Waging War on Modern Agriculture and Global Nutrition

Demands for organic or subsistence farming worldwide would devastate nature and nutrition

Paul Driessen

The World Economic Forum says the world faces a new crisis, “One-third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from food production.” With the world’s population expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050, it is therefore “urgent” that we launch a “radical” and “comprehensive” transformation of the global food system – from “reinventing” farming to “reimagining” how food is produced, processed, distributed, consumed and disposed of.

Reinforcing this message, Stop Ecocide Now founder Jojo Mehta expanded on Greta Thunberg’s incendiary 2020 rant that “our house is on fire and you’re fueling the flames.” Farming is a “serious crime,” equal to “genocide,” Ms. Mehta told elites at the 2024 WEF meeting in Davos.

Their grasp of agriculture is epitomized by Michael Bloomberg’s suggestion that anybody can be a farmer: “You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, you add water, up comes the corn.”

Modern farming and its supposedly dangerous greenhouse gas emissions are a tad more complicated.

Modern mechanized farming employs oil derivatives as fuel for equipment and feed stocks for herbicides and pesticides, natural gas to dry grain and make fertilizers, and livestock to provide protein.

Tractors, trucks, farmers and livestock emit carbon dioxide, adding to the 0.04% of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere (equivalent to $40 of $100,000). Cattle emissions add methane to the existing 0.0002% CH4 in the atmosphere (20¢ of $100,000). Nitrogen fertilizers add to the “dramatic” 200-year rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O), bringing it to a still minuscule 0.00003% (that’s 3¢ of $100,000).

These emissions allegedly drive “cataclysmic” climate change and extreme weather, endangering all life on Earth. But then what caused five Ice Ages (including the Pleistocene Era and its mile-high glaciers, which ended 12,000 years ago), the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, and the Little Ice Age (1350-1850) to come and go?

Of course, natural forces can’t drive climate hysteria and WEF-Gore-Biden anti-fossil-fuel agendas. Fear-mongering political, activist, media and academic elites therefore ignore them.

In the Real World, the wondrous reality is that, after centuries of excruciatingly slow progress, agricultural advances over the past 75 years have been nothing short of astonishing. Dr. Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution employed plant breeding techniques that multiplied yields of vital grain crops, saving hundreds of millions of lives.

Since 1950, American farmers increased per-acre corn yields by an incredible 500% and other crop yields by smaller but still amazing amounts – while using used less land, water and fuel … and fewer fertilizers and pesticides per ton of produce. Their exports helped slash global hunger and malnutrition even further.

Meanwhile, despite supposed impacts from manmade climate change, farmers in Brazil, India and many other countries have also enjoyed record harvests.

Multiple miracle technologies contributed. Hybrid seeds combine valuable traits from different related plants. Biotechseeds protect crops against voracious insects and destructive viruses, while reducing water and pesticide demand. Virus-resistant biotech cultivars have even replaced endangered papayas in Hawaii, cassava and bananas in Africa, and other crops.

Nitrogen (ammonia) fertilizers, synthesized from natural gas and atmospheric nitrogen, have joined phosphorus and potassium in supercharging soils. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide spurs plant growth and reduces water demand even further.

Long-lasting herbicides control weeds that would otherwise steal moisture and nutrients from crops – and enable farmers to utilize no-till farming that avoids breaking up soils, reduces erosion, retains soil moisture and preserves vital soil organisms.

Technologies developed in Israel make it possible to grow an amazing array of crops in the Negev and Arava Deserts, which receive a fraction of the annual rainfall that Arizona gets. Desalination plants turn seawater into 80% of Israel’s drinking water, dramatically reducing pressure on the Sea of Galilee, manmade reservoirs and groundwater supplies.

Israelis then recycle 90% of their home, business, school and hospital water – for use in agriculture, where drip irrigation delivers precise amounts of water precisely where crops and other plants need it, minimizing evaporation.

Huge high-tech tractors use GPS systems, sensors and other equipment to steer precise courses across fields, while constantly measuring soil composition, and injecting just the right kinds and amounts of fertilizers and herbicides, along with seeds, to ensure optimal harvests.

Not all these technologies are available across the globe. However, farmer can access information about both the technologies and the modern practices through online libraries and programs on cell phones.

Instead, this progress is under assault – by ill-advised or illintended, but well-funded organizations that want to turn the Green Revolution into Green Tyranny, Eco-Imperialism and global malnutrition.

