THE COMING WAR ON AGRICULTURE

[Anti Federalist]

THE COMING WAR ON AGRICULTURE

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archiv...griculture.php

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:

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:

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.

The Financial Post:

The government is proposing to cut emissions from fertilizer 30 per cent by 2030 as part of a plan to get to net zero in the next three decades. But growers are saying that to achieve that, they may have to shrink grain output significantly at a time when the world is scrambling for more supplies.

Also at stake is the estimated $10.4 billion that farmers could lose this decade from the reduced output.
***
Cattle and fertilizer are key sources of nitrogen emissions.

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.

That leads to target number two: animals, especially cows. By far the largest crop in the U.S. is corn, and that corn is fed to cows and pigs to produce steaks, ground beef, bacon, pork chops, and so on. Liberals will argue that this is “inefficient.” People should live on vegetables and insects, and animal husbandry should be phased out. The fact that cattle also emit methane, primarily by chewing cud, makes their decline an added bonus from a global warming perspective.

Will the Left’s war on agriculture succeed? I don’t know. The Sri Lankan government pushed it until mobs invaded the prime minister’s residence. The government of the Netherlands isn’t giving an inch, despite massive and prolonged civil disobedience by farmers. Justin Trudeau apparently likes what he sees in those countries. And consider the Left’s war on energy: I never would have imagined that it could get as far as it has.

I think many liberals are essentially sadists. They love to boss the rest of us around and make us miserable. If you didn’t know better, you might think they spend their days dreaming up ways to humiliate their fellow citizens. “Here’s an idea–let’s screw up the grid to produce blackouts, so that people turn on the lights and nothing happens!” “They’ll never stand for that.” “We’ll make them stand for that, and like it, too!” “Here’s another idea: let’s tell people they can no longer eat hamburgers and bacon, they have to eat crickets and vegetables!” “What? No one is crazy enough to go along with that.” “Sure they will–all we have to do is tell them it’s necessary to save the planet.”

Making food scarce and expensive, so that much of the population is threatened with starvation, has another benefit for liberals. They can respond by writing people checks representing food subsidies. Thus they turn millions of formerly self-sufficient Americans into government-reliant serfs. It’s a win-win, if you are a liberal.

All of this is coming to the U.S. soon. We have seen the opening shots fired, as environmental groups have tried to block the expansion of dairy herds on the ground that cows cause global warming. We have seen the price of meat skyrocket, so that many Americans have had to change their eating habits. Already, if you look at ingredient lists on food products, you may see ground-up crickets. And the effort to delegitimize eating meat, especially beef, like the effort to delegitimize air travel, is under way.

I will hazard one more guess: when the Left looked for another state to follow California’s lead on automobile emissions, where did they go? Minnesota. When the Left wanted to spread California’s “ethnic studies” curriculum into the Midwest, where did they go? Minnesota. When the Left launches its full-scale war on American agriculture, where will that war begin? It won’t be Iowa. It will be Minnesota. And Minnesota currently has a governor and an administration that would be willing to lead the anti-food charge.

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.

[Occam's Banana]

[E]very 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.

"You are the carbon they want to reduce."

[O]ur elite climate warriors are pushing to reduce food production rather than expanding it.

h/t @caroljsroth https://www.governing.com/now/the-bi...ey-not-to-farm

h/t @ZubyMusic https://www.gov.uk/government/public...e-from-farming

[Occam's Banana]

[Anti Globalist]

Yes because the war on other things like drugs and terrorism have worked out so well in the end.

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

[showpan]

NATO has lifted sanctions on Russian fertilizer after realizing they can't get it from anyone else...lol....at the same time, Russian ships loaded with fertilizer are still sitting anchored because the ports won't allow them to unload. Who controls EU's ports? The U.S. and China of course. Greece which has one of the largest ports as far as capacity has just made a deal with the U.S. to also militarize one of their smaller ports which gives the U.S. better access to neocon targets. No doubt part of that deal is to prevent badly needed fertilizers from reaching their destinations.

