Recent months have seen multiple waves of farmer protests across Europe. Much of the media coverage of the protests has focused on critiques of the European Green Deal, launched in 2019 with the overarching aim of making the European Union (EU) climate neutral by 2050.

In this article, activist scholars show how the European Union’s current legislative response to waves of farmer protests across Europe is failing both farmers and society, in Europe and elsewhere. They identify the toxic narratives that underlie current policy choices and propose new narratives that can help us craft a better future for our food systems.