Conflicts over the future of agriculture: protests by conservative and progressive movements in the socio-ecological transformation

The emergence of a corporate-environmental food regime in Germany has given rise to opposing movements. The progressive movement criticizes current environmental policies in agriculture as insufficient and calls for far-reaching structural changes. In contrast, the conservative movement largely rejects environmental regulations and opposes a socio-ecological transformation. This article presents findings from two quantitative protest surveys conducted in early 2024 at demonstrations in Berlin: the progressive “Wir haben es satt!” (“We’re fed up!”) protest and the conservative “Kundgebung von Landwirtschaft und Transportgewerbe” (“Rally of Agriculture and the Transport Sector”). To explore transformation conflicts in agriculture, we analyze the class composition and the motivations of protest participants. We also compare agrarian and socio-political attitudes across the two movements to identify areas of convergence, divergence, and polarization. Our findings show that, aside from a few overlapping views, the two protests differ significantly in their agrarian policy positions. The most pronounced polarization concerns attitudes toward the environmental movement. We attribute these differences to the distinct political orientations of the protests. Our conclusion is that the politicization of agrarian issues complicates efforts to build a consensus on the future of agriculture. While both movements critique the corporate-environmental food regime, only the progressive movement articulates a positive vision of an agroecological and socially embedded agriculture of the future.