The Potato Thrower

III. The Noose of Agricultural Green Transition

However, farmers will bear high transition costs as a result. They must invest in new equipment, switch to more expensive organic inputs, and leave parts of their land fallow in exchange for ecological subsidies.

Although the Common Agricultural Policy supports this transition through subsidies, practical issues such as ongoing controversies and long timeframes persist. The key issue is that the subsidies provided by the EU are largely geared towards ongoing support during the transition, rather than as startup capital for initial investments. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) estimates that initial investments range from €2,000 to €5,000 per hectare, with a payback period of up to nine years; even with subsidy support, farmers still face funding gaps. Secondly, regarding the target of halving chemical pesticide use, simulations suggest that transitioning grain and oilseed production to green agriculture carries a risk of reduced yields. Farmers find themselves torn between environmental mandates and their very livelihoods.

More seriously, there are structural issues in the distribution of subsidies; data indicates that 80% of agricultural subsidies flow to only 20% of agricultural entities. This subsidy policy, which tilts towards large-scale, technologically advanced enterprises, makes it difficult for small and medium-sized farmers—those who truly need help—to benefit. Furthermore, market uncertainty driven by energy price fluctuations and trade competition has further eroded farmers’ confidence in pursuing the green transition, as it remains a long-term and high-risk investment.

IV. The Green Transition Cannot Be Shouldered by Farmers Alone

The core of the EU farmers’ protests is not a resistance to agricultural transition, but a question of who should bear the cost. When market liberalisation and high environmental standards are pursued simultaneously, the costs often fall first upon the producers.

This predicament is not unique to the EU. Since ‘green agriculture’ was first written into the government’s Central Document No. 1 in 2016, and the term ‘low-carbon agriculture‘ first appeared in the Central Document No. 1 of 2026, Chinese agriculture has also embarked on its own path of transition.

A report titled *Agricultural Green Transition in the Context of Chinese-style Modernisation*, published this February—authored by institutional experts and scholars with the participation of several social organisations—suggests that China has pushed forward rapid agricultural modernisation and green transition simultaneously in the short term. This has created a ‘parallel’ effect, resulting in the coexistence of traditional petroleum-based agriculture and green agriculture, while a gap persists between the formulation and implementation of green agricultural policies. Furthermore, the speed and direction of the green transition vary across different agricultural operators, regions, and management methods, exhibiting diverse characteristics. Simultaneously, there is a tension between standardised industrial agriculture and diversified smallholders. China also faces challenges such as a massive population, consumption upgrades, and a scarcity of resources per capita.

When policy ideals reach the fields, can ‘green’ truly become a choice that farmers can afford, understand, trust, and sustain? Or will it simply become another passive task to be endured?

In actual production, the price of green agricultural inputs is exorbitant compared to conventional products. For instance, the price of fully biodegradable mulch films is often more than twice that of ordinary films, and the procurement and transport costs of organic fertilisers have risen year by year. For smallholders operating on a dispersed basis, this means a sharp increase in input costs for the individual farmer.

Against a backdrop of low grain prices and scarce arable land, farmers have grown accustomed to a ‘high input, high output’ model focused solely on yield growth. On one hand, chemical fertilisers and pesticides provide immediate results that are visible within a single season; on the other, the green transition requires a long wait, with benefits appearing only after three to five years. Faced with the basic need for food and a livelihood, farmers have almost no room for hesitation.

Meanwhile, the transition to green agriculture faces barriers in technical promotion. Breaking the dependence on chemicals, improving yields and quality by enhancing soil, and mastering supporting planting techniques all require systematic experiential guidance. The capacity for adoption among farmers varies widely; in particular, the current mainstay of grain production has spent a lifetime using chemical fertilisers and pesticides under the guidance of agricultural suppliers and policy. In a sense, they have been ‘deskilled’, making it extremely difficult to retrain them to produce agriculture using ecological and green methods.

On the road to agricultural green transition, Chinese farmers face challenges not only in frontline production but also through ‘invisible’ hidden costs. When straw burning is prohibited via a ‘one-size-fits-all’ blanket ban, environmental pressure may seem to ease, but the labour and machinery costs of straw disposal are shifted onto the individual farmer, and there is a lack of corresponding compensation mechanisms. Regarding the thorny issue of straw disposal, many regions have begun exploring different solutions, transforming them into collaborative mechanisms guided by the government and involving market participation.

Yet, even so, a deeper problem remains: the green transition is far more than a matter of technology and subsidies; it is fundamentally about the structure of returns.

In the current agricultural product market system, a stable mechanism for green product premiums has not yet fully formed. The signal that consumers are willing to pay more for ‘green’ is often diluted layer by layer through the distribution chain, making it difficult to reach the producers accurately. Farmers bear the initial investment and risks directly, yet they cannot necessarily secure stable market returns. This keeps green agriculture in a state where it is ‘driven more by policy than by the market’ in practice.

Additionally, the generational structure of producers is changing. New agricultural operators, represented by the ‘new farmers’, are more aligned with the long-term value of ecological agriculture, more willing to accept and proactively learn new technologies, and find it easier to access information on policy subsidies. However, they also face practical problems such as high land transfer costs, financing difficulties, and unstable scales of operation. In contrast, the older generation of farmers is experienced but tends to be more cautious and conservative.

Therefore, the key to the green transition of agriculture may not lie in how advanced the concepts are, but in whether a mechanism of ‘shared risk and shared benefit’ can be established—one involving the government, producers, enterprises, and consumers. If costs manifest only at the production end, while benefits remain trapped in the distribution chain or within policy documents, the transition will inevitably be marked by rupture.

The ‘potato shells’ on the streets of Brussels remind us that any structural transformation must answer the same question:

How is the price of the ideal fairly distributed within the system?