Go Organic, And Starve!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
Unintended consequences (or maybe they were intended?)
From Foreign Policy News:
Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture over a period of 10 years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic.
The result was brutal and swift. Against claims that organic methods can produce comparable yields to conventional farming, domestic rice production fell 20 percent in just the first six months. Sri Lanka, long self-sufficient in rice production, has been forced to import $450 million worth of rice even as domestic prices for this staple of the national diet surged by around 50 percent. The ban also devastated the nation’s tea crop, its primary export and source of foreign exchange.
By November 2021, with tea production falling, the government partially lifted its fertilizer ban on key export crops, including tea, rubber, and coconut. Faced with angry protests, soaring inflation, and the collapse of Sri Lanka’s currency, the government finally suspended the policy for several key crops—including tea, rubber, and coconut—last month, although it continues for some others. The government is also offering $200 million to farmers as direct compensation and an additional $149 million in price subsidies to rice farmers who incurred losses. That hardly made up for the damage and suffering the ban produced. Farmers have widely criticized the payments for being massively insufficient and excluding many farmers, most notably tea producers, who offer one of the main sources of employment in rural Sri Lanka. The drop in tea production alone is estimated to result in economic losses of $425 million.
Human costs have been even greater. Prior to the pandemic’s outbreak, the country had proudly achieved upper-middle-income status. Today, half a million people have sunk back into poverty. Soaring inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency have forced Sri Lankans to cut down on food and fuel purchases as prices surge. The country’s economists have called on the government to default on its debt repayments to buy essential supplies for its people.
The farrago of magical thinking, technocratic hubris, ideological delusion, self-dealing, and sheer shortsightedness that produced the crisis in Sri Lanka implicates both the country’s political leadership and advocates of so-called sustainable agriculture: the former for seizing on the organic agriculture pledge as a shortsighted measure to slash fertilizer subsidies and imports and the latter for suggesting that such a transformation of the nation’s agricultural sector could ever possibly succeed.
Full story here.
Meanwhile our agricultural policy seems to be dictated by the same sort of idiots:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-unveils-path-to-sustainable-farming-from-2021
Maybe feeding the world should take priority over “carbon storage”?
Of course, many of Juniper’s ilk want to see a much smaller global population. Who needs fertiliser!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Yet another example of Bunter and his economic illiterate bunch of idiots. Just how many examples have you exposed this week, Paul. Swap Eustice for useless.
They are not idiots. They are arrogant, too clever by half, and no nothing about the Real World.
How many have grown their own food?
Indeed, having the brains of a rocking horse appears to the only qualification required for entry into the current government. Well that and a complete lack of principles. Unfortunately, the vast majority of our political masters are not only stupid but dangerous with it. Not a happy combination for the rest of us.
Its simply parroting UN Agenda 21, same as the climate change reduction measures we don’t need and won’t work in fact, because the planet nets out change to maintain equilibrium w/o our help, and the change we see is not in any way different to that of the past, AKAnatural and normal in evry way.
But we must end intense energy use to be “sustainable”, the core Agenda 21 word, which sounds good but does not mean what you think it does, and is used to justify measures that make your life unsustainable to make the life style of elites more sustainable.
That happens when you hire based on diversity and equity, not on competence.
Brian, that – to me – would explain the seeminglybunrelated coincidences in so many governments following a similar path. They haven’t all suddenly discovered a new shiny path to the new God of sustainability: someone sold them on it.
In passing, heard the R4 10 o’clock news headline reporting on the ‘gathering of elites in Davos’. There, is the problem. Too many elites and not enough realists.
Governments are signed up to the UN SDG’s: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
Politicians ignore their electorate and dance to the UN globalist tune. “Global Warming” is no.13.
It is very instructive to check them all out and see the parallels in government policy.
“The Sustainable Development Goals or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by 2030″. (Wikipedia)
WEF are onboard because there are mega bucks for the global corporations, NGO’s, financiers, consultants etc. Billionaires Charter.
