Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

FARMING

Austrians asked to ‘eat more apples’

Agriculture Minister Andrä Rupprechter (ÖVP) is calling on Austrians to eat more apples to combat the economic impact of the Russian import ban on food from the EU.

Published: 19 August 2014 09:41 CEST

Austrians asked to 'eat more apples'

Austrian apples. File photo: APA/epa

“If everyone ate one more apple a week, then we could prevent losses in the fruit and vegetable market,” he told ORF radio.

He urged Austrians to start eating more home grown products and said that hospitals, caterers, and restaurants should also buy regional produce.

In 2013 Austria exported agricultural goods worth about €238 million to Russia – this number is expected to halve due to the sanctions.

EU farmers will get financial help of up to €125 million to help them cope with the impact of Russia's ban on most Western food imports.

According to Rupprechter the EU has an emergency reserve of about €400 million to compensate for market disruption in the agricultural sector.

The Russian ban is costing Austrian farmers €4.5 million a week so far, Rupprechter said.

Other countries have also been calling for national solidarity to support farmers and food producers.

In Poland, a journalist started a twitter hashtag #eatapples (#jedzjabłka), as a way of protesting against Russia. A Facebook page called Eat Apples To Annoy Putin also became hugely popular.

One of Poland's largest supermarket chains actively endorsed the hashtag on its Facebook and Twitter pages.

Rupprechter said the agricultural ministry now plans to focus exports on the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.

Russia imposed the import ban as a countermeasure against the sanctions imposed by the EU against Moscow for its alleged support of Russian separatists in Ukraine's civil war.

According to calculations by The Local, given that an apple typically has 95 calories, one extra apple per week amounts to 13 calories – which would place the average Austrian's calorie consumption at 3,773 per day, giving Austria the dubious glory of eating the most calories per day in the world.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

EU to begin talks with farming leaders after wave of farmers' protests around Europe

On the agenda are key issues including farming incomes, sustainable agricultural practices, technological innovations and competitiveness, which will be discussed in advance by the European Union’s agriculture ministers at their meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

The initiative was not confirmed until late last week, even though Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had promised in September to start discussions, insisting that farming and environmental protection were not mutually exclusive.

Europe has recently seen a wave of protests from farmers including huge demonstrations in Germany and roadblocks in France in which one woman died.

Here is a look at some of the grievances that have sparked discontent in various parts of the 27-nation bloc ahead of this year’s European Parliament elections.

Netherlands

Grumblings in the Dutch farming sector bubbled to the surface in June 2022, when the government unveiled plans to cut nitrogen emissions by reducing the country’s herd of four million cows by nearly a third, and possibly shut some farms.

Farmers said the move would ruin their livelihoods.

Nitrogen compounds produced by manure and fertiliser used in farming can contribute to climate change and harm natural habitats.

The move followed a 2019 Dutch court ruling that the government was not doing enough on nitrogen, and that key house building and road projects that also produced the chemical would be on hold until it did.

But farmers in the country of 18 million, which is the world’s second-largest food exporter after the United States, reacted furiously, dumping manure and rubbish on roads and blocking supermarket warehouses.

Their protests drew support from populists abroad, including former US president Donald Trump, who claimed the Dutch farmers were fighting “climate tyranny”.

Months of demonstrations triggered a wave of support at the ballot box for the recently founded BBB farmers’ party, which made a significant breakthrough in Senate elections in March 2023.

It was less successful than predicted in the general election in November last year but continues to attract support from a rural community that feels urban elites in The Hague, Amsterdam and Brussels do not understand its concerns.

Poland and Romania

In recent months, there has also been an increase in exasperation in the east of the EU, namely in Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, where food producers have complained of unfair competition from cut-price cereals from Ukraine, which is not part of the bloc.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and blocked Ukraine from using the Black Sea to export its goods, the EU suspended customs duties on imports from Ukraine and set up corridors so Kyiv could transit its grains through the EU to world markets.

But because of logistical issues, the grain started piling up in EU countries and driving down local prices.

Tractor-riding farmers in Bulgaria and Romania jammed border crossings with Ukraine and in Poland the anger triggered the resignation of the agriculture minister in April 2023.

That did little to calm tempers and in November, Polish farmers and lorry drivers started blockading roads from Ukraine.

Farmers only suspended their protest on January 6th after the government agreed to provide subsidies.

In Romania, the rural sector staged new demonstrations on January 14th over what they said were excessively high levies.

The customs exemptions granted to Ukrainian exporters expire in June, so the European Commission will need to tell EU farmers fairly soon whether it intends to prolong them or not.

Germany

In Germany, farmers have been up in arms since early January over a government plan to roll back tax breaks on fuel for agricultural machinery and other subsidies.

On January 8th, they launched a week of nationwide rallies, blocking several city centres and major road arteries with hordes of noisy tractors, and have vowed to push on with their demands.

The coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz has agreed to stagger the cuts between now and January 2026 and reduce red tape.

But it may feel unable to offer more concessions, after a court ruling forced the government to find savings in the 2024 budget.

ANALYSIS: Why are German farmers so angry?

France

Farmers in France are also cross about increases in production costs and environmental regulations.

In the autumn, they turned signposts upside down to show the world itself was “upside down”. In recent days they have been blockading dozens of major highways and a nuclear power plant. On Tuesday morning a woman died after a car tried to force its way through a barricade in Ariège, southern France.

LATEST Where in France are roads blocked by protesting farmers?

The powerful farming union FNSEA is planning other forms of protest, after a meeting with newly installed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Monday failed to produce a breakthrough.

Further afield

In former EU member Britain, fruit and vegetable farmers planted 49 scarecrows outside parliament on Monday to represent the 49 percent of farmers who say they are on the brink of leaving the industry due to “unfair” treatment by the country’s powerful supermarket chains.

Supermarkets are “bringing British farming to its knees”, Guy Singh-Watson, founder of the fruit and veg box delivery firm Riverford Organic, told AFP, adding that government policies failed adequately to support the sector and were rarely enforced.

And there are predictions the rural unrest could spread to other parts of the EU too.

“There is talk of protest in Italy and Spain,” said Christiane Lambert, head of Europe’s leading farmers’ union, the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organizations (COPA).

Url copied to clipboard!