Tractors rumble in streets again ahead of EU polls. Farming is a big issue and the far right pounces

BEERSEL, Belgium (AP) — The far-right Flemish Interest party had set up the demonstration in the picture-pretty rolling fields south of Brussels, ahead of the four-day European Union elections which start Thursday. The goal was clear: Decrying how farmers would lose fertile land to what they see as overbearing environmentalists trying to turn it into a chain of woods, killing off a traditional way of life.

It was also another show how agriculture has been instrumentalized by the populist and hard right groups throughout the 27-nation bloc.

And in a final push on Tuesday, militant agricultural groups from more than a half dozen nations were converging on EU headquarters in a show of force that they hoped would sweep the progressive Green Deal climate pact off the table in the wake of the elections and give farmers the leeway they had for so long in deciding how to till the land.

“As a farmer, you have just been turned into a number,” growled Eduard Van Overstraeten, who said that of the 60 hectares he used to farm for wheat, corn and potatoes, he now was forced to sell a quarter of it — including his farmhouse — to help make a string of distinct woods around Brussels to become one continuous nature zone to improve biodiversity and fight pollution.