Farmers' Voices in European Protests: Diverse Complaints, Emotional Tones, and Policy Responses

Doris Läpple (), Sophie Thoyer, Goedele van den Broeck (), Pauline Lécole (), Yann de Mey and Jaap Sok
Additional contact information
Doris Läpple: University of Göttingen
Sophie Thoyer: CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier
Goedele van den Broeck: UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain
Pauline Lécole: CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier
Yann de Mey: WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]
Jaap Sok: WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]

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Abstract: The 2024 farmers' protests across Europe signaled widespread dissatisfaction in the agricultural sector. While low farm incomes and restrictive environmental regulations are commonly cited grievances, little is known about underlying motivations and individual farmers' reasons for protesting. This study explores individual farmers' protest motivations in Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse concerns shaping agricultural discontent across Europe. We analyze rich text data from 2232 farmers, collected through surveys using an open-ended question designed to elicit unprompted, top-of-mind protest reasons. By using a combination of hand and AI-assisted coding, we quantify protest reasons across countries, assess the emotional tone of farmers' answers, and explore how this aligns with policy responses. Our findings indicate that farmers' main protest reasons differ across the four countries, with German farmers mainly complaining about bureaucracy, French farmers about financial reasons, Belgian farmers expressing diverse complaints, while Dutch farmers focus mainly on the political environment. The emotional tone of farmers' answers reveals that specific, targeted complaints are more often expressed in an annoyed angry tone, while broader topics seem to trigger aggressive anger. Linking farmers' protest reasons to national and EU policy responses shows that, while some key complaints received adequate policy attention, environmental complaints were disproportionately prioritized by EU policymakers and some Member States. The findings from this study have important implications with the potential to improve the effectiveness of policy responses by contributing to the identification of adequate solutions to ease farmers' grievances.

Keywords: Open-ended survey question; Agricultural policy; Text-analysis; Farmers' protests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-eur
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05365140v1
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Published in Food Policy, 2026, 138, pp.102999. ⟨10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102999⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05365140

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102999

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