The Coming War on Agriculture

[Valin]

Power Line

John Hinderaker

August 6, 2022

You probably know about what has happened in Sri Lanka, where the government’s attempt to impose organic farming led to food shortages, impoverishment, and a revolt that caused that country’s prime minister to flee. Also the Netherlands, where the government’s attempt to drastically reduce fertilizer use has led to massive protests by farmers that continue to this day.

At Hot Air, Jazz Shaw notes that farmers in other countries are up in arms as well:

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There are already protests by farmers taking place in a number of countries besides the Netherlands, though the farmers there are currently drawing the most headlines. Similar uprisings are happening in Spain, Ireland, and New Zealand. There are food shortages gripping a number of countries around the world, but our elite climate warriors are pushing to reduce food production rather than expanding it.

Next up is Canada:

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Undaunted by the uproar in the Netherlands over the impact on farmers of rules limiting nitrogen emissions, Canada’s government is now looking to go down a similar route.

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Global warming religion is international, and the same anti-farming movement is coming soon to the U.S., the world’s number one agricultural economy. The first target will be nitrogen-based fertilizers, which are a principal foundation of the world’s ag productivity. Without fertilizers, the world will go hungry.

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A final comment: global warming is a great boon to the Left because every human activity emits carbon dioxide. In fact, human beings emit carbon dioxide simply by living. So if you believe that carbon dioxide is the worst possible threat to the world, it justifies absolutely any government action that leftists might want to take.

So conservatives, and conservative politicians, need to stop conceding the premises of global warming to the Left. “Climate change”–that is, the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming–has been decisively refuted as a matter of science. But it lives on as a religion for those seeking meaning in their lives, and as a cynical political tool of the Left. Conservatives need to stop conceding moral high ground to environmental Leftists, and instead attack them head-on.

[Geee]

Behind the Global Farmer Protests

ALMERE, Netherlands — Farmers in the Netherlands reduced nitrogen pollution by nearly 70% through a voluntary system. But the government says that is not enough and is demanding that they cut pollution by another 50% by 2030. 

 

By the Dutch government’s own estimates, 11,200 farms out of the roughly 35,000 dedicated to dairy and livestock would have to close under its policies; 17,600 farmers would have to reduce livestock; and total livestock would need to be reduced by one-half to one-third. The Dutch government has demanded that animal farming stop entirely in many places. Of the over $25.7 billion the government has set aside to reduce pollution, just $1 billion is for technological innovation, with most of the rest for buying out farmers.

 

This effort has sparked a fierce backlash among Dutch farmers, who argue that the government seems more interested in reducing animal agriculture than in finding solutions that protect the food supply and their livelihoods.

 “Why would you buy out farmers or reduce livestock when you have the possibility to invest in innovation?” asked Caroline van der Plas, the founder and sole Member of Parliament for the Farmer-Citizen Movement party, or BBB in Dutch. “The car industry innovated for the past 40 years. There aren’t fewer cars and the cars we have are cleaner. We even have electrical cars. That's what I think is so crazy. Why don't we treat the farmers just like the car industry? Give them time to develop solutions or innovate? We can produce food in a much more efficient and cleaner way if we do that. And it's much cheaper also then by buying out farmers.”

Farmer protests in the Netherlands come at a time of heightened global food insecurity created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a major wheat exporter. 

The Netherlands is the largest exporter of meat in Europe and the second largest exporter of food overall by economic value in the world, after the United States, a remarkable feat for a nation half the size of Indiana. Farm exports generate nearly $100 billion a year in revenue. Experts attribute the nation’s success to its farmers’ embrace of technological innovation. 

The Netherlands is just one of the countries where governments are pushing for sharp limits on farming. Canada, for example, is seeking a 30% reduction in nitrogen pollution by 2030. While the Canadian government says it is not mandating fertilizer use reductions, only pollution reductions, experts agree that such a radical pollution decline in such a short period will only be possible through reducing fertilizer use, and thus food production. The cost to farmers would be between $10 billion and $48 billion.

Gunter Jochum, Canadian wheat growers: “If you push farmers against the wall with no wiggle room, I don’t know where this will end up. Just look at what’s happening in Europe, in the Netherlands."

“If you push farmers against the wall with no wiggle room, I don’t know where this will end up,” said Gunter Jochum, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. “Just look at what’s happening in Europe, in the Netherlands. They’ve had enough of it.”

[Valin]

@Geee

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“My neighbor, a dairy farmer, does his job very well,” says Rabbinge. “And we are right next to each other. I invite people to come see it. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, came to visit, and together we started the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa. But in the Netherlands we have ministers who say that they are the boss and know the best policy, but often they have no experience, and leave the work to the people in the ministry.” None had come to visit, he said, since the controversy began.

 

And This is one reason "Experts" are one longer trusted.

 

Now I have not checked with the Experts today, but looking out the window everything Looks pretty good Climate wise.

[Valin]

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But Rabbinge stressed that if farming is done efficiently, it can significantly reduce negative side effects. “For example, you could produce the same 15 billion liters of milk that the Netherlands currently produces while reducing by 50% the amount of land, by reducing by 80% the amount of pesticide, and by 70% the amount of nitrogen pollution.” 

What happens if a farmer does not operate efficiently? He/She is an EX-Farmer.

[Valin]

Top Comment

Like the pandemic, this is another model being used to determine how far people can be pushed by abhorrent totalitarians seeking absolute power. They want to find that "happy medium" where people are desperate enough to put up with anything, but not to the point where they have nothing to lose and will put up with nothing.

[Valin]

 

[Valin]

Related

Aug. 22 2022

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[Valin]

Dutch gov’t forcing 600 farmers to sell land to state, GBNews reports

October 11, 2022

NETHERLANDS — Six hundred Dutch farmers face the forced sale of their farms to their unmoved national government in the next year, according to a recent report by GBNews.

In an interview with the UK-based news organization, political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek highlights Dutch farmers’ continued outrage with the Netherlands government in the wake of the recently announced farm buy-up plan. It’s a key measure in a new environmental report released by the Dutch state in reaction to farmer protests that have roiled Holland since the spring, after a precursor report sparked great upset in the ag sector.

“The outcome of the new program is worse. They’re going to expropriate, forcefully buy out, 600 farms in the next year,” Amsterdam-based Vlaardingerbroek tells Mark Steyn in the online broadcast, adding dismissively, “but it sounds a little nicer in the way that it’s written in the little text.”

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