Willows and farmer resistance: Withstanding change in rural Denmark

This article describes willow scrubs and how, according to Danish farmers, they “sprout uncontrollably” in deindustrializing agricultural landscapes. Across Europe, the green transition of the agricultural sector has led to farmers’ protests, but in Denmark such expressions of discontent have been limited. Instead, willow scrubs have become a matter of concern after the retirement of peatland soil from production. Farmers find willows “ugly” and interpret peatland overgrowth as a sign of a lack of proper care for the future of rural landscapes. Based on fieldwork among farmers and public servants, and unlike the situations described in most multispecies literature, we show how willows lack human allies. We argue that they are to farmers what farmers are to the government, establishing an analogy between the willows’ recalcitrant nature and farmers’ assertion of autonomy from government control. In this context, withstanding becomes a weak form of resistance that involves a political use of the willow’s capacity to grow.