Hundreds of Czech farmers drove their tractors into downtown Prague on Monday, disrupting traffic outside the Agriculture Ministry, as they joined protests against high energy costs, stifling bureaucracy and the European Union's Green Deal, according to Reuters.

Farmers across Europe have taken to the streets this year, including in Poland, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, to fight low prices and high costs, cheap imports and EU climate change constraints.

Czech farmers are planning to join protests this week, although major agricultural associations distanced themselves from Monday's action, in which tractors blocked one lane of a major road through Prague, slowing but not completely snarling traffic.

Several hundred whistling and jeering protesters gathered outside the Agriculture Ministry yelling "Shame" and "Resign".

"We came today mainly because of the bureaucracy around farming, the paperwork is on the edge of what is bearable," 28-year-old farmer Lukas Melichovsky said while in the line of tractors.

Another farmer, Vojtech Schwarz, said cheaper imports did not face the same scrutiny as domestic production: "They have a different starting line because we are overseen by a million officials," he said.

The government has said the organisers of Monday's demonstration have little to do with real farming.