European farm rules sowing the seeds of famine
Forced fertiliser and pesticide cuts will ruin how the world is being fed
Anthony Albanese should remember that, as fascinating as Spanish princesses and the jet sets are, he is the Prime Minister of Australia and not a European country.
The danger is the European influence on him as they force farmers to stop livestock emissions, pesticides and fertiliser in the jihad against the weather.
From 2023, the European Union will allocate 25 per cent of its direct agriculture payment budget to “ecopayments” for carbon and organic farmers.
They do this as the world experiences historic starvation levels, caused in large part by Ukrainian farmers unable to sow in shellfire and their wheat blocked on boats in the Black Sea.
We beat massive starvation across the world, especially in India, during the true green revolution of the 1940s and 1950s because of fertiliser and pesticides.
You buy organic vegetables and pesticide-free fruits at a premium price because we grow less of them using the same amount of land.
Reduction of supply increases the price, a little bit like power, as
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen is learning in his 101 live economics class as he back-pedals from his $275 cheaper electricity bill election promise.
The nationwide experiment to cut nitrogen oxide and ammonia by 50 per cent by 2030 in the Netherlands led to 40,000 farmers protesting this week for the right to keep feeding people.
Europe’s farming policy backfired as quickly as its renewables policy turned it back to coal.
The EU this week installed a “temporary derogation” to bring fallow land into production as a result of the global crisis.
They need new land for food and more coal for power – the Glasgow pact is going so well.
Even so, the G7 committed to addressing fertiliser shortages by “temporarily increasing local and global production as appropriate” and “promoting alternatives to inorganic fertiliser”.
Academics and rent-seekers in Australia are ramping up pressure on politicians to pay farmers for “eco-payments” to plant native grasses and shrubs.
Why would we take what we are good at – a $65bn agricultural export for 2022-23, and total production to top $80bn for the second year running – and ruin it?
More than half of our food is grown with mineral fertilisers, and Australians have shown little interest in competing with wallabies and eating shrubs off the side of the road.
This is not a decision to support climate change or not; it’s a question of chemistry and physics in agronomy.
If you take the same quantity of land, and reduce the input, do not expect the output to increase.
To want the same amount of food without fertiliser, pesticides or the ability to clear any land to do it, is relying on faith rather than science.
So far Gold Coast-based Agriculture Minister Murray Watt has put out one press release about spending one day on farms in Central Queensland, but he should recognise
Sydney’s climate change demonstrations this week were nothing compared with what you will get if people cannot afford food.
You can worry about climate change killing people in the future or global starvation now – when nearly 10 per cent are not eating enough, and hundreds of millions are starving to death.
Saying you don’t need fertiliser and pesticides on crops is like saying we should go organic in medicine – no more drugs, anaesthetic or X-rays.
Let’s go organic in travel, and walk to work and save our holidays for when we have solar planes.
We are already following Europe on power, even though there’s no city on the planet powered solely by renewables and batteries, despite 30 years of investments and taxpayer subsidies.
Still, Parliamentary Budget Office costings show Mr Albanese, in his bid to follow Europe’s quest to turn the country into an affluent zeroemission nirvana, is set to spend $388m subsidising electric cars and $15.9m on new EVS for the Commonwealth fleet.
The European dream comes unstuck around food, energy and mining, where the PWC warned this week that supply and price of battery metals, not subsidies, would have the most significant impact on whether EVS will reach cost parity with, or replace, traditional internalcombustion vehicles.
The same report admitted that the shift to net zero will require more mining, not less with the materialintensive choices of solar and wind power, and electric vehicles.
Building a solar farm requires three times more mineral resources than a coal plant that produces the same amount of power.
Constructing a wind farm needs 13 times as much as a gas-fired plant that produces the same amount.
Like his mentor, former PM Kevin Rudd, Mr Albanese has shown little concern about his own jet emissions as he flies around the world, courting European royalty.
Let’s hope his republican ethos comes to the fore instead of getting sucked into the Euro-clique, and he sticks with defence and stays away from agriculture.