As they drove through the streets of the capital they honked their horns to cheers and waves from passersby. Dozens of tractors parked in front of parliament and more were set to join.

“Livestock farming died today,” read a banner on one tractor with a black coffin attached to its front.

The protest echoes grievances in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, where farmers have staged similar demonstrations.

“No farmers, no food, no future,” a banner on a tractor in Athens read.

Greek farmers’ unions have been in negotiations with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government for weeks, but say the measures announced so far don’t go far enough to meet their concerns.

“We are coming to Athens right now to fight for a better tomorrow,” said farmer Konstantinos Katselis.

“Everything is very expensive,” he said. “Petrol, fertilizer.”

At the last toll booths on the national highway some 30 km outside the capital, farmers waved Greek flags and cheered each other on as they passed through.

Hundreds of farmers with about 150 tractors were expected to join the rally, scheduled for 1630 GMT, and try to pile pressure on the government, which has already offered discounts on power bills and a one-year extension of a tax rebate for agricultural diesel to the end of 2024.

On Monday night, farmers lined up their tractors and pickups along highways as they gathered at a meeting point in central Greece where they spent the night before heading to Athens.

“There are many problems, most of all the fuel and the energy costs,” said one of the protesting farmers, Christos, in the central Greek town of Kastro.

“Last year was catastrophic for farmers, we did not produce grapes, we did not produce olive oil, we produced a bit of cotton but it was bought for nothing.”

On Tuesday morning, dozens of farmers arrived by boat at the port of Piraeus from the southern island of Crete. More farmers were expected to arrive by bus from other areas across Greece.

The government reiterated on Monday that it is willing to discuss a more permanent tax rebate scheme in the future, but it had no fiscal room for any further concessions this year. Greece has been recovering from a decade-long financial crisis.

“We have nothing more to give,” Mitsotakis said during an interview with Greek Star TV on Monday evening.

“I think farmers acknowledge this and know very well that the government has probably exceeded even their expectations, especially on the power bills issue.”

He said the rally was expected to be largely symbolic, but farmers appeared determined to push for more concessions.

“Everyone needs to stand together, because everyone is going to win from our fight – not just us,” farmer Spyros Hatzis said.

–Reporting for Reuters by Angelos Tsatsis, Giorgos Moutafis, Alkis Konstantinidis, Renee Maltezou.

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After a constitutional court ruling last month that cancelled 60 billion euros of earmarked debt, the federal government last week announced plans to save around 900 million euros ($983.34 million USD) annually in subsidies for farmers.

According to next year’s budget, a partial tax refund on agricultural diesel, along with a tax exemption for agricultural vehicles, will be abolished to meet the saving targets – a measure farmers said would threaten their livelihood and the competitiveness of Germany’s agricultural sector.

Farmers protested the planned cuts at the Brandenburg Gate, carrying placards reading “YOUR POLITICS ARE A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST FARMERS” and “TOO MUCH IS TOO MUCH! IT’S OVER NOW!” parking a number of tractors along Berlin’s Strasse des 17. Juni boulevard in central Berlin.

Germany’s DBV and LSV farmers lobbies called for the protest last week and on Monday threatened to organise further country-wide demonstrations if the measures were implemented.

“Then from January 8th we will be present everywhere in a way that the country has never experienced before. We will not accept this,” DBV President Joachim Rukwied said.

The cuts, agreed by the ruling coalition leaders of the Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats, could cause dispute not just within the coalition, now opposed by FDP liberals, but also within the Greens party itself, as Greens Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir joined the farmers in Monday’s protest.

“I will do everything in my power so that this won’t happen this way, ladies and gentlemen,” Ozdemir said.

Additional burden

Farmer Jule Bonsels from the western Rhineland region said the tax break cancellation meant an additional financial burden of some 20,000 euros per year.

“I personally find this unacceptable. We must give young people prospects, and these plans totally kill it,” she added.

Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit on Monday said decisions on the 2024 budget were in place and won’t be reopened, adding that the details of implementation were still being examined.

The cuts also aim to help reduce greenhouse emissions in the country’s agriculture sector that was responsible for 55.5 million metric tonnes of greenhouse emissions last year, roughly 7.4 per cent of the country’s total.

Environmental groups said farmers could bear the financial burden of the cancelled subsidies, citing profits made from rising food prices and other agricultural subsidies that are still in place.

“With all understanding for the farmers – making agricultural diesel cheaper by the state is expensive, harmful to the climate and should be abolished,” Greenpeace agricultural expert Martin Hofstetter said in a statement on Monday.

