This sounds a little too much like what happened in Sri Lanka[0]. Is now a great time to go messing with food supply anywhere? Pricing and availability is VERY out of wack in my part of the US still.
I kinda think that we aren't too far away from developing a western version of something similar to Lysenkoism [1]. It will probably start with a propaganda campaign "fact-checking" the efficacy of fertilizers and suggesting "alternatives".
I think most people read the SriLanka situation in reverse. My understanding is that they ran out of money to buy fertilizer and hence switched to organic as a cheaper alternative which also fizzled out - the one they imported from china turned out to be unusable.
Well, doing over time means you can steer (i.e. adapt to new situations and learning). Among the problems with Sri Lanka's decree is there was no time to adapt.
For example, it takes time to switch a field over to organic, and who will pay for the more expensive yet not yet qualified organic crop? Where are the distribution chains (never mind the supply chains).
I don't know enough about Canada's plan (only this article) to criticize or praise it. But I do know that your criticism, on its face, is not appropriate.
I think it is different. One thing is banning immediately all fertilizers and tell people "we just grow everything organic way, but you should figure out how... Now". And another thing is reducing their quantity so that farmers adapt by learning techniques to optimize the growth and (maybe) they'll start producing more compost to compensate deficit of 'classic' fertilizer
And what are the scientific rationales for these policies?
It seems evident that food prizes will be adversely affected, and that without artificial fertilizers there is a large risk of starvation in many places.
While not stated in the piece, it's not unlikely that there are other factors involved in the reduction of fertilizers. This is a wildly complex situation:
On the one hand, modern agriculture has learned that you can increase crop yields through the use of heavy fertilizers, which lead to decreased soil capabilities, which lead to increased pest issues which lead to increased use of pesticides which leads to... a truly vicious circle, one quite profitable for the likes of monsanto
On the other hand, there is an emerging technology which, in the long run, is not emerging at all, but much closer to a return to agriculture's roots - it's known as Regenerative Agriculture - sometimes referred to as "no-til" farming. The idea being that you, quite literally, improve soil's ability to capture and retain carbon - something you give up when you plow the soil - and, from there, you reduce the amount of water needed, improve soil health, and measurably improve crop yields. There's a strong movement in that direction, and several feature-length films. A brief intro is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6m-XlPnqxI
The article specifically mentions that this new regulation does not limit fertilizer use itself, so the motivation seems to be entirely driven by climate change and not soil sustainability.
If not, then it seems like lower demand for artificial fertilizers in Canada would increase the supply of the stuff to other nations, thus reducing prices and increasing caloric intake.
Well, fertilizers have diminishing returns, you can't keep adding fertilizer to increase the yield as much as you want.
The amount of farmland available globally is limited, so reducing the yields per hectare in one country will probably contribute to food inflation globally.
You could increase the amount of available farmland by deforestation, but that would probably be contrary to the goals of environmental conservatism.
Also, we are assuming a global free market of crops, which is an unrealistic assumption, as there are lots of subsidies and tariffs.
They are not coordinating directly just like e.g. the rise of identity politics in many western nations is not controlled from some central institute. In the case of identity politics (in the vernacular more often called "woke") the ideas are spread through academia from where they percolate into public life. These ideas are part of 'The Great Reset' [1] which is pushed by the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab's organisation. Mark Rutte [2] (the prime minister of the Netherlands) is Schwab's personal favourite prime minister, Justin Trudeau [3] is close to Schwab's organisation as well. That these two leaders now attempt to steer their countries in the same direction does not take much coordination other than their shared goal of implementing (parts of) the plans laid out before them.
Both countries are governed by WEF members and that's just a part of 2030 agenda. They want to bankrupt private farmers and then people like Bill Gates will buy up their farms for peanuts and they will be able to control the population through artificial food scarcity. You know the famous "you vil eet ze bugz" from the WEF mastermind.
I don't think it's that, as we aren't ruled by very competent people capable of such conspiracies.
It's just that the western ruling class lives in a bubble in which policies like this seem like a good idea. Their disdain for kulaks [1] probably contributes to their blindness to views outside the bubble.
I think you are over estimating how smart someone has to be to pull something like that off and under estimating how gullible majority of population is. WEF has been working on this behind the scenes for decades and only now we start to see the effects when all the Young Leaders become Prime Ministers and furnish their cabinets with their fellow WEF members set with the common mission, and now the "once in a lifetime opportunity to change the world" has appeared. Probably the fact that Klaus Schwab is old and wants to see the Grand Finale (or Great Reset if you will) before he goes also plays a part.
Other factor is that they themselves may not be competent, but they have money that can buy competent people to get their closer to their goals, however, stupid and destructive these may be.
