Below are the references to Jade Bashford’s introduction, based on her decades of work in this area, and the text of Judith Large’s short talk.
If you’d be interested in being kept in the loop re what’s going on locally in Stroud District around food and growing, please get in touch and we can connect you.
UK food security
Book – Feeding Britain: Our Food Problems and How To Fix Them by Tim Lang (google books link)
Farming and biodiversity
Report – State of Nature 2019 UK Full Report (pdf link)
Webpage – “Organic farming is better for wildlife” (Soil Association website)
Co2emissions from food
Policy Brief “Why UK retailers’ climate commitments are failing to deliver and what can be done to fix it” (produced by Feedback – now known as Foodrise, “a charity transforming the food system for climate, nature and justice”)
Food poverty levels and demographics UK
Survey results “Food Insecurity Tracking” (compiled by The Food Foundation)
Diet related ill health and health inequality
Press Release: “New report reveals toll of diet-related illness on UK productivity” (issued by The Food Foundation)
Report: “Dietary Health Disparities Across Socio-economic Groups: A Data Story” (issued by The Food Foundation)
Food waste
Research library compiled by Foodrise
Land access and distribution
Book: “The Book of Trespass – Crossing the Lines that Divide Us”
Finally, you may be interested to watch a recording from the Land Workers Alliance AGM earlier this year which had an agenda item on “exploring the connections between agroecology and anti-fascism” (see description and embedded video below).
“Over the past year we have seen a steep increase in the visibility of far right and fascist ideology in the UK- from the xenophobic and racist riots last summer, to a surge in support for anti-migrant parties like Reform. The food and farming world has been especially targeted by right wing ideologues, such as through the No Farmers NoFood campaign and protests. A lot of our members have been speaking out and mobilising against the right wing co-optation of landwork, rural communities and discourses around food sovereignty.
In this session we looked at the connections between agroecology and anti-fascism, deepening our understanding of how rightwing ideas creep into farming communities; and we explored how the LWA can take a stand against this.”
Who is hijacking fears about food and farming to recruit people to harmful ideas? [talk by Judith Large]
My thanks to the co-panelists for setting the scene so effectively.
Who is hijacking fears about food and farming to recruit people to harmful ideas?’ I have been asked to address this question and would like to do so in two ways; first by looking at well documented precedents, at Examples of the co-option of rural and farming concerns by populist/nationalist and ultimately fascist interests; and secondly by digging down into what is being said and promoted both in the public domain and in less visible social media from the far right to the wider farming community. Quite simply, when we see signs and merchandise saying ‘No Farmers No Food’ we do not always know what we are looking at. My concern is the raising of awareness, such that we may be better equipped to build resilience and offer healthy alternatives for the future of farming. .
So first to a bit of history, the time would be 1929 to 1939 and beyond, and a key name is Walther Darre, (do remember this name as we’ll refer to it again in about five minutes) who was influential during this decade Germany for promoting the ideology of ‘Blut und Boden’ which means Blood and Soil where “blood” represents race and ancestry, while “soil” expresses the concepts of territory, land. The essence of the theory is a mutual and long-term relationship between a people and the land that they occupy and cultivate. It is critically important here to remember that Jews were prohibited for centuries from owning land in much of central Europe. For so-called ‘white Aryans’(as promoted by Hitler) racial purity was seen as rooted in the soil in an ancestral, almost mystical way – a belief which contributed both to Nazi race supremacy thinking and to the doctrine of Lebensraum,.or Room for Living which justified Nazi expansion into surrounding lands displacing and enslaving peoples like the Slavs. Farmers, in this case still regarded as peasants were elevated to a central position in the Reich propaganda, and Darre was promoted from senior SS command to Reich Minister for Agriculture. Please hold this thought-as we move forward.
For there is no doubting the importance of farmers to any society, to any state, and in light of low food prices, the lifting of food subsidies or differences on climate policy they have flexed their muscle through tractor protests end mobilisation. Furious Dutch farmers changed the course of national politics between 2019 and 2023 in opposition to potential changes in regulation on nitrogen emissions – at one point 2,200 tractors blocked Dutch roads in the largest congestion display ever seen in the country. The official Farmers’ party now sits in coalition with the right wing in the Netherlands government. We have seen similar mass protests during the last year in France, Poland, Spain, Belgium and Hungary. In each case there are country-specific grievances and leadership. But a militant group the Farmers Defence Force is receiving direct assistance from a Hungarian think tank under Victor Orban, the self styled authoritarian promoter of the EU’s first illiberal state.