Erwin Decker, a wine farmer in Germany’s Black Forest region, said implementing the planned cuts would force many family-run farms to close across the country.

“What are we supposed to do? The land is there. It has to be harvested and if it turns into a jungle, no one gains anything,” Decker said.

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Conservative MP John Barlow brought forward Bill C-275, “an Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms),” as a private members bill. It arrived before the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Sept. 28.

Barlow, the Conservatives’ shadow minister for agriculture, agri-food and food security, and MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, had also put forward the previous version, Bill C-205, in 2020. The new bill takes up roughly where it left off.

It states: “No person shall, without lawful authority or excuse, enter a building or other enclosed place in which animals are kept, or take in any animal or thing, knowing that or being reckless as to whether entering such a place or taking in the animal or thing could result in the exposure of the animals to a disease or toxic substance that is capable of affecting or contaminating them.”

It applies fines up to $250,000 or up to two years’ jail time for individuals, and fines up to $500,000 for organizations.

While not explicitly mentioned, Barlow indicated the bill is in reaction to actions of activists, such as those who snuck into a turkey farm in his riding — likely a reference to a 2019 incident in which a group of activists broke into a turkey barn on a Hutterite colony north of Fort Macleod.

Barlow told the committee the bill applies existing penalties in the Health of Animals Act to people who trespass on farms in ways that contravene biosecurity practices and increases penalties to groups who encourage these actions.

While a few provinces have similar laws, “I think it behooves us as the federal government to have a national program in place that will cover all provinces and territories because that is not happening now,” Barlow said.

He added that while trespassing laws might apply to these scenarios, they only applied small fines that would not be enough to deter groups who he said fundraise off protests.

“There has to be teeth to this,” he said.

Barlow said the act would not limit people’s rights to protest, or target whistleblowers who lived or worked on the farm.

“This bill does not limit an individual’s rights to peaceful protest on public property,” he said. “This bill also does not prevent whistleblowers from coming forward when they are witnesses to practices that jeopardize our food security, our food safety or the welfare of animals. Canadian farmers and ranchers have a moral and legal obligation to look after their animals.”

Barlow also argued that the bill would help protect the mental health of farm families who feel targeted and attacked by activists.

Bill C-275 incorporates some of the amendments made to C-205 but drops a previous amendment that dropped “without lawful authority or excuse.”

When questioned about this, he told the committee that stakeholders saw this as redundant, as the bill had already been carefully worded to protect whistleblowers.

That amendment had been made by NDP agriculture critic Alistair MacGregor, who argued that references to trespassing must be removed as trespassing laws are not federal jurisdiction.

“If you are a farmer or farm employee, if you are a transport driver or if you are a protester, if you violate the biosecurity protocols in place on a farm, this law applies equally to you. That’s the main essence of my putting it forward,” he said in a committee meeting in June 2021.

In a meeting Thursday, Barlow said that on Oct. 16, the Commons ag committee would consider the bill clause by clause before returning it to the Commons to be voted on.

— Geralyn Wichers is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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The president vowed last month to stay on until his five-year term ended in 2024, despite the anger his tenure prompted among the people. Thousands of Sri Lankans stormed his official residence on Saturday, forcing him to go into hiding and agree to step down. He was to have done so on Wednesday.

“One day this had to happen,” said Mallawaara Arachchi, a 73-year-old retired engineer, as he wandered around the official residence of the prime minister last occupied by Rajapaksa’s elder brother, Mahinda, and now also by protesters.

“They have robbed everything from the people,” he said. But with the family gone “we will be the best country in the world in the near future.”

Mahinda resigned in May, thus ending his son Yoshith’s stint as chief of staff. His other son, Namal, elder brother Chamal and younger brothers Basil and Shasheendra quit as ministers in April.

Former finance minister Basil, who also holds U.S. citizenship, was stopped at the airport from fleeing the country on Tuesday by immigration officials wary of the public response if he had been allowed to leave.

The country of 22 million has barely any dollars left to import fuel, it has defaulted on billions of dollars of foreign loans, headline inflation hit 54.6 per cent last month with more dire predictions, while schools and offices stay shut to conserve petrol and diesel.

It is the most debilitating political and economic crisis to hit the country since independence in 1948, including during a brutal civil war in which Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as defence secretary, oversaw the crushing of Tamil Tiger insurgents in 2009.

Much of the blame for the crisis has been placed on the COVID-19 pandemic that squeezed out the island’s tourism industry and dried up remittances from Sri Lankans overseas. The Rajapaksas’ tax cuts left a hole in state revenues and a ban on chemical fertilizer damaged crops before it was lifted.