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-St...efense-minist/

[LibertyEagle]

This is all part of the World Economic Forum's Great Reset.

[donnay]

This is all part of the World Economic Forum's Great Reset.

Yes it is...all done by design.

[Snowball]

Smoke seen in Paris after fire breaks out at world's biggest produce market

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/smoke-se...produce-market

[PAF]

Anybody happen to Follow the Money on this?

[PAF]

Commodity Credit Corporation

This week Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced that within the spending authority of the Commodity Credit Corporation, the agency had enough funds to not only pay for the normal farm bill programs which are normally paid out of the CCC, but also use CCC funds to increase USDA’s commitment to climate-smart agriculture, nearly tripling the previously announced investment of $1 billion to $3.5 billion for new pilot projects.

https://www.farmprogress.com/comment...as-credit-card

Tom Vilsack

Thomas James Vilsack; born December 13, 1950) is an American politician serving as the 32nd United States Secretary of Agriculture in the Biden Administration. He previously served in the role from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama Administration. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 40th governor of Iowa from 1999 to 2007.

On November 30, 2006, he formally launched his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2008 election, but ended his bid on February 23, 2007. Then-President-elect Barack Obama announced Vilsack's selection to be Secretary of Agriculture on December 17, 2008. His nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate by unanimous consent on January 20, 2009. Until his January 13, 2017 resignation one week prior to the end of Obama's second term as president, he had been the only member of the U.S. Cabinet who had served since the day Obama originally took office. As of the end of that term he was the fourth-longest-serving holder of the office.

On July 19, 2016, The Washington Post reported that Vilsack was on Hillary Clinton's two-person shortlist to be her running mate for that year's presidential election. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia was ultimately selected. On December 10, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Vilsack to once again serve as Secretary of Agriculture in the incoming Biden Administration. Vilsack was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 23, 2021 by a vote of 92–7.

Reaction to Vilsack's nomination from agricultural groups was largely positive and included endorsements from the Corn Refiners Association, the National Grain and Feed Association, the National Farmers Union, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group.

In March 2012, Vilsack joined three midwest governors in a campaign to defend the use of a processed beef product made from trimmings left after beef carcasses are butchered, dubbed "pink slime" by its critics. He said "it's safe, it contains less fat and historically it's been less expensive" and that it should be available to consumers and school districts that want to buy it.

In February 2017, Vilsack became President and CEO of the US Dairy Export Council.

In December 2020, Biden announced he would nominate Vilsack to again serve as the Secretary of Agriculture. The move was met by some with criticism from black farmers and progressives, because of Vilsack's perceived relationship with status quo and corporate agriculture. He appeared before the Senate Agriculture Committee on February 2, 2021, and was unanimously approved. His nomination was confirmed by the Senate on February 23, 2021, by a 92–7 vote. He was sworn into office by Vice President Kamala Harris on February 24, 2021.

During his tenure, Vilsack announced that the USDA would leverage $100 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to expand America's meat processing capacity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Vilsack

U.S. Dairy Export Council

USDEC is funded primarily by the dairy promotion check-off program. It also receives export activity support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). Membership dues fund the trade policy and lobbying activities of the Council.

https://www.dairyglobalnutrition.org...export-council

Biotechnology Innovation Organization

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) is the largest advocacy association in the world representing the biotechnology industry. It was founded in 1993 as the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and changed its name to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization on January 4, 2016. Biotechnology Innovation Organization serves more than 1,100 biotechnology firms, research schools, state biotechnology centers and related associations in the United States and in more than 30 other countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biot...n_Organization

Group Led by Bill Gates and Funded by Soros and Bezos Dramatically Increased Lobbying Ahead of Senate Climate Deal: Report

An energy organization founded by Bill Gates and backed by billionaires such as George Soros and Jeff Bezos increased its lobbying efforts ahead of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin’s climate legislation announcement last week.

