Editorial: The Guardian

• The current wave of protests threatens environmental progress, however, imaginative politics can set the green pact back on track.
• Multiple factors including rising energy costs, lightly regulated foreign competition, and supermarket profit-gouging have driven farmers to protest.
• Radical right parties are leveraging opposition to environmental reforms as recruitment and campaign topics.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has abandoned plans to reduce pesticide use and loosened emissions reduction goals.
• A strategic vision for the future of European agriculture that centralizes sustainable farming and addresses the injustices that have stoked the discontent is urgently needed.
• Common agricultural policies which favor large industrial farms over struggling small and medium-sized producers need reform.

Conclusion: Swift action on discussions about the future of EU agriculture is required if the essential objectives of the green deal are to be preserved.

---