Talks with the International Monetary Fund for a rescue package could yield results later this year or next at the earliest, prompting Sri Lanka to seek even more aid from neighbours India and China.

Sri Lanka’s parliament will elect a new president on July 20.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has also offered to resign, and if that happens, the parliamentary speaker will be the acting president for a few days as per the constitution before the election is concluded.

“Sri Lanka is in uncharted territory, we have never seen this level of volatility,” said Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher at Colombo-based think tank Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“Unless both the president and the prime minister resign we are looking at prolonged instability. What we have seen so far will be nothing compared to what could happen.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Uditha Jayasinghe and Devjyot Ghoshal; writing by Krishna N. Das.

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Several media outlets on Monday quoted organizers of the blockade at the Canada-U.S. border crossing at Coutts, Alta. as saying they would leave the area Tuesday morning.

Protestors in vehicles including commercial trucks, pickups and farm tractors formed a blockade halting traffic through the Coutts crossing, southeast of Lethbridge, and its sister crossing at Sweetgrass, Mont. starting Jan. 29. Single lanes of traffic later reopened but were blocked again Friday.

That blockade was formed in tandem with a demonstration still underway in Ottawa concerning current COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers, among a number of grievances related to pandemic-related public health policy and federal politics generally.

The Ottawa protest and Coutts blockade — along with several other blockades formed at major Canada-U.S. crossings across the country, including at Windsor, Ont. and Emerson, Man. — on Monday became the subject of the federal government’s declaration of a “public order emergency” under the Emergencies Act.

According to the government’s release Monday, the declaration allows it to regulate and prohibit “public assemblies, including blockades, other than lawful advocacy, protest or dissent” and to designate and secure places where “blockades are to be prohibited” such as at international borders or approaches to same. It also blocks foreign nationals from entering Canada with “intent to participate in or facilitate a prohibited assembly.”

The declaration is effective for up to 30 days and subject to confirmation from both houses of Parliament.

The protestors’ stated plan to leave Coutts also comes amid damaging reports of violence at the blockade, plus 13 arrests Monday among those attending.

Specifically, Alberta RCMP said Monday, “a large farm tractor and a semi truck, both involved in the blockade, attempted to ram a police vehicle” on Sunday evening.

The RCMP member involved “was able to reposition and avoid the collision” and both the tractor and semi truck alleged to be involved in that incident have since been seized.

On Monday afternoon, RCMP said, a northbound semi approached the Mounties’ checkstop north of nearby Milk River when “the driver accelerated and drove towards our members.” The driver of that vehicle “swerved at the last moment” and was later arrested nearby “for Criminal Code offences.”

Also on Monday, RCMP said they “became aware of a small organized group within the larger Coutts protest” and had received information “that this group had access to a cache of firearms with a large quantity of ammunition… (and) a willingness to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade.”

RCMP on Monday morning carried out a search warrant on “three trailers associated to this criminal organization” and seized handguns, 13 long guns, a “large quantity of ammunition,” high-capacity magazines, “multiple sets” of body armour and a machete.

Eleven people were arrested at that time, RCMP said; another person was arrested later Monday after being stopped by police on the highway en route to the protest site, at which time “two weapons were seized.”

RCMP said Monday they would “resume efforts to end the illegal blockade” at Coutts and “encourage all participants who are involved in this illegal action to leave immediately or relocate to the designated site for the legal protest.”

“Our objective was to be here peacefully,” Marco Van Huigenbos, a protest organizer at Coutts, was quoted by CBC as saying later Monday. “To keep that message going, we want to peacefully leave Coutts and return to our families.”

‘Serious risks’

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, writing Monday on Twitter, made note of the arrests of people “believed to be involved in a potentially violent cell at the Coutts blockade” and hailed the “tactical operation that neutralized this potentially violent threat without incident.”

Also, Kenney wrote Monday, in spite of “threats and intimidation directed at tow truck operators and dealers, (the province) has successfully procured and staged the heavy equipment needed to remove commercial vehicles” at the protest site.

Kenney reiterated to remaining protestors that “it’s time to go home” and that their “continued violation of the rights of your fellow Albertans will not be tolerated.”

Separately, federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a statement Monday that she met with “meat industry representatives from across Canada” to talk about the blockades’ impact on “the transportation of live animals and beef exports, the movement of feed for livestock and the overall food supply for Canadians.”