Breakthrough Energy LLC, closely associated with Bill Gates’ corporate umbrella company, funded $1.43 million into lobbying since May 2021, as revealed in the organization’s filings to the Senate Secretary, Fox News reported.

Breakthrough Energy’s second quarter in 2022 saw the company support its influence campaign of U.S. politicians with $390,000, which was $100,000 more than any previous quarter since the lobbying activity began last year.

https://www.westernjournal.com/group...e-deal-report/

Breakthrough Energy

At Breakthrough Energy, we're helping the world get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions while making sure everyone has access to the clean, affordable, and reliable energy they need to thrive.

https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/

And just for sh|ts and grins:

- Jan 20, 2021 Trump Revokes Lobbying Ban He Signed At The Beginning Of His Presidency

President Donald Trump, in one of his last acts as president, revoked his own executive order requiring federal government appointees to sign a pledge to not lobby the agencies in which they worked for five years after leaving the administration.

http://forbes.com/sites/andrewsolend...is-presidency/

[PAF]

h/t @CaptUSA

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status...26625540988928

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

[vita3]

Hope some of these farmers go out with a bang.

[acptulsa]

https://twitter.com/JoeHadenuff/stat...43313314168835

[AngryCanadian]

I had seen stories of the federal govt going after the Amish Farmers.
Bad idea by the govt.

[showpan]

There are 3 major companies here in the US that are controling the worlds food supply. Cargill, Bayer (formerly Monsanto) and Tyson. TYson and Cargill control 90% of the meat supply, beef, chicken and pork. They bought all of the food processing plants so that ranchers only have one place to bring their product to market. Our meat that is regulated more than any other country is highly desired in China so that is where OUR meat is going because they sell it for a higher profit. The meat we buy is coming from Brazil and Chile where Bayer, Cargill and Tyson are leasing those ranches and are not being regulated at all. The meat we buy from Kroger, Walmart, etc is full of all the things that are banned here like steroids', hormones, DNA enhancers, etc. The feed contains all the banned ingredients too. The FDA removed the labeling requirements. It is also now being reported that they have given the vaccination to the livestock and it is being passed onto humans that have refused the clot shot. Also the farmland that Cargill, Tyson and Bayer are leasing to grow corn for feed is not being rotated with different crops to keep the soil from being depleted. They are going to create another dust bowl, you can't just keep growing corn year after year with no consequences. They are also overusing fertilizers like phosphorous. Once you introduce phosphorous into the soil, it becomes dependant on it for growing healthy crops. Stop using it and the crop is reduced by over 2/3. The runoff from phosphorous is now showing itself in the 5,000 mile long algae bloom that's happening from Africa to Florida. The FDA approved human waste to be used as fertilizer now. It's just the first step for soylent green....lol....With hundreds of food processing plants and ranches that have burned to the gerund in the past couple of years, their monopoly is just getting larger. After Zelenski was installed as the UkNazi leader, he changed the laws that allowed foreign ownership of Ukraine land. Cargill now owns a third of all Ukraine farmland and China owns another third. Look all this up, it is craziness happening and we are allowing it just as we let them steal the elections. I would post a million links but it is all easily searched. They aren't even trying to hide it.

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/JoeHadenuff/stat...43313314168835

Bread 3D-printed meat and circuses.

[acptulsa]

https://twitter.com/PeterSweden7/sta...85256892727297

https://twitter.com/EvaVlaar/status/1659585467736637443

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/EvaVlaar/status/1659585467736637443

John Kerry says US farmers must radically transform food production to meet 'net zero' emissions goals by 2030
"We can't get to net zero, we don't get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution."
https://thepostmillennial.com/john-k...-goals-by-2030
Libby Emmons (28 May 2023)

Biden's Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, former Senator John Kerry, made a stunning revelation earlier this month when he spoke about the need to transform the way food is produced in order to lower emissions. The new crusade for climate activists is to reduce emissions that are a result of food production.