Their hatred of biotech crops is intense and well-documented. But many also despise hybrid seeds. They want modern herbicides and insecticides banned, in favor of “natural” alternatives – which are often toxic to bees, fish, other animals and people and have not been tested for long-term harm to humans.

These agricultural anarchists also demand “natural” fertilizers, which typically provide a fraction of the nutrients that modern synthetic fertilizers do. At the very least, they want global organic farming, which would mean much lower crop yields per acre than conventional farming, and plowing many millions of additional acres of wildlife habitat and scenic land, to get the same amounts of food.

They say people in Africa, Asia and Latin America should practice subsistence farming – which they prefer to call “traditional” farming, Agro-Ecology, “food sovereignty,” or the “right to choose” “culturally appropriate” food produced through “ecologically sound and sustainable methods,” based on “indigenous agricultural knowledge and practices.”

In plain English, Agro-Ecology is rabidly opposed to biotechnology, monoculture farming, non-organic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and even mechanized equipment and hybrid seeds.

You can imagine how Agro-Ecologists would react if African farmers wanted to assert their food sovereignty, self-determination and right to choose by planting biotech Bt corn, to get higher yields, reduce pesticide use, enjoy better living standards and send their kids to school. The agro-anarchists would vilify them as vile supporters of violence against women, land-grabbing corporations, mass expropriation of indigenous rights, genocide and other “crimes against humanity.”

They also promote “alternative protein.” They say Africa would be “the perfect laboratory” for testing new foods – such as “crackers, muffins, meat loaves and sausages” made from lake flies. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Popular Science magazine and many other outfits extol the virtues of “entomophagy” – the clever progressive term for eating bug burgers, instead of hamburgers.

They even offer recipes and techniques for processing “edible insects” into tasty, nutritious products that can improve diets and livelihoods, create thriving local businesses, and even promote inclusion of women. In fact, they say, bugs can have twice as much protein per pound as beef; grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, beetles, ants and cicadas make great snacks, desserts, guacamole and even entire meals; and mealworms have “an earthy flavor, similar to mushrooms,” making them excellent additions to brownies. Sautéed with a little salt, mealworms also make “protein-boosted potato chips.” Yummy!

Who are these guys – these agriculture and nutrition anarchists and revolutionaries? Stay tuned.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.

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atticman
July 20, 2024 2:17 am

They can “re-imagine” all they like about food production but certain laws of nature are immutable.

Reply to  atticman
July 20, 2024 4:28 am

I think the WEF needs to be reimagined.

I can imagine them no longer existing to plague us.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
July 20, 2024 5:14 am

I can imagine then going round and round in a toilet bowl as they follow the rest of the marxist and AGW **** around the S-bend.

Reply to  bnice2000
July 20, 2024 12:13 pm

The capitalists are hoping to make $US trillions in profits from the $200 trillion in spending Bloomberg estimates it will cost to stop warming by 2050. Investors want $275 trillion spent.

Bloomberg’s green energy research team estimates $US200 trillion to stop warming by 2050.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain

Bloomberg investors want $275 trillion spent.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-21/investors-call-for-policy-unleashing-275-trillion-for-net-zero

Reply to  scvblwxq
July 20, 2024 1:22 pm

Let Bloomberg spend every red cent of his own money first !

When he is out there in the fields doing his own subsistence farming, I might believe he means it.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
July 20, 2024 6:40 pm

I hope they invest themselves all-in in the Depraved New World before subsidies are chopped off a short time after November 4th, 2024. Bill Gates bought most of US farmland. I trust Trump will levy a heavy tax on farmland that isn’t producing! Bill can raise maggotburgers or tuft the land with unsubsidized windmills if he likes, but I would recommend beef as the best use of the land.

Scissor
Reply to  atticman
July 20, 2024 6:11 am

Tobasco can make styroform spicy but it’s still chewy and hard to swallow.

July 20, 2024 2:30 am

Who are these guys – these agriculture and nutrition anarchists and revolutionaries? 

They’re nobody, irrelevant.

Writing Observer
Reply to  SteveG
July 20, 2024 7:30 am

No, they are people with money. Money to buy political leaders. Money to fund violent and destructive protests. Money to eliminate educated populaces, through internal subversion and invasion by the uneducated.

All in the service of one thing – POWER!

Reply to  Writing Observer
July 20, 2024 5:15 pm

You give the elites too much credit.

