Farmers are fed up with activists' impunity and are demanding changes to the law

Rolnicy mają dość bezkarności aktywistów i żądają zmian w prawie

The campaign under the slogan: "Stop the break-ins" was launched by farmers associated with the organization "Young Farmers of Styria". They demand stricter regulations regarding the protection of private property, in connection with the increasing wave of break-ins to farms by various activists.

Activists – burglars

In a statement, 20 young farmers described various cases of similar activities, including their own experiences. As we read, not a month goes by without new reports of farm break-ins, especially those where animals are kept. This year alone, there have already been dozens of them.

Activists posing as animal or environmental defenders enter barns, pigsties and hen houses at night. They destroy doors, break windows, paint offensive slogans on walls, scare and sometimes release animals, turn on water in taps or sabotage in other ways. As the authors of the appeal point out, such intrusions increase the risk of bringing bird flu to poultry farms, African swine fever to pigsties, or cattle diseases.

Recently, unknown perpetrators deliberately blocked the ventilation in a pigsty in the Leibnitz district in southern Styria, and disabled the alarm system. As a result, more than 60 pigs suffocated. According to farmers, this shows that the perpetrators do not care about the welfare of the animals at all, but only about terrorizing farmers.

Spying on farmers

The practice of spying on farmers has also become increasingly common. Activists leave hidden cameras in barns or pigsties to follow and record farmers, hoping to catch them in some misdemeanour. Then, they publish out-of-context statements or events on the internet to damage the reputation of farmers.

This psychological pressure causes many farmers to remain silent at work, fearing they are being followed. More and more farmers are thinking about giving up this profile of agricultural production.

Burglars with impunity

The young Styrian farmers have lost patience, because even if someone manages to catch the burglars red-handed, they are not held accountable. They are well-trained – they do not take their identity documents or phones with them, which means the police cannot identify them. Under Austrian law, they cannot be detained.

Only breaking into a house is a crime, but not a stable, pigsty or barn. Monitoring on a farm is also useless, because burglars come in masks and wearing gloves. It is therefore impossible to prove that a specific person – even caught on the spot – caused the damage.

Destruction of farms

Most Austrian farms produce and sell their own products locally. Slander campaigns by radical organizations are destroying the brand of products built over the years and depriving farmers of the trust of their current customers.

Farmers’ children also suffer, stigmatized and ridiculed in schools by their peers. According to activists’ narratives, the mere fact that someone breeds animals means that they are being abused. Activists push the message in the media that farmers enslave and inhumanely exploit animals for profit. The Young Farmers of Styria demand that the law protects the good name and legal activities of farmers just as strongly and firmly as it protects the freedom of speech and beliefs of activists.