"A lot of people have no clue that agriculture contributes about 33 percent of all the emissions of the world," Kerry said, "depending a little bit on how you count it, but it's anywhere from 26 to 33. And we can't get to net zero, we don't get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution. So all of us understand here. The depths of this mission."

First they came for fossil fuels and the energy sector, now they are coming for our sustenance. "The largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions is agriculture, responsible for around one quarter of emissions, closely followed by the energy sector, which includes emissions from coal, oil, natural gas and biofuels," the IEA states.

Reductions in fertlizer, land use, and cows are a big push by the activists who seek to reduce emissions created by food production. One idea that has been put forth to reduce methane emissions caused by cows is to shift to eating bugs, instead. Another idea is to feed cows bugs to reduce fertilizer emissions generated by growing food for cows.

Kerry said the agriculture sector "needs innovation now more than ever. We're facing record malnutrition, at a time when agriculture more than any other sector is suffering from the impacts of the climate crisis." In 2021, Kerry cautioned, hair nearly afire, that the residents of earth had only "nine years left" to avert the worst disasters of climate change. this was roundly mocked as alarmism, though AOC had said only three years prior that the "world will end in 12 years" if climate alarmists' warnings weren't heeded.

"And I refuse to call it climate change anymore," Kerry went on. "It's not change; it's a crisis. We're beyond the concept of 'just change and we can manage the change.' And without action, millions of lives and livelihoods are going to be at risk.

"There are scientists will tell you today that the probability of a large portion of Africa that is a huge food supplier to the continent could implode in terms of its agricultural capacity, if we don't get control of what we're doing.

"15 million people are dying every single year around this planet as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions," Kerry continued. "In the atmosphere in the air, which travels around at drops in the form of pollution, and is warming the ocean at record rates changing the chemistry of the ocean itself.

"Without action, millions of lives and livelihood of the planet is in parts of the world climate crisis has now got growth in agricultural yields but as much as 40 percent. And at the same time food systems themselves contribute significant amount of emissions just in the way in which we do the things we've been doing," Kerry cautioned.

Kerry made the remarks at the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate, hosted by the US Department of Agriculture, and they were in service to further the goals of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, coming up in November.

That conference, he said, has been "grappling with how we change that dynamic and what we do."

"But emissions from the food system alone," Kerry said, "are projected to cause another half a degree of warming by mid-century on the current course that we are today. And instead of being on a course to be able to hold the diverse temperature increased to 1.5 degrees, we're actually on a course to hit around three degrees right now. And I say that to you folks coming from some who've done analysis within the oil and gas industry itself, who have come to that conclusion based on their modeling. So that's not some, you know, fly by night operation that is suggesting that that may be where we're headed, now."

"A two degree future could result in an additional 600 million people not getting enough to eat and you just can't continue to both warm the planet while also expecting defeat it doesn't work. And as it's so often the case with respect to the climate crisis, we have to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously," Kerry warned.

Kerry was joined by agriculture ministers from governments across the globe who all came together to encourage farmers to reshape food production to reduce emissions, which he called a "battle." He urged US lawmakers to heed the warnings and legislate for changes in the way food is produced to prioritize climate concerns now, and not to put it off.

Kerry spoke of a meeting in Glasgow during which it was decided to "supercharge investment into climate smart agriculture, into innovation." At that meeting, funding was increased for co-called Climate Smart Agriculture Innovation.

AIM for Climate is an initiative that "seeks to address climate change and global hunger by uniting participants to significantly increase investment in, and other support for, climate-smart agriculture and food systems innovation over five years."

As the effort seeks to transform food production globally, they also insist that "Diversity, gender equity, and inclusion are critical to the success of the mission." Much of the language surrounding these plans are aspirational, with terms like "innovation" and "transformation" sprinkled in. Goals include "insight sharing, innovation collaboration, coordination, demonstration and deployment," in service to lowering the emissions that come from agriculture.