Reply to  Writing Observer
July 20, 2024 6:55 pm

I smell a change in the wind, don’t you?. Trump was hit buy a bullet but it was Hyped-up Joe and the Democrats that were felled by the assassin. Karma is a bitch as they say.

leefor
July 20, 2024 2:34 am

I hope those bugs don’t live in cages. /sarc

strativarius
Reply to  leefor
July 20, 2024 4:24 am

Beehives aren’t just hairdos!

Ex-KaliforniaKook
Reply to  leefor
July 20, 2024 10:12 am

I just wonder how they clean those little buggers before putting them into the pot.

Reply to  Ex-KaliforniaKook
July 20, 2024 1:23 pm

Blender. !

Ed Zuiderwijk
July 20, 2024 2:42 am

The more I read the nonsense this Bloomberg guy spouts the more I am inclined to think that Pol Pot may have been somewhat right when he sent the city dwellers to the countryside to dig and be re-educated.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
July 20, 2024 8:22 am

And killed all the academics and people who wore glasses because they looked like academics to oppress political dissent.

lumariani
July 20, 2024 3:07 am

Dear dr Driessen,
Thank you for writing this article whose contents I fully agree with. I’ll just try to add some quantitative elements to encourage readers’ reflection.
Agriculture emits about 10 GT of CO2 every year but at the same time absorbs about 50 GT of CO2 through photosynthesis. Therefore the emissions are the unavoidable catabolic fraction of a process dominated by photosynthetic absorption. However photospynthetic absorption is not considered for political reasons, which in my opinion is a huge mistake because it gives the wrong idea of agriculture as great emitter of GHG when in reality it is the only economic sector capable of absorbing large quantities of CO2 (absorption which should be promoted).
I begin my course of history of agriculture by giving the 3 following definitions of agriculture:
– system for the production of food and consumable goods founded on crops and domestic animals
– advanced management of the carbon cycle in its organicization and combustion phases
– symbiosis between man on the one hand and plants and domestic animals on the other, where the symbionts are totally dependent on each other.
I also remember that organic agriculture rejects for ideological reasons the use of synthetic fertilizers and it is based solely on organic fertilizers deriving from animal excrement. By consequence without animal husbandry there could be no organic farming.
In my view organic farming is an acceptable form of agriculture for the individual producer if he can provide him with an income. However, countries, international authorities or organizations like the World Economic Forum should take the problem of promoting this agriculture much more seriously. This is because:
– Organic farming emits less CO2 per unit of surface area but much more CO2 per ton of product.
– The yield per hectare of organic farming is on average 30-50% compared to conventional agriculture. (e.g.: official yields of soft wheat in France – the largest European producer – are 7,1 t/ha for conventional and 29.0 t/ha for organic). So it is impossible to guarantee world food security if we adopt organic farming.
Nonetheless, with the policy of “farm to fork” the European Union has decided to increase the organic farming areas from the current 9% to 30%, which among other things will cause the felling of forests in non-European countries which will be called upon to cover the decline in European production (it is a form of green washing), increase in prices for the European consumers and at the same time increase in prices on world markets with negative effects on developing countries.

Dr. Bob
Reply to  lumariani
July 20, 2024 6:33 am

When your goal is to depopulate the world, attacking the food source is the obvious first target. These people claiming to want to protect the planet by whatever means they choose really want to destroy society and are going after all the primary energy sources modern society needs, Food, Water, and Energy. Thus, the push to use “sustainable” agricultural practices, tear down dams, and go to unreliable and hardly sustainable wind and solar power. None of these causes will “save the planet”, but they will destroy society.

Reply to  Dr. Bob
July 20, 2024 10:13 am

Is it any wonder, then, that Bill Gates is buying up farmland?

Kevin Kilty
Reply to  lumariani
July 20, 2024 6:58 am

 are 7,1 t/ha for conventional and 29.0 t/ha for organic “

Did you accidentally reverse these two categories? Great comment otherwise.

Writing Observer
Reply to  Kevin Kilty
July 20, 2024 7:34 am

Looks more like a comma typo. 71 tons vs. 29 tons.

John Hultquist
Reply to  Kevin Kilty
July 20, 2024 9:11 am

 Let’s try 7.1 t/ha and 2.9 t/ha

John Hultquist
Reply to  John Hultquist
July 20, 2024 9:12 am
lumariani
Reply to  Kevin Kilty
July 20, 2024 12:21 pm

Sorry: yieldd for organic wheat in France is 2.9 t/ha!