The industry reps on the call “told me that the blockade is having a significant impact on the livelihood of Canadian farm families and businesses who cannot sustain any more delays,” she said, and that “shipments of animals are being delayed and cancelled, which is creating serious risks to animal welfare.”

Allowing animals, feed and feed ingredients to again flow across the border “is essential to support producers and protect the welfare of animals travelling between Canada and the U.S.,” she said, noting border transit delays “also heighten the risk of spoilage of perishable goods” such as fruit and vegetables.

With the public order emergency now declared, she said, cabinet officials “are monitoring the situation closely and working with our federal and provincial partners to identify and mitigate disruptions.”

In a joint statement last week, several national- and provincial-level transport, trade, manufacturing and distributing groups warned that “hundreds of millions of dollars in cross-border trade” including perishables and other goods, “are being impacted or lost because of ongoing blockades.”

Farmer and food processor groups including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, National Cattle Feeders’ Association, Canadian Pork Council, Canadian Meat Council, Canadian Produce Marketing Association and Canadian Horticultural Council made a separate joint statement Friday calling for “immediate action by all parties to fully reopen Canada’s trade corridors.”

Canadian federal rules for cross-border travel by truckers and other essential workers were updated effective Jan. 15. Those rules currently require any Canadian truckers and other essential workers who are unvaccinated against COVID-19 and returning to Canada to follow the same quarantine protocols as other unvaccinated Canadians returning to Canada. Unvaccinated foreign truckers attempting to enter Canada are to be turned away.

The U.S. government has had the same rules in place for foreign unvaccinated truckers since Jan. 22 — with the effect of prohibiting unvaccinated Canadian truckers from bringing freight into the United States. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The farmers, killed on Oct. 3 in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, were part of India’s longest-running agricultural protest, opposing laws they fear will reduce guaranteed minimum prices for their crops.

Police arrested Mishra late on Saturday after questioning him for more than 10 hours, said Deputy Inspector General Upendra Agarwal, who is heading the probe. Mishra had not responded to a police summons on Friday.

“We are taking Ashish Mishra in custody. He was not co-operating in the investigation,” Agarwal said.

Mishra’s lawyer and father could not be reached for comment.

Farmers say the car that crashed into the protesters, about 130 km north of the state’s capital Lucknow, was owned by the son of the junior home minister.

Ajay Mishra Teni said at the time his son was not at the site and that a car driven by “our driver” had lost control and hit the farmers after “miscreants” pelted it with stones and attacked it with sticks and swords.

The incident sparked protests that claimed four more lives, including that of a local journalist.

Tens of thousands of farmers have camped for months on major highways to New Delhi to oppose the three laws. They say the legislation will erode a longstanding mechanism that gives farmers a minimum guaranteed price for their rice and wheat.

The government says the laws will help growers get better prices.

The protests have gained momentum in Uttar Pradesh ahead of a state assembly election next year, with a group of influential farmer leaders ratcheting up pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to roll back the laws.

— Reporting for Reuters by Saurabh Sharma; writing by Nidhi Verma.

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Tens of thousands of farmers have camped out on the outskirts of New Delhi for more than two months, blocking key roads and demonstrating against the laws they say will benefit large private buyers at their expense.

The protests have mostly been peaceful but a tractor rally on Jan. 26 flared into turmoil as some farmers clashed with police in New Delhi.

Since then, authorities have shut down the mobile internet in parts of the national capital and heavily barricaded border roads to prevent protesters from coming into the city again.

“The rights to peaceful assembly + expression should be protected both offline + online,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Twitter late on Friday.

“It’s crucial to find equitable solutions with due respect to #HumanRights for all.”

The farmers will hold a three-hour “chakka jam,” or road blockade, starting around noon local time across the country except in New Delhi and a couple of neighbouring states.

While the protests were initiated by rice and wheat growers from northern India, particularly opposition-ruled Punjab state, support has been growing across the country.

The issue has also caught international attention with celebrities such as pop star Rihanna and environment campaigner Greta Thunberg announcing their support for the farmers. The U.S. has also urged India to resume talks with farmers.

The Modi government has held multiple rounds of talks with farmer representatives but failed to resolve their differences.

The government says the reforms will bring much-needed investment to the farm sector, which accounts for nearly 15 per cent of India’s US$2.9 trillion economy and about half its workforce.

— Reporting for Reuters by Abhirup Roy.

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India marks its founding as a republic on Tuesday with a military parade in the historic city centre, but the farmers, who are demanding a rollback of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s deregulation effort, plan their own peaceful show of strength.

