Why European farmers are revolting

I am writing these words from my house in Burgundy. If I look over my shoulder out of the window I can see the house of my neighbour, a cereal farmer. If I look out to my right, across the fields, I can see the buildings of a cattle farmer. There is a third farm in my village where they produce cereal and vegetables.

Patricia, the wife of this third farmer, dropped by last night with a crate of potatoes. Her husband has been on the front line of the growing agricultural protest movement that began a fortnight ago in Toulouse. It has spread across the country. From the Mediterranean to Normandy, farmers of cattle, sheep, chickens and crops are demonstrating outside prefectures and dumping hay in fast-food restaurants. On Monday they used tractors and bales of hay to blockade motorways accessing Paris.