Reply to  lumariani
July 20, 2024 8:59 pm

If I can add one tiny bit to the education – a potato is 78.3% water and 18% starches and sugars which are carbohydrates. Ok, that’s 96% of the whole spud.Non-digestible carbohydrates–or fiber, make-up 0.2% (but this is still carbohydrate, right?). Proteins weigh in at 2.2% of the potato. Proteins are largely carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, suspiciously like carbohydrates. They differ because of molecular arrangement and the presence of a few Nitrogen atoms each tied to 3 hydrogens in the composition. O.1% are fats, which are composed of …dang, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen again. And, hey! Even the 78.3% water is hydrogen and oxygen. Rearranging …the potato is almost 99% C,H,O including a fraction of a percent N! The remaining 1% is minerals, and vitamins.

Quiz: the organic potato is made of the same stuff, why should one pay 20% more for it?

strativarius
July 20, 2024 3:17 am

Never mind the extra biomass from,er, added CO2 and never mind the increased water efficiency

You must believe in the bad and blank the good – entirely

Reply to  strativarius
July 20, 2024 4:35 am

 Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide spurs plant growth and reduces water demand even further.
______________________________________________________________

That increased CO2 increases plant growth is reasonably easy to understand, but the notion that there’s an additional increase in water efficiency is less obvious. This point needs to be hammered home in any discussion of the benefits of CO2 emissions.

Those two web sites from NOAA and NASA that document the greening of the planet don’t mention the water efficiency concept.

After a re-read of the NASA page to verify that the water efficiency concept is missing, this pops up:

     “Studies have shown that plants acclimatize,
     or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration
     and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”

Looks like an unsubstantiated assertion to me.

strativarius
Reply to  Steve Case
July 20, 2024 4:39 am

An August organisation such as NASA must have thought hard and long about how it could make the phenomenon appear bogus. Fail.

Reply to  Steve Case
July 20, 2024 5:03 am

Looks like many of the assertions made by CO2 warmists here on WUWT. Lots of assurances they know the answers to all questions so it is not necessary to provide any supporting documentation.

Reply to  Steve Case
July 20, 2024 10:15 am

But “studies have shown”, so it must be correct.

Ex-KaliforniaKook
Reply to  Steve Case
July 20, 2024 10:41 am

Two thoughts cross my mind.
1) If the fertilization effect diminishes over time, then greenhouses that increase CO2 concentration are wasting their money. I doubt they would do that.
2) If the effect diminishes over time, then the greening of the planet should not be so obvious. After all, if the effect diminishes, why should those plants stay alive and continue to spread?

I’m with you – “an unsubstantiated assertion”. Show me the studies!

old cocky
Reply to  Ex-KaliforniaKook
July 20, 2024 2:28 pm

It seems more like an extremely misleading way of describing diminishing returns.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Steve Case
July 22, 2024 8:11 am

I thought NASA was about space and NOAA about weather, not farming.

July 20, 2024 4:08 am

Population reduction has always been the goal of the extreme eco-mentalists.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Redge
July 22, 2024 8:12 am

Some even publicly admitted to it.

July 20, 2024 4:27 am

From the article: “The World Economic Forum says the world faces a new crisis, “One-third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from food production.” With the world’s population expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050, it is therefore “urgent” that we launch a “radical” and “comprehensive” transformation of the global food system – from “reinventing” farming to “reimagining” how food is produced, processed, distributed, consumed and disposed of.”

Why don’t you figure out if CO2 is a problem before trying to turn the world upside down?

The WEF can’t even prove CO2 is causing any discernable warmth, but they have lots of solutions if it is and their “solutions” are all detrimental to human society.

First things first. Determine if CO2 needs to be curtailed first. And no, this has not been done as of today. Speculation, assumptions and unsubstantiated assertions are not determinants of anything.

There is no evidence CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth.

Leave the farmers alone!

Reply to  Tom Abbott
July 20, 2024 4:52 am

WEF We’ll Eviscerate Farmers.
And reduce the population over night.