Those who are designated "knowledge partners" with the project are meant to "Share best practices to increase the equitable diffusion of – and positive returns to – agricultural innovation efforts focused on adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change."

Further, they are asked to "Launch flexible, inclusive, and targeted innovation collaboration focused on specific innovation areas, guided by the values of openness, transparency, reciprocity, and merit-based competition."

Additional asks include that the partners "Collaborate to increase mutual and equitable capacity for agricultural innovation focused on climate change, including efforts to enhance the efficacy and resourcing of existing innovation institutions."

April saw Biden pledge to "tackle the climate crisis and keep a 1.5°C limit on warming within reach," and to reduce emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030. He pledged "$1 billion to the Green Climate Fund and requesting $500 million for the Amazon Fund and related activities."

Biden's plans are to decarbonize energy and promised to meet a zero-emission goal for vehicles by 2030, along with the "decarbonizing" of international shipping. Biden also set about "Launching a Methane Finance Sprint to cut methane emissions and accelerating hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown under the Kigali Amendment." He touted the Inflation Reduction Act as "the largest U.S. investment ever in reducing U.S. emissions, accelerating the clean energy economy, and protecting communities from climate impacts."

"President Biden has set an ambitious U.S. goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050," the White House said.

Biden also addressed the need to reduce methane, and agriculture is the largest source of that gas. "In addition to cutting CO₂, rapid reductions of other GHG emissions are essential to keep 1.5 °C within reach. Methane and other non-CO₂ GHGs are potent climate pollutants with short atmospheric lifetimes. Rapidly reducing them would have an outsized impact on near-term warming," the White House said.

The goal, the White House claimed, backed up at the AIM conference by Kerry, is to enact the "goal of cutting anthropogenic methane emissions at least 30 percent by 2030. More than 50 countries have developed, or are developing, national methane action plans, and many new projects are underway to drive methane reductions in the key sectors of fossil energy, waste, and agriculture and food."

In Canada, the Trudeau government has made a plan to reduce emissions from agriculture, of which the sector contributed 10 percent to the nations CHG emissions in 2019, by telling farmers to reduce their use of nitrogen fertilizer. A group representing Canadian fertilizer companies said that "Canadian farmers are already among the most sustainable growers in the world, they have less room to lower fertilizer emissions without compromising food production than those in other countries. As there are only eight growing seasons until 2030." That group encouraged an approach that would prioritize farmers and food supply.

The Netherlands launched a plan to reduce emmissions from agriculture by buying and closing farms, and restricting the use of nitrogen fertilizer. The European Union had demanded that the country reduce emissions.

During his talk, Kerry thanked his "buddy" Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, who also pioneered plans to prioritize federal agriculture loans based on race and moved to withdraw school lunch funding from school districts that didn't allow male students to use girls' bathrooms and locker rooms. Vilsak defended his race-based approach to funding farmers by saying, essentially, that discriminating against white farmers in the present is a way to correct discrimination against black farmers in the past. A court disagreed.

Members of the Congressional GOP urged Vilsack to "denounce Kerry's remarks," saying in a letter that "These comments are a blatant slap in the face to the hardworking individuals that spend their lives sustainably producing our world’s food, fuel, and fiber. Although the world agriculture industry accounts for 22 percent of global GHG emissions, Kerry’s alarmist narrative does not tell the full story of American agriculture."

"American farmers and ranchers are committed to being stewards of the land," they add. "We are appalled by the comments made by [Kerry] and ask that your administration recognize the responsible efforts agriculture producers make every day to feed, clothe and fuel the world. Farmers and ranchers are the lifeblood to our food security, and a nation that cannot feed itself would not be a nation at all."

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

[acptulsa]

https://twitter.com/Midwesterngal51/...50282060107777

[acptulsa]