‘We are fed up’ – encountering the complex German call for sustainable, small-scale agriculture

ABSTRACT

The German agrarian opposition, a broad societal movement consisting of farmers and diverse civic groups with origins in the 1980s, has established a new tradition. Since 2011, the movements’ coordinating organizations annually initiate large-scale demonstrations in Berlin entitled ‘We are fed up.' It provides a platform for critical voices and public protests regarding the prevailing agri-food system and implemented agricultural policies. By analysing insights as well as qualitative interviews with involved actors, this contribution outlines why the ‘We are fed up’-demonstrations appear to be a deeply rooted rather than short-term phenomenon, thus providing a unique case of an agriculture and food movement in the Global North.

KEYWORDS:

• Wir haben es satt
• agrarian opposition
• food movement
• agricultural policy
• Germany

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Wiebke Nowack http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1277-4401

Harry Hoffmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3176-7709

Wiebke Nowack is a doctoral student at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Economics and a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics. Her main research interests are in the areas of agricultural politics, rural development and the role of agri-food issues in society. Beyond that, Wiebke Nowack deals with research on sustainability issues and the claim for a socio-ecological transformation.

Harry Hoffmann is a Development Geographer and holds a PhD in Agricultural Science. His expertise is in food and nutrition security, bioenergy in developing countries and political ecology. He has worked as researcher in various projects at ZALF since 2009, including project coordination of Scale-N (www.scale-n.org). Additionally, he worked as consultant for the World Bank, the German Forum on Environment and Development and the United Nations Association of Germany.

Notes

1 All direct quotes in this article have been translated from German language to English language by the authors.

2 Initially founded under the name ‘Dachverband der Deutschen Agraropposition’ [Umbrella organization of the German agrarian opposition] and renamed in 1992 to ‘Agricultural Alliance’ in order to be perceived as progressive rather than ‘oppositional’.