Stacey Lennox – September 07, 2022
Because most people don’t know a farmer personally anymore, everyone should realize that they don’t make piles of money producing our food. A good year can be followed by three bad ones, and 2022 has been a burden. Between record heat waves in the U.S. and abroad, droughts in the middle of the country, fertilizer shortages, and rising costs for just about every farm input, many American farms are on the brink. Everyone will feel the pinch in continued food price increases and shortages at the store.
As bad as the agricultural outlook is in America, it is far worse in Europe. The dedication to a green energy suicide pact on the continent is colliding with the news Russia will not ship any fossil fuels until the West lifts sanctions. The skyrocketing energy prices have farmers leaving crops in the fields to die.
Norway’s largest vegetable producer is also considering storing the vegetables on the field for as long as possible beyond the autumn. It will be too expensive to store and cool the vegetables in the usual way. One carrot producer is already beyond the appropriate harvest time and believes his harvest will only be good for “pig fodder.”
Nearly every Western nation is proposing ways to control nitrogen emissions. Nitrogen is essential to plant growth. Even if a grower uses hydroponic systems, the plant food in the water contains nitrogen. I plant peas every fall in my own garden to nitrogen-fix the soil. Elites in Davos and the EU believe they have the solution to make agriculture more environmentally friendly. Their arrogance leads to a 21st century Lysenkoism that is anti-science and pro-scarcity.
And American farmers won’t escape the green power grab. The “Inflation Reduction Act” puts farmers under the control of the EPA to govern nitrogen emissions. Additionally, it allocates $20 billion to fund “climate-smart agricultural practices.” News from Europe helps us to predict how bureaucrats will use this money. Regulators will spend it reducing meat production further, especially beef, and lowering food output by restricting fertilizer and energy from fossil fuels.
Farmers are the most conservation-minded people alive because their livelihood depends on it. Yet, no Western government seems at all interested in listening to them.