Tom Halla
July 20, 2024 4:52 am

Reminding people the NSDAP was enthusiastic about “biodynamic agriculture”, later known as organic farming is needed. Heinrich Himmler was a particular fan. The Third Reich grew out of the same rejection of real science.

strativarius
Reply to  Tom Halla
July 20, 2024 5:11 am

Roger Hallam was an organic farmer

Reply to  strativarius
July 20, 2024 8:18 am

Failed organic farmer.

Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
July 20, 2024 1:26 pm

Failed organic farmer.

That is the only type of organic farmer I have ever met.

old cocky
Reply to  bnice2000
July 20, 2024 3:04 pm

Some forms of organic farming can be successful with the correct soil types, provided the price premium is sufficient to offset the lower yield.

Rotating wheat and chick peas keeps nitrogen levels where they need to be for the wheat, and the chick peas improve the soil structure as well.

Trying to Play Nice
Reply to  Tom Halla
July 20, 2024 5:13 am

Do you think all the old Nazis just disappeared? They hid in plain sight and pushed their views with new names. The next generation didn’t know they were continuing the Nazi plan.

Tom Halla
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
July 20, 2024 5:50 am

The sort of grenzwirtschaft, border science, that gave rise to that party are still active. Ariosophy is as much fringe as Afrocentrism or Critical Theory.

July 20, 2024 5:33 am

In fact, they say, bugs can have twice as much protein per pound as beef; grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, beetles, ants and cicadas make great snacks, desserts,

I am reminded of a scene from the television show Yellowstone where John Dutton, a cattle rancher played by Kevin Costner, confronts some animal rights folks. I’ll have to paraphrase, but he tells them, “have you ever plowed a furrow, planted seeds, and harvested the quinoa or sorghum that you eat? You kill every mole, vole, worm, quail, and other animal that survives from your crop. The only difference is how handsome something must be for you to protest.”

Have these folks ever thought about what grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, etc. eat to make the protein they provide? These insects can’t just suck food out of the air. There will need to be crops grown to feed the numbers of insects needed to replace animal farming.

Have they ever studied what chemicals, like fats and enzymes, etc., other than pure protein that cattle, sheep, and goats provide to proper nutrition that bugs do not?

Have they thought about why killing bugs to eat them is any more moral than killing meat animals? Are mealworms killed before they are Sautéed? Or are they just tossed into a skillet while alive?

How many of these insects can survive in the climates that cattle, sheep, goats, etc. grow and are farmed in? Why isn’t the earth overrun with every one of these insects in every latitude?

It just seems some of the people who have never planted or grown anything have grand ideas that are simply utopian and academic thought problems. They have gardeners to do all the work around their residences and buildings so they never have to learn farming and husbandry. I once looked up the numbers of farmers in the U.S. per year since 1950. It is an exponential decreasing curve to present. It showed why so many people think food comes from the back of the grocery store! Is it any wonder so many children don’t know where babies come from and why abortions are so prevalent?

Boff Doff
July 20, 2024 5:57 am

The assault on modern high productivity agriculture is a mirror of the assault on energy production. When starvation arrives and the lights go out the cause will be human caused climate change which will require more control, more tax and more misery.

Mr Ed
July 20, 2024 6:13 am

Just look at the photo attached to this piece. The crop being combined has virtually no straw.
Just 40ish yrs ago a photo of a grain crop being combined would be several times higher than
the one in this photo. I’ve been involved with farming/ranching my entire life and the
changes/improvements are amazing. If we returned to the earlier technology lets
just say there would not be any of the overweight we see these days..The 1st thing a dryland
farmer in my area does when he gets in his tractor is put a memory stick in and the last thing
he does on shutdown is remove it. The “smart” farming increases the yield by 25ish%. Bloomberg is clueless. Don’t tell us about it go out and show us…

John Hultquist
Reply to  Mr Ed
July 20, 2024 9:32 am

Where does the memory stick go on this rig?
maxresdefault.jpg (1280×720) (ytimg.com)

Mr Ed
Reply to  John Hultquist
July 20, 2024 1:20 pm

It’s built in to the propulsion system from what I remember hearing
from Chet Atkins and the Honky Tonk Badonkadonk

John Hultquist
Reply to  Mr Ed
July 20, 2024 4:29 pm

 Trace Adkins

Ronald Stein
July 20, 2024 6:28 am

Regarding: Greta Thunberg’s incendiary 2020 rant that “our house is on fire and you’re fueling the flames.”, all she has to do to promote ridding the world of oil, is to start promoting humanity to STOP demanding the products and fuels from Oil !!! 

