You're right, tho maybe not why you'd think: in France, the FNSEA is the arm of the richest, biggest of industrial farming enterprises. When you see a "farmer" blocking your city with its brightly colored giant piece of machinery, wearing their customary blue overalls, you see someone owning thousands of hectares, plowing the ground dry through monoculture, and "protesting" (with the absolute support of the political system) regulations against the use of harmful chemicals, or against fellow "farmers" from cheaper labor countries having unfair competitive advantage through the EU free market. Or against legislation protecting the soil long-term.

And these "protests" tells the layman that next week, the price of bread will increase, again, without our elected elite being in the line of fire for it.

Because poor farmers, you know.

Source: friend is Organic farmer, owns 40ha, does everything by himself. Nothing the FNSEA does isn't harming the consumer, the fellow small farms, or the planet.

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah this is what I was getting at (damn site made me miss the notifcation to see the replies lol).

People really don't understand the amount of political power this section of the population has in modern societies. And they're pervasive. It's an interesting contrast to the peasantry that used to exist and do the manual labour on the farms well over 100 years ago.