company’s Brooks, Alta. beef packing plant, one of Canada’s largest, with capacity to process up to 4,200 head of cattle per day.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo.

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Thousands of irate farmers had driven tractors to The Hague hours earlier in their third large protest in a matter of weeks.

Tractor convoys set out in the early morning, first for the city of Utrecht and later to The Hague, causing long traffic jams across the Netherlands. More than 375 km of roads were blocked, drivers’ organization ANWB said.

In The Hague, farmers defied orders to limit their protest to designated areas, driving their tractors into the city centre despite being told to park them on the outskirts of town and use available buses to reach their planned rally venue.

Authorities had earlier called in the army’s support to place large vehicles across several roads to block main routes to the Binnenhof, the seat of the Dutch parliament.

The farmers’ original plan had been to occupy the Binnenhof with their tractors, but authorities declared the square off-limits.

The farmers launched their campaign after a court ruling in May found the Netherlands in violation of European emission rules.

Livestock farming is a leading cause of nitrogen pollution, along with construction and transportation. But farmers argue they have made substantial efforts to cut emissions and their role in providing food for the nation is under-appreciated.

“Last year you didn’t hear anything about nitrogen, and now suddenly it’s a mortal question,” farmer Micha Bouwer of the Farmers Defence Force told state broadcaster NOS.

“These are all people in the city who have two plants on their balcony and say ‘nature is suffering’.”

Although no concrete steps against the farmers have been announced, one political party has suggested the Netherlands reduce the number of live animals it breeds. The suggestion provoked an outcry from farming groups.

Dutch researchers on Wednesday said nitrogen emissions per capita are far higher in the Netherlands than anywhere else in the European Union.

Emissions in The Netherlands, a small, densely populated country, are four times the EU average, research institute TNO said, with 61 per cent coming from agriculture.

— Reporting for Reuters by Stephanie van den Berg, Toby Sterling and Bart Meijer.

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Like a quarter of the Netherlands, this area in North Holland lies below sea level, but that didn’t stop farmers from settling on its marshy lands centuries ago. In order to create the fertile ground they needed to grow their crops, farmers dug canals and built up islands where they could plant fields of fruits and vegetables.

Each farmer worked seven islands that were only accessible by barge — hence the name Realm of a Thousand Islands (though it was more like 15,000). And once they had a boat full of produce, it was time to go to auction.

Farmers would bring their laden boats to the dike where the auction was held, at the village of Broek op Langedijk. Opened in 1887, the open-air, sail-through auction quickly became popular among the local farmers. Every day except Sunday upwards of 150 boatloads were auctioned off.

As each boat came through, the auctioneer would holler at the traders, “Who wants to buy this full load of cauliflower for $0.21 apiece?” If no one answered, the price was too high, and the real auction began.

Twenty cents, 19 cents, 18 cents, 17, 16, 15.

“Mine!”

Just like that, a trader would shout out his bid, and the boat was his.

If two traders shouted “mine” at the same time, the fight was on, and a field constable would be called up to decide the winner. (Usually, whoever had paid the field constable the largest bribe earlier that morning.)

That open-air spectacle continued until 1912, when an auction mart was built, complete with canals, benches, auction clock, and bid buttons, which traders would press when they wanted to make a bid. In this new auction house, timing was everything. Press the button too soon and you would pay too much for your produce; too late and you would miss out on the sale entirely.

A contingent of farm writers (attending the recent International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress) learned this the hard way during a trip to the auction mart, which closed in 1973 but is beautifully preserved as the Museum BroekerVeiling.

In the very seats where traders bought their vegetables, journalists from around the world took part in their very own — very real — vegetable auction.

It was a scene straight out of history: A young farmer poles her barge up the central canal splitting the auction house, displaying her wares to these unsuspecting traders. She hefts a bag of oranges overhead, and the auction begins in earnest.

One dollar, 95 cents, 90, 85.

A reporter with an itchy trigger finger presses his button. The bid board lights up with the number of his seat. He’s won.

But the real winner is the young farmer who just sold her oranges for three times their value.

Even today, it pays to pay attention to the markets at the world’s oldest sail-through auction.

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Nuffield Canada, the Canadian arm of the international Nuffield organization since 1986, has named Ellen Crane, Josh Oulton, Gavin Robertson and Shelley Spruitt as its Nuffield scholars for 2018.

The new scholars’ year of international study is to begin in March 2018 with other Nuffield scholars from around the world at a week-long conference in the Netherlands, focused on global agriculture and business topics and personal development.

“These four scholars will build their leadership and organizational capabilities while investigating issues critical to Canadian agriculture,” Kelvin Meadows, chairman of Nuffield Canada, said in a recent release.

“Their international experiences over the next two years will provide opportunities and perspective that will add tremendous value to their own careers, and to our Canadian agricultural community.”

Crane, who hails from Murray Siding, N.S. and is general manager of the Maritime Beef Council, plans to study which beef production attributes are most important to consumers; what consumers are willing to pay for; and ways in which cattle producers can implement these attributes for marketing use.

Oulton, who owns Taproot Farms, a grain, fruit, vegetable and livestock operation at Port Williams, N.S., aims to study “all aspects” of growing high-quality flax fibre for long-line linen processing into high-quality clothing, including opportunities for use of waste materials from long-line processing.

Robertson, the winemaker and vineyard co-ordinator at Ontario’s Niagara College Teaching Winery, plans to examine the curricula and content of a “wide range” of international viticulture training programs, seeking input from stakeholders such as vineyard and winery owners and operators, marketing boards and government agencies, to develop recommendations and guidelines for viticulture training in the Canadian grape industry.

Spruitt, a partner in Against the Grain Farms at Mountain, Ont. — specializing in the use and restoration of ancient grains to produce value-added products, whole grains and flour — plans to study ways in which awareness is created and developed in other countries on the importance of locally-sourced grains, produce, meat and cheeses. Her research is expected to be shared in Ontario and across Canada.

The new scholars were sponsored by Nuffield Canada alumni, except for Spruitt, who was sponsored by Nuffield supporter Glacier FarmMedia. Nuffield Canada also gets program support from the Alberta Wheat Commission, Farm Credit Canada, Grain Farmers of Ontario and the Western Grains Research Foundation.

While the non-profit Nuffield Canada, formerly the Canadian Nuffield Agricultural Scholarship Association, has been incorporated since 1986, Nuffield’s Canadian arm was set up in the 1950s with Lord Nuffield’s original endowment.

Nuffield Canada each year awards scholarships worth $15,000 to “enterprising Canadian individuals with a passion for agriculture,” with the aim of fostering “agricultural leadership and personal development through international study.”

The scholarship is to be used for a minimum of 10 weeks of travel for study purposes. Recipients can come from any field of agriculture, including livestock, grain or vegetable production, forestry or horticulture, and from “any aspect” of the industry, including owners, managers, employees, administrators or bureaucrats.

The larger international Nuffield community today includes Australia, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and Brazil, and over 1,500 Nuffield alumni.

More information on the Nuffield organization is available online. — AGCanada.com Network

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