Delhi’s police said protesters have been told to use three main routes for the tractor procession, which had been agreed upon after six days of discussion with farmer leaders.

But there are lingering concerns that “anti-national people” may seek to foment trouble during the demonstration, Delhi Police Commissioner S.N. Shrivastava told reporters.

“We are aware of all this and we are taking whatever action is required,” Shrivastava said, “I have trust that everything will go on peacefully.”

On National Highway 44, loudspeakers blared anti-government songs as the lengthy procession of vehicles rolled down, fuelled by dozens of community kitchens that handed out hot meals and beverages in the winter cold.

“We will teach Modi a lesson that he will never forget,” said one of the protesters, from the district of Ludhiana in Punjab, who drove his own tractor. The 35-year-old, who cultivates 10 acres, asked not to be identified.

Farmers mainly drawn from the breadbasket states of Punjab and adjoining Haryana have blockaded approaches into New Delhi for about two months to protest against three new farm laws they say will hurt their livelihoods and help big companies.

Their unions are pushing for repeal of the laws, after rejecting a government proposal to suspend the measures it says will usher in much-needed steps to boost farmer incomes.

Several rounds of talks with Modi’s government have made little headway, and protesters now aim to up the ante with the procession set to follow Tuesday’s military parade.

Top leaders and military officials attend the annual high-security parade to mark the day India’s constitution took effect in 1950.

A farmers’ group exhorted its members to refrain from violence in detailed instructions issued for Tuesday’s event.

“Remember, our aim is not to conquer Delhi, but to win over the hearts of the people of this county,” it said.

In the western state of Maharashtra, thousands of farmers were also on the move, flocking to a flag-hoisting ceremony on Tuesday in the heart of Mumbai, India’s financial capital.

“We are here to support farmers in Delhi, to highlight that farmers across the country are against the farm laws,” said Ashok Dhawale, a state protest leader.

— Reporting for Reuters by Manoj Kumar; additional reporting by Rajendra Jadav in Mumbai and Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow; writing by Devjyot Ghoshal.

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The cornerstone of the reform, introduced in September, allows private buyers to deal directly with farmers.

Angry farmers, who say that will make India’s traditional wholesale markets irrelevant and leave them at the mercy of big retailers and food processors, have camped out on major highways outside New Delhi for more than two months.

Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the government was open to suspending the laws for up to 18 months, during which time representatives of the government and farmers should work to “provide solutions” for the industry.

Bilateral talks have so far failed to break the deadlock — landing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with one of his most significant challenges since he was re-elected in 2019.

The next round of talks is due on Friday, and farm leader Dharmendra Malik said the unions would let the government know then if they would accept the offer and call off the protests.

The government was “sympathetic to farmers’ concerns and is trying to end the stalemate,” it said in a statement, thanking them for maintaining “peace and discipline” during the protests.

Farmers plan a tractor rally through New Delhi on Tuesday, India’s Republic Day, which the Supreme Court on Wednesday declined a government petition to ban.

— Reporting for Reuters by Mayank Bhardwaj; additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty and Nigam Prusty.

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Tens of thousands of farmers have been camped on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi for over a month, calling for the repeal of laws introduced by the federal government, which says the legislation is aimed at modernizing the country’s antiquated agricultural sector.

Farm leaders say the laws are an attempt to erode a longstanding minimum support price for their produce and want a full repeal of the laws.

“The government has constantly said that if the unions give any other option besides repeal, then the government will consider them,” agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar told reporters after the eighth round of talks between the two sides.

“But despite long discussions, no options were presented today, and that’s why the discussions have ended here.”

The two sides will meet again on Jan. 15, he said.

“There was a heated discussion. We said we don’t want anything other than repeal of (the) laws,” Hannan Mollah, one of the farm leaders who met with the government, told reporters. “We won’t go to any court, this (repeal) will either be done or we’ll continue to fight.”

Mollah added that the protesters would proceed with a rally during India’s Republic Day celebration on Jan. 26 if their demands have still not been met.

The majority of India’s farmers sell their produce largely to small retailers at a much lower price than the government guaranteed price — offered to only a fraction of farmers.

They fear that with the introduction of the new laws, big retailers such as Reliance Industries will enter the market to buy their produce at a lower price, while the government may slowly dismantle the current system of procurement at the guaranteed price.

Earlier this week, Reliance asked authorities to help stop attacks on its telecommunication masts by protesting farmers, who say the conglomerate has profited from the reforms at their expense.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nigam Prusty and Devjyot Ghoshal; writing by Alasdair Pal.

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