Spiked- The Dutch farmers’ revolt is far from over
Last week, the European Commission gave the Dutch government the go-ahead to start buying out farms in order to meet the EU’s climate targets.
Yes, It Is
https://twitter.com/QuickDickMcDick/status/1651051733714337793
Y2KYoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa
In the immortal words of John Maynard Keynes: In the long run, we’re all dead.
We are the expendables.
To the climate cultists, a few hundred million dead people is a step in the right direction. They know it's achievable, because they've done it before in the name of communism.
The war on agriculture is real, and it's just getting started. https://t.co/GCqoJoK6yv
— Katewerk (@katewerk) April 17, 2023
Showing Up To Riot
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government faced a no-confidence vote on Wednesday over plans to cut nitrogen emissions on farms, three weeks after being beaten in provincial elections by a farmers’ protest party opposed to such cuts.
Rutte’s centre-right coalition is expected to survive the vote as its four parties together hold a slim majority in the 150-seat parliament, but the opposition’s move underlines the government’s vulnerability following the elections. […]
In a big shock for the Netherlands’ political landscape, the farmers’ protest party BBB (BoerBurgerBeweging – Farmer Citizen Movement) emerged as the clear winner of the provincial elections on March 15. Those results determine the make-up of the Senate, the Dutch upper house of parliament.
“Community Foundations For Sustainable Sustainability”.
In March, the The Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy was granted 1.75M$ to train the yokels in governing sustainable municipalities!
Turns out, it wasn’t sustainable.
Y2Kyoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa
A helpful step-by-step demonstration thread on the practice of sustainable agriculture.
I Want A New Country
https://twitter.com/BushelsPerAcre/status/1640826844038721536
I’ll Eat The Still-Beating Hearts Of My Enemies Before I Eat Bugs
Hey, I’ve got a good one – let’s make them eat bugs!
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Stephen Thompson (letter to the editor) in Ontario Farmer: Farmland bubble likely to burst
At this time of year farmers become giddy when talking about what people are paying to buy farmland, especially in recent years when prices have skyrocketed.
Agriculture’s talking heads try to normalize the situation by claiming things are fine, even as the excesses become ever-increasingly wretched. Particularly cringe-worthy is the claim by some lenders that they don’t have a problem because their farm borrowers have oodles of equity.
Unfortunately, this type of claim ignores the reality that this isn’t earned equity, but speculative equity based on land prices that aren’t tethered in any meaningful way to any earnings component for that land.
Astute investors pay heed to two long-standing investment ‘Bibles’ as well as one relatively recent book and even a movie. The first is the 1841 book by Scottish author Charles Mackay -‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ the second is the 1949 book – ‘The Intelligent Investor’ by legendary Wall Street investor Benjamin Graham; the third, published initially in 2000, is ‘Irrational Exuberance’ by US economist Robert Shiller and the movie is ‘The Big Short’ released in late 2015.
The common thread of all four references is the emphasis on the danger of investing in something that has either no earnings potential or an earnings profile completely estranged from the market price of that asset, as is presently the case with farmland.
Another common denominator is the significance of the fear of missing out, also a large part of today’s farmland price scenario.
That we are in the midst of a farmland speculative bubble is not open for debate or even discussion. In addition to having thrown any sort of price/earnings multiple restraint out the window, we farmers fundamentally believe “this time it’s different” (it never is) and we believe the talking heads when we should be paying no attention to them at all. The result, in too many cases, is that farmland is being bought as a ‘trophy’ simply because we can.
The worst part about being on the other side of the psychological mania inherent in any investment bubble, as was well demonstrated in the Big Short, is that you can be wrong for years and be widely ridiculed for being wrong, but bubbles always eventually burst or deflate rapidly when least expected.
Via Ian Cummings
Honk, Honk…
https://twitter.com/berniespofforth/status/1632310744262885377
War On Ag
The better term is “magical thinking”: Childish Beliefs Drive Lethal Energy and Agricultural Agendas
They want oil and gas locked in the ground. “We don’t need petrochemical products, especially synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.” Or tractor tires, paint, windows, GPS/computer housings, and more.
Have these illiterati looked at their own clothing, food, homes, offices or world? Synthetic fabrics, cosmetics, cell phone and computer housings, pharmaceuticals, tapes and adhesives, protective gear, eyeglasses, car bodies, detergents, wind turbine nacelle covers and blades, medical devices, car bodies – practically everything around them and in their lives exists because of oil, gas and petrochemicals.
But we can just use biofuels to replace feed stocks for products we really need, they proclaim. Right.
“I’ve Done a Thing!”
Clarkson’s Farm- Season Two, Trailer
Zerohedge- Clarkson’s Farm: Another Front In The War On Food
While I’ve been a big fan of Jeremy Clarkson over the years, I’ve never been proud of him before. Hero worship and celebrity go hand in hand and it’s a dangerous game to ascribe motives beyond self-interest to any celebrity.
