Despite Claims in the Mainstream Media, Most Farmers Protesting in Germany Aren’t Conspiracy Theorists
Protesting German farmers are far-right conspiracy theorists aligned with Russia, according to German politicians and the media. Farmers are active on the private messaging app, Telegram, where “far right” voices dominate, according to a new report from Correctiv, a news and fact-checking site. The farmers are spreading “Russian propaganda” and “disinformation about Covid,” according to the article.
However, German farmers do have legitimate reasons for protest after critical agricultural vehicle and diesel subsidy cuts. According to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Thünen Institute, “at 33,500 euros a year, a farmer earns 25 percent less than the average German.”
It’s true that some of the concerns of the German farmers are unrelated to recent subsidy cuts, as many farmers are angry about Covid restrictions, the destruction of the Nord Stream II pipeline, which cut off cheap natural gas to Germany, and the closure of nuclear plants, but this does not characterize protestors as far-right, nor are they spreading disinformation.
While a neo-Nazi group did endorse the German Farmers’ protest, the German Farmers Association explicitly rejected the group’s support, and many German farmers waved banners saying that “agriculture is colorful, not brown,” a reference to the brown shirts of the Storm Division of Hitler’s Nazi party. Further, the Correctiv report does not specify what “Covid disinformation” the farmers spread. Nor does it offer any evidence of ties between the farmers and the Russian government, only that “some X accounts'' that support the farmers wrote posts that “coincided with the methods of a pro-Russian propaganda network.”
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