Thank you, Dennis. It all sounds very democratic – I must have been away the day we all voted for it.
The problem isn’t organic food, or battery vehicles, or, to be honest, windmills or solar panels.
The problem is Government, particularly those politicians devoid of any Scientific / Engineering skills and experience, dictating policy, especially those without any prototyping and small scale rollout to see how it works in the Real World.
These arrogant ministerial Generalists think that their advisors are putting the national interest first. How can they even understand the question, let alone the answers?
I have tried ‘organic’ fruit and veg when they have been on the discounted short life shelf at the supermarket. I have learned not to buy them as they seem to lack any flavour despite the higher cost.
I recently bought a kilo of carrots – definitely not organic – at a supermarket for 19p, one of their ‘specials’ for the day or week. They were superb, very tasty.
The Govt ministers and their advisors should take note that in Sri Lanka , as a result of this and general loss of income , fuel and food , 3000 people have died in the riots and the rich elite and the ministers have been hunted down , stripped and beaten. We would not want to see that happen to the Hon George Eutace MP and Tony Juniper , now would we.
Not even to mention our very own Prince Regent, (Tony Juniper’s chum). What would we do without His Highness??
He’s busy on our behalf discussing Climate Breakdown with Jacinda Trudeau at present. I wonder if they are both in blackface with bananas down their trousers?
Personally I think that, in the interests of Diversity, we should give Prince Chuckles the bum’s rush and welcome (in due course) Her Majesty Queen Anne III to the throne.
We just dream of it, they act.
[The Silence of Colonel Bramble, Andre Maurois]
Juniper was previously Director of Friends of the Earth and heavily involved in the Climate Change Act. He was appointed by Michael Gove as Head of English Nature, a body which licenses the slaughter of thousands of birds each year, including destruction of nests and eggs. http://jasonendfield.weebly.com.
Also, http://jasonendfield.weebly.com/home/alarming-99-decline-in-gulls-raises-questions-over-expanding-wind-farms
Well, there’s one worm turning according to an item in today’s DM: A top banker, Stuart Kirk, with HSBC has said he doesn’t care if Miami is six metres underwater soon; Amsterdam survives. He pours buckets of cold water over CC goals set up by the banks. Bet he’s looking for a new job soon…
Australia: an experiment in isolating the population long term.
Canada: an experiment in “non-legal” punishments.
United States: an experiment in crushing sme’s.
Sri Lanka: an experiment in food production reduction.
Ukraine: the battlefield of the experimenter globalists against the nation state.
Let them eat organic cake.
I am hoping that the Great Reset will occur, but not the one envisaged, in fact the exact opposite, a return to the fundamentals, what the Australians call primary industries, farming for food being a major one.
It could happen in the UK if the loonies like the Moonbat get their way:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10828875/George-Monbiot-says-farming-ABOLISHED-save-planet.html
Watch the George and Greta show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q0xUXo2zEY
Moonbat has jumped the shark.
” jumped the shark.” You had me on that one so I had to google it…..brilliant expression – thanks!
One wonders what colonialist convinced them they could go organic, and why it mattered. They didn’t get this idea on their own.
Mao had similar achievements via his Great Leap Backwards.
As the cliched Hegelian dialectic inevitably goes, their manufactured ‘problem’ is now in need of their contrived ‘solution.’ “Expect to see genetic engineering pitched as a solution to our food crisis in the very near future…like yesterday, or 2 months ago. That’s how fast they work now with no pretence at concealing the plan. In just 3 weeks into the Ukraine war Time was already headlining: War forces farmers to think again about GM crops & reporting: Genetic modification could make Britain’s food system less susceptible to geopolitcal turmoil. IHS Markit wrote: The Ukraine-Russia conflict has demonstrated the fragility & vulnerabilty of global & European food supply chains. Around the world, governments in leading agricultural-producing countries are catching up with the US to better legislate gene-edited (GE) products & differentiate them from older genetically modified organism (GMO) technology. Genetic Literacy