Eh, just because the rulers are incompetent doesn't exclude the possibility that their actions are coordinated for larger goals... Even if those goals don't go 100% to plan.
Look it up. Trudou and the Netherlands leader are both WEF members and both acting in similar ways despite the obvious red flags of doing so.
I'm assuming you are referring to the WEF "Young Global Leaders".
If you look at the members and alumni for that [1], you'll find many politicians who oppose things like this. A relevant example would be Andrew Scheer, the former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who opposes even the carbon tax. [2]
The thing probably serves a function similar to "honorary" doctorates: it pads the resumes and boosts the egos of politicians, and extends the network of influential people who are friendly towards WEF.
> A relevant example would be Andrew Scheer, the former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who opposes even the carbon tax. [2]
I think it has more to do with being a controlled opposition than party affiliation. Here in the UK, Conservative government is dead set on implementing the agenda and they even defenestrated the current PM because he was not competent at delivering it and now the contest for a new PM is run by two WEF members.
It's interesting that the most popular candidate among the Conservative members - Kemi Badenoch was eliminated - the fact that she wasn't a WEF member was of course a coincidence.
Doesn't Canada already have a carbon tax? I thought the whole point of that approach was that it set a price for carbon across all segments of the economy, and then let the market figure out the most efficient way to function under that new constraint. Adding in bureaucratic micromanagement seems counterproductive, particularly amidst a global food crisis.
This is apparently not directed against carbon, but N2O, which is another greenhouse gas.
It's something I've heard preciously little about, and therefore I'm surprised that many countries suddenly are seeing this as an extremely urgent problem almost simultaneously.
Perhaps you’ve heard of smog? Clouds of which used to linger over Las Angeles and at some points even became concentrated enough to kill some sensitive folks?
It doesn’t consist of anything because of strict air quality standards started in the 60’s. N2O was in fact one of the constituents of smog, and while it might be one of the more fun ones, chemically/recreationally speaking, it’s not great for the atmosphere.
As expected, there is a significant fraction of the population that won’t change their behaviour no matter what situation presents itself. Hopefully, this can be managed by the rest of the population…. Otherwise, “gee, nobody said that would happen” or “why wasn’t this avoided/prevented” will be the cries. Call it head in the sand, or a lack of care about the future or other less nice descriptions but it’s there. People will just have to route around the damage or accept that it’s going to be bad.
Then how are we going to solve climate issue? I don't think there is magic wand that can fix it? What ever policy you introduce there will always be minority of people that are going to suffer. Change is inevitable. Even if they don't face yeild issue today, I think with the advent of climate change and water crisis they are going to face same trouble in future.
How about moving towards sustainable solution with slow changes.
Medical doctors have a maxim "primum non nocere" = "first, do no harm".
Don't assume that the farmers are the only ones hit and that they can be simply waved away as a minority that has to yield to progress. Destabilizing agriculture in food exporting countries is a potential threat to consumers of those calories worldwide.
Humanity consists of 8 billion people, most of them living in countries that are barely self-sufficient in terms of food production or not sufficient at all. Net exporters are an important player in fight against hunger. Canada itself feeds two other Canadas abroad.
If countries like Egypt or Iraq or Nigeria go off the rails because of food insecurity, there will be political instability much worse than during the War on Terror. Canada may be insulated from the consequences, Europe will definitely be not.
And here's a paper [1] corroborating that, at least for Canadian crop yields:
> Canola and wheat yields were projected to increase with global warming, while maize yield was simulated to increase or slightly decrease depending on the characteristics of the currently grown cultivar and differences among the crop models. It appears that future warming accompanied by increased CO2 concentration will remain beneficial to crop yields at the global warming level of 2.0 °C for Canada.
typical privileged western "humanist" demanding people die to save the climate. never a thought about second-order effects, only emotional appeals to boogeymen.
Maybe we could start with reducing emissions by the military, one of the absolute largest sources on earth? And after that maybe ban private jets and 100,000 sq ft mansions?
Probably the one that spends more on its military than the next six countries combined? The vast majority of which is dedicated to far-flung imperial projects benefitting only a tiny sliver of its populace?
It’s not the Sri Lanka “ban all fertilizer” approach, and North American farmers use far too much fertilizer anyway, but any mandated reduction in fertilizer use (directly or indirectly as in this case - the farmers aren’t the ones designing or creating fertilizer) needs to include mandatory production tracking to verify it hasn’t caused any significant reduction - although who knows how you fix that retroactively
At least the US founding fathers had the foresight to put in the emoluments clause:
"...no Person holding any Office...shall...accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
0: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/18/a-food-crisis-looms...