Ronald Stein
July 20, 2024 6:55 am

Greta Thunberg is oblivious to the facts that:

“Big Oil” only exists because of humanity’s addiction to the products and fuels made from fossil fuels!
“Renewables” only exist to generate occasional electricity, as they CANNOT make any products or fuels!
 
Petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil are the basis of “products”:

  • Products in manufacturing wind turbine blades, solar panels, vehicles, and everything that “needs” electricity.
  • Products widely used in healthcare within pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and plastic medical supplies.
  • Products for construction materials to décor and kitchen necessities.
  • Products of tires and asphalt used in transportation infrastructures.
  • Fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of commercial jets moving people and products, and the merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military and space programs.

 
No need to over-regulate the “suppliers of fossil fuels” when there are no replacements to meet the “demands” of our materialistic world. It’s becoming obvious that climate policies are the real existential threat to billions across our planet.
 
To reiterate, to rid the world of oil usage, simplistically STOP using the products made from oil ! 
 
If GRETA wants to promote ridding the world of oil, start promoting humanity to STOP demanding the products and fuels from Oil !!! 

strativarius
Reply to  Ronald Stein
July 20, 2024 9:29 am

Greta is just one in billions.

But one with wealth and a very comfortable – holier than thou, of course – lifestyle.

Carbon-carbon sailing. Not many enjoy it.

StephenP
July 20, 2024 7:23 am

One of the first things we were taught at university (1964) about carbon compounds in the soil was that carbon was sequestrated under grassland and released by oxidation when the soil was cultivated by ploughing to grow crops.
The present demonisation of meat production seems to be based on the growing of crops to feed cattle whereas grass based systems give the opportunity to increase the carbon retention in the soil. Much of the land in the world is unsuitable for cultivation due to climatic or relief problems
The oxidation of organic matter in the soil after cultivation also released a large spike of nitrogen which happens at a stage where the.growing crop is too small to utilise it, resulting in leaching into ground water and watercourses.
The cultivation of the prairies after the extermination of 60 million buffalo made use of the build up of fertility over 1000s of years which eventually ran out in the dust bowl era.
The present encouragement of vegetarian and vegan diets would also be responsible for the cultivation of soils with the resultant losses of C and N.
The revolution in agricultural methods which improved productivity by the introduction of rotational systems which. Included the use of livestock that made use of the production from the fertility building part of the rotation as well as provided manure.
As someone has stated above, the people who push the agendas, whether of farming or energy use, should be made to get their hands dirty and see the realities of what they are proving for the plebs.
I see Roger Hallam of JSO was supposedly an organic farmer. Can anyone comment on whether he is still one or how successful he was?

Dave Andrews
Reply to  StephenP
July 20, 2024 8:52 am

He failed and before being sent to prison recently lived in London.

strativarius
Reply to  StephenP
July 20, 2024 9:10 am

“I see Roger Hallam of JSO was supposedly an organic farmer. Can anyone comment on whether he is still one or how successful he was?”

He didn’t have green fingers. I wish I could paint. But I will admit I cannot. Roger blamed climate for his failings on his 10 acre farm. Even though he was only in business for a very short while.

Let’s ignore the fact that he is a certifiable lunatic. Actually, let’s not…

“”Hallam has said that Keir Starmer will be hanged for ‘genocide’ in the near future, because of his apparently insufficiently alarmist response to climate change.””
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/12/why-is-roger-hallam-talking-about-keir-starmer-being-hanged/

Bonkers beyond redemption.

John Hultquist
Reply to  StephenP
July 20, 2024 9:30 am

From Wikipedia: “ He was previously an organic farmer on a 10-acre (4-hectare) smallholding near Llandeilo in South Wales; he attributes the destruction of his business to a series of extreme weather events.”
Seems to never have had a successful career that paid the bills.

old cocky
Reply to  StephenP
July 20, 2024 2:36 pm

The present demonisation of meat production seems to be based on the growing of crops to feed cattle whereas grass based systems give the opportunity to increase the carbon retention in the soil.

There appears to be a widespread misconception that all beef cattle are lot fed for their entire lives.

Tom Packer
July 20, 2024 7:32 am

Excellent article. Here is a recent revealing look at one state’s (North Carolina) climate office and climate history, its farmers and ranchers, and what regulators may have in store: https://medium.com/@tpacker25/north-carolina-agriculture-and-climate-regulations-7fb51e350c78

rtj1211
July 20, 2024 8:00 am

The very best ‘organic’/’subsistence’ farming aka market gardening has a quite astonishing productivity per square metre, but there’s a natural limit to the acreage that any individual can farm in that way. The very best manage heading up toward 200 tonnes/hectare.