And what of Farmers Protests here? ‘No Farmers No Food’ is an effective slogan with a terrific offering of online branded merchandising. The simplicity of the slogan will appeal to many who feel disgruntled or fed up with government policies or their own personal predicaments. It boasts a larger membership than the National Farmers Union and was founded by one James Melville, a public relations specialist.
James Melville also sits on the board of Together, which has run campaigns against Covid-19 lockdowns, the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London and now Anti–Net Zero. Melville appeared with Russell Brand in an interview seemingly supporting the ‘Reset Theory’ (that a cabal of multinational interests designed/created Covid in order to collapse societies so that they could move in and take over through financial and digital means.
‘Resett’ is one of several conspiracy theories in play for the Far Right. Another has been voiced recently by both Nigel Farage and Jeremy Clarkson. Last November, speaking in front of around 50 tractors at Belmont Farm in North London, Farage suggested that the Labour government had a “sinister agenda” to acquire “lots of land because they’re planning for another five million people to come into the country”. Jeremy Clarkson writing in The Sun newspaper, that he was “convinced” that Labour had a “sinister plan” to “ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers” to make room for “immigrants and net zero wind farms.”
This claim echoes the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which holds that progressive immigration policies are a mechanism to replace white people in the West, and has been cited by Donald Trump in recent months and derided by critics as white supremacist thinking. Then we have climate change denial as voiced by Justin Rogers, who co-founded Farmers to Action. Rogers, has spread conspiracy theories across his social media accounts. He has claimed that “climate change is one of the biggest scams that has ever been told”, propagated by “our governments and their puppet masters.” He claims that oil and gas are renewable, and that carbon dioxide cannot be dangerous because it “feeds plants”.
Rogers claimed that farmers were facing an “existential threat” from “anti-farming policies” including “net zero, solar panels, rewilding”. And it gets worse. In a video on his social media, Rogers criticises “greedy governments and corporations,” and says “they really do like to get their shekels”, a reference to Israel’s currency. This claim repeats an anti-semitic trope accusing governments of being controlled by a shady Jewish cabal.
And this brings us full circle, to the way the recognised neo-Nazi far right in this country are cultivating an interest in Farmers protests as well. I refer to the group Patriotic Alternatives. And I would like to read two direct quotes from their website, the first from 2022:
“Farming in this country, as a whole, is a White man’s job. Most of the ethnicities that are available to be documented don’t even show up: just over 99% of farming in the UK is done by White people… Fields, food, animals, the countryside, the community: this is all important to us, this is a bastion of who we are that we cannot afford to surrender to the flood of globalists who want to corrupt it and destroy it…. Nationalists who are looking for a plot of land and finding the right area to start their own small farms could negotiate with others before going all-in to purchase a farm”
Overall, the Blood and Soil mantra remains popular among the British extreme right. An article on the PA website names Walther Darré as part of “a rich pedigree” of far-right environmentalist thought. Unsurprisingly, such ideologies are steeped in antisemitism and racism, with Jews and immigrant populations portrayed as cosmopolitan, rootless, urbanising people, devoid of respect for, or spiritual connection with, the land, and so posing an intrinsic threat to nature and rural traditions.
Once again rhetoric overlaps with the “White Genocide/Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which alleges that sinister, often-Jewish elites are encouraging migration into the West as part of a plot to destroy the white race. An article on the PA website titled “Ecocide” takes aim at George Soros, a frequent target of anti-semitic conspiracy theory, and his “co-conspirators”:
Another article on the PA website titled “Ecocide” takes aim at George Soros, a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theory, and his “co-conspirators”:
“few have done more to damage both the ecological and human equilibrium that has sustained the planet for millennia. By means of their NGOs, they have ferried invasive species across the Mediterranean […] Actions that have culminated in national governments spending billions to cement over bucolic landscapes in their rush to build accommodation for the “New Europeans” and tarmac over ancient woodlands to provide them with roads to aid their rapid access to social security offices, mosques and community centres where they can congregate and displace the indigenous species.”
How important then to cultivate counter-narratives; to demonstrate inclusion, transitional thinking and both local and national relevance for farming and the future. I look forward tour discussions, and to learning a great deal from you all.
Community Solidarity Stroud District 