But in Clarkson’s case he may have just done something worthy of that.
h/t Scott
War On Agriculture
Agriculture and Agri-food Canada scientists have historically spent their time on things like improving yields, fighting crop diseases and increasing livestock feed efficiency — mostly agriculture production and risks to production.
Now, their top priorities should be sustainable agriculture and climate change, says the department’s Strategic Plan for Science, a document released last fall.[…]
A spokesperson for Canada’s agriculture minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said the change in the science strategy came from department leaders at AAFC, including Gilles Saindon, assistant deputy minister for the science and technology branch.
In an interview, Saindon said the shift in priorities was based on the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a five-year funding agreement between federal and provincial governments that came together last summer and takes effect April 1.
AAFC didn’t consult directly with farm groups or agriculture sector leaders before changing its scientific priorities.
There’s a reason for that.
I Want A New Country
WATCH: Canada's Chief Science Advisor was NEVER ASKED to evaluate if the 30% fertilizer emission reduction target would harm food production.
If the Liberals aren't consulting their own scientists, who is coming up with these arbitrary climate targets?
(Clip sped up for time) pic.twitter.com/OqOKq7SCEs
— Cosmin Dzsurdzsa (@cosminDZS) February 13, 2023
War On Agriculture
The most blatant example is European farm policy mandating less fertilizer, fewer crop protection products and more organic production. The measures are particularly severe in the Netherlands where agriculture is in a downward spiral with thousands of farms being expropriated.
The Canadian issue sparking the most controversy is the 30 percent reduction target for fertilizer emissions. Although the government continues to maintain this will never mean a mandated reduction in fertilizer use, some farmers and farm groups are skeptical. The government used to promise that firearms would never be confiscated and look how that has evolved.
Less obvious to the average producer is the switch in emphasis on government funding for research. Increasingly, research money is tied to projects tied to climate change mitigation.
In the near future, farms with net sales of more than $1 million per year will have to complete an environmental farm plan to receive AgriInvest support. This isn’t totally unreasonable, but it seems like the thin edge of the wedge with climate change considered by the woke culture to be an emergency that requires all sorts of drastic action.
Related: Farmers say they are still struggling. Restaurants say price increases are pushing them to closure. Critics say supermarket prices are artificially inflated without international competition. Politicians, leery of offending voters, don’t say much at all.
Also: Edinburgh “bans meat” from schools, hospitals and nursing homes.
War On Agriculture
TNC Exclusive: Documents reveal feds considered carbon tax-like rule for farm fertilizers
The federal Liberal government has considered forcing a carbon tax-like “regulatory backstop” onto farmers should voluntary agreements to reduce fertilizer emissions not meet Ottawa’s arbitrary standards – and it could see crop production across the country drastically decline.
The Liberals have been pulling out all the stops in recent months as part of their ongoing efforts to reduce emissions in the name of fighting climate change. Carbon taxes, plastic bag bans and electric vehicle sales rules are just some of their initiatives, but they’ve also set their sights on emissions from fertilizer use by farmers.
The feds maintain that fertilizer targets will remain voluntary and be based on individually-crafted agreements with farmers and industry leaders. However, a Jul. 16, 2021, discussion paper acquired by True North from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada via an access to information request shows the government floating a federal backstop as a “policy option” should all else fail.
“A number of policy measures could be put forward for consideration beyond just a ‘voluntary agreement’,” wrote Agriculture Canada officials. “A suite of policy approaches will be necessary, and consideration to be given to a regulatory backstop should voluntary approaches not be successful.”
True North received a document dump from the federal government that covered the inception of the program in 2020 through 2021. Agriculture Canada officials are currently processing another request pertaining to the program’s developments in 2022.
War On Meat
Retreat turns to rout: Sales have already dropped 24% compared to 2022. In the 2nd week of 2022 the decline was 29%
Down The Primrose Path
With today's anno that tariff revenue collected from Canadian farmers (among others) is being sent to Ukraine to rebuild infrastructure, seems like a good time to RT this. Canada is the only G7 country to put tariffs on fertilizer, driving up food costs.https://t.co/EJ41fIsGeN
— Janyce McGregor (@janycemcgregor) December 14, 2022
I’m sure some of that will be coming back.
Good Answer
Federal government employees who enter private land without the owner’s consent face fines of up to $200,000 under an amendment to Saskatchewan’s anti-trespassing law.
“This formalizes and reinforces the change to trespass regulations, made earlier this year, that requires federal employees to comply with the Act, which prohibits individuals from entering private land without the owner’s consent,” Justice Minister Bronwyn Eyre said in a news release about the Trespass to Property Amendment Act, 2022.
The legislation comes in response to a complaint the province received in August from a person claiming federal employees taking water samples near Pense, Sask., had trespassed on their land.
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