European farmers are furious over a bullshit plan by the European Union which would force then to be treated as industrial plants, similar to steel mills or chemical works, in order to force them to cut greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution, the Financial Times reports.

Greek farmer Takis Kazanas, 66, and his four sons run a 230-acre ranch with 300 cattle ranch in the mountains overlooking the Thessalian Plain. While the farmers already capture biogas from cow dung, and use homemade manure vs. chemical fertilizer, Kazanas is one of many farmers up in arms over environmentalist bureaucrats who want to impose crippling new rules on them in order to cut emissions by 55% by 2030 vs. 1990 levels.

"That's what the EU says and that's what I do," says Kazanas, regarding the 'earth-friendly' measures he already employs. "Today, everyone blames cattle for methane production and pollution . . . I have a different opinion."

The sheer scale of the transformation that the European Commission is asking for in its Farm to Fork strategy — halving the amount of pesticides applied by 2030, cutting the use of fertilisers, doubling organic production and rewilding some farmland — would be remarkable even in less urgent times.

Yet it comes as the war in Ukraine has upended global food markets, and as farmers face a cut in subsidies in the Common Agricultural Policy, the €55bn-a-year programme that has underwritten Europe's food security since 1962.

The EU argues that the agriculture sector is badly in need of environmental reforms. One senior EU official working on climate policy calls it "our problem child". -FT