A lifetime commitment to farmers’ dignity, social justice and food sovereignty
It is with sadness and deep gratitude that we bid farewell to Gérard Choplin — agronomist, political companion, co-founder of the European Peasant Movement, and tireless defender of agriculture that respects human beings and nature. With Gérard, we lose a man who shaped politics, without ever becoming a politician.
By José Bové and Jean-Marc Desfilhes, Hannes Lorenzen and Andrea Fink-Keßler
Born into a family of farmers in the Le Mans region of France, Gérard was deeply influenced by his youth spent in a rural agricultural community. His vocation as an agronomist took root among the fields and hedgerows. He wanted to become an agricultural engineer not to dictate rules to farmers, but to work with them and help restore dignity to their profession.
It was during a stay in Algeria in 1974 that he discovered the social contradictions of post-colonial reality. He understood that agriculture was not just a technical issue: it was at the heart of politics.
In 1977, Gérard moved to Stuttgart for love and began working at the Meteorological Institute of the Agricultural University of Hohenheim. He came into contact with the university’s left-wing agricultural movement and the circle of young farmers in Bondorf.
At that time, he was deeply influenced by the book by French peasant leader Bernard Lambert, Les Paysans dans la lutte des classes (Peasants in the Class Struggle), which had inspired a profound trade union revival in France in the wake of May 1968’s spirit of freedom and autonomy. Its message: Farmers, like industrieal workers – often their brothers – are exploited by large agri-food companies that do not pay them a fair price for their produce. This system has only one objective: to increase yields and productivity, regardless of the cost to workers or the consequences for the environment. The new Common Agricultural Policy, recently established , does not correct these inequalities: it exacerbates them. Worse still, farmers are losing a little more of their autonomy every day. Brussels is pitting European regions against each other in a race to the bottom.
In 1980, Gérard accompanied a delegation of German farmers to support those in Larzac, who were fighting against the expansion of a military camp that would force 103 families from their homes. On this occasion, he met José Bové, a squatter on a farm requisitioned by the French army.
Back in Germany, Gérard became involved in the peasant resistance in Boxberg, Baden-Württemberg, against the creation of a training circuit for Mercedes cars.
These two experiences confirmed his conviction that a convergence of peasant struggles at the European level was essential, especially since the Common Agricultural Policy imposed by Brussels subjected all countries to the same productivist and liberal straitjacket.
In 1982, Gérard finally met Bernard Lambert who had just founded the National Confederation of Peasant Workers’ Unions (CNSTP). They hit it off immediately. Gérard became Bernard’s right-hand man in the creation of this left-wing union, which shook up the all-powerful French agricultural union . He became the CNSTP’s first secretary general in Paris.
After Lambert’s death, Gérard moved to Brussels with an ambitious mission: to create the first European peasant movement capable of offering an alternative vision to productivism and providing a voice other than that of COPA-COGECA.
In 1982, the CNSTP, together with the nascent European peasant movement, published the manifesto La remise en cause du productivisme (Challenging Productivism). The German association Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (AbL) translated it under the title Wider den Produktivismus.
This founding text became the basis for the emergence of a farmers’ alternative at the European level. Thanks to his perfect command of German and his knowledge of the history of different countries, Gérard became a key contact for alternative peasant movements in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. His experience of progressive trade unionism in France enabled him to play a pivotal role in the creation of the European Peasant Coordination (CPE), which he International Movement of Young Farmers (MIJARC) joined. .
In Brussels, the CPE defended the idea that farmers should be able to make a decent living from their production. The introduction of differentiated prices, calculated according to production costs specific to each region became a priority to enable small farmers to resist the steamroller of agricultural concentration. The aim was to defend jobs in disadvantaged rural areas threatened by depopulation .
Gérard was the driving force behind this movement. In 1990, after two years of hard work, the CPE managed to open a modest office just a stone’s throw from the European Commission: a victory. For the first time, peasant farmers had a place to meet, debate and work in the heart of Europe. By organising conferences, forging alliances with other civil society movements, drafting strategic documents and participating in numerous debates, the CPE was able to propose credible alternatives.
Gérard’s personality facilitated alliances with other civil society organisations critical of the European Union’s neoliberal policies. He remained a staunch European, convinced that another Europe is possible. Thanks to his in-depth knowledge of agricultural issues and his command of languages, Gérard became a key player in the development of an alternative vision for European agriculture. He liaised between the European Commission and farmers’ leaders, and in the European Parliament, political parties finally heard proposals other than those put forward by COPA.
Thanks to his work, the CPE gained visibility in Brussels and throughout Europe. The enlargement of the European Union, with the entry of Spain and Portugal in 1987, followed by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in 2004, profoundly altered the balance of power. The CPE then became a radical and colourful thorn in the side of COPA-COGECA, the powerful European agricultural union . Gérard embarked on a gruelling task of analysing European legislation and monitoring negotiations during successive reforms of the CAP, enabling each CPE member to gain credibility and effectiveness in their own country.
During the international negotiations at the end of the GATT aimed at integrating agriculture into the World Trade Organisation, the CPE fought against the stranglehold of large agri-food multinationals that intended to take advantage of trade liberalisation and the forced opening of trade borders. The CPE then saw the need to build resistance to the neoliberal globalisation embodied by the WTO.
Following meetings between farmers in Central America, the CPE participated in the creation of La Via Campesina, a global movement defending family farming and agricultural workers, which today represents more than 400 million people on four continents.
In the beginning, Via Campesina was hosted by the CPE in Belgium. The work was immense. In Rome in 1996, during the World Food Summit organised by the FAO, the CPE and then Via Campesina put forward an alternative to the liberalisation of agricultural trade imposed by the WTO: food sovereignty. This concept recognises the right of every people to define their own agricultural policy, provided that it does not harm farmers in other countries. “Farmers of the world, unite!” became the rallying cry.
For Gérard Choplin, farmers are part of a global struggle that goes beyond economic, social and environmental issues alone. He was keen to ensure that their voices are not drowned out by other civil society organisations. Along with the CPE farmers, he rejected any political exploitation of their cause. Defending this autonomy and political independence requires great diplomacy, so as not to upset those who sometimes see themselves as the natural representatives of the farming world.
In 2008, more than twenty years after its foundation, the CPE officially became the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC), thus affirming its international role.
Gérard was an exceptional figure: politically clear-headed, firm in his principles, but always deeply human. He was curious about all arguments, attentive to strategic debates, always well informed, precise, and unusually modest for someone who had such an impact. A tireless activist, his book Paysans mutins, paysans demain (Peasants in revolt, peasants tomorrow) bears witness to his commitment and provides keys to understanding the increasingly pressing issues surrounding agriculture and food.
With the passing of Gérard Choplin, the European peasant movement has lost one of its main architects. He was a man who always put his ideas before himself. We have lost a friend.
It is now our responsibility to continue on his path.
