The "hottest January ever" in Germany's Farmers' protests and discourse on agriculture and food production

Agri-food policy is highly relevant for securing the basic infrastructure of food supply in Germany and Europe. Agriculture and food production causes a considerable amount of climate damage and at the same time suffers the consequences. In Germany, climate-damaging subsidies are to be reduced in order to overcome the budget crisis and drive forward the transformation towards greater sustainability and biodiversity in agriculture. These announced cuts in agricultural subsidies by the federal government led to a storm of protests. The farmers' associations organized nationwide waves of protests and declared a "hot January with more protests than the country has ever seen". These cuts have triggered an emotional debate in which a variety of issues are linked and discussed. Different groups of actors are involved and different actors’ coalitions in agricultural and food policy are formed in a complex setting. The issues at stake are amongst others European agricultural policy, national support programs for farmers, climate impacts and adaptation, energy transformation, animal welfare, biodiversity loss, ecology and security of supply. EU and federal policies have a major impact on the daily work and economic success of farmers. It seems that large agribusinesses are given preferential treatment and great frustration has built up among small and medium-sized farms. This study is theoretically embedded in the advocacy coalitions framework (ACF) and operationalized with discourse network analysis. The data consists of press releases and newspaper articles starting from the day of the announcement of the subsidy cuts of the Federal government, November 17th, 2023, until now. What are the most dominant coalitions in this debate? What power constellations exist at different political levels? What suggestions are being made for small and medium-sized farms? How can farmers survive economically and continue to contribute to the food supply with their production while managing the agricultural transition?