There’s a place for both, but there’s a false binary involved as usual: ‘industrial agriculture is a crime vs ‘subsistence farming leads to starvation’.

Neither is true…

Reply to  rtj1211
July 20, 2024 5:40 pm

There is some loss (at least on a human lifetime scale) to the deep oceans, temporarily in the construction of the bodies of humans and their pets, and perhaps to chemical processes that go on all the time (e.g. producing sedimentary rock), but these loses are relatively small. The great majority of all substances that go into growing crops remain to be recycled through the soil, into the next planting. With more than 4 billions human metabolizing every day, a large percentage of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as the minor minerals, are going to waste when they could be composted, then used to enrich and nourish the soil and the crops grown thereon, greatly reducing the need for “chemical” fertilizers, without reducing yields.

spetzer86
July 20, 2024 8:52 am

And even with all the high-tech tractors, chemicals and improved seed stock. It still has to rain enough (but not too much at any one time or too often). The sun has to shine and heat the earth (but not too much). The high energy storms and hail need to stay away. And the frost and snow have to hold off in the Fall until the harvest is in. There’s a lot of hope and luck in farming. Cutting production to just what you need is an excellent strategy to see how you’re crowd control measures stack up as the people are starving.

John Hultquist
July 20, 2024 9:34 am

 The folks wanting to remake agriculture likely wouldn’t know the difference between a corn field and a wheat field if you dropped them in the middle.
Now for a real challenge: Vitis vinifera, Vitis labrusca, and Vitis rotundifolia

strativarius
Reply to  John Hultquist
July 20, 2024 10:04 am

I think the real challenge will be getting the musselmani to accept wine at all. Good luck.

July 20, 2024 10:24 am

Soylent Green

July 20, 2024 12:05 pm

With the world’s population expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050, it is therefore “urgent” that we launch a “radical” and “comprehensive” transformation of the global food system

If we already expect the increase of population from 7 billion to 10 billion by 2050, a 43% increase in 25 years, wouldn’t we already have needed to launch radical and comprehensive transformation of the global food system to get to that point?

Starvation is a funny thing. In a couple of months everyone is dead and there is no need to re-imagine anything. It’s a self correcting process.

July 20, 2024 12:06 pm

It is the UN, with the loudest voice on the planet, and their IPCC that are pushing the so-called “climate change” rhetoric with press releases of doom-and-gloom due to CO2.

The Western nations that fund a major part of their expenses are following their lead.

Western countries like the US and UK should build their own models instead of trusting the IPCC whose models are built to show human causation by UN mandate.

Reply to  scvblwxq
July 20, 2024 5:30 pm

Financed by the politicians that are already completely sold on the current narrative.

Edward Katz
July 20, 2024 2:32 pm

These guys are proponents of anything that supposedly can be done without fossil fuels regardless of whether it will have any effect on the climate or not. And if these practices result in lower agricultural output and increasing food shortages, that’s OK too because a declining population will help save the planet, won’t it?

July 20, 2024 6:17 pm

The trouble with a lot of sceptic critics of the totalitarian agenda is they seem aware of only the small part of the “Really, Really Big Lie^тм”.

Totalitarian Eugenicists were were delighted with Ehrlich’s 1968 “Population Bomb” with Armageddon from lack of minerals and metals and food. Being a mere biologist (a once proud member of the scientific community, totally politicized over 70yrs ago) he wasn’t equipped to write such a book.

I say ‘mere’ because a science that believes everything should remain static has no mental resources to be predicting anything, and certainly basing it on stasis in mining and agricultural technologies shows a sub-sophomoric understanding of how the human world works. Truly, their is only one resource -human ingenuity – ya know, that thing that made all of Ehrlich’s forecasts diametrically wrong.

Anyway, the Totalitarians are trying their best to make Ehrlich’s forecasts come true, albeit belated.

Bob
July 20, 2024 8:36 pm

Very nice Paul. I can tell you who these people are. They are a bunch of rich, spoiled, pampered do gooders who know nothing but lying and cheating. I have no respect for any of them. We need to find a way to make them practice what they preach. They are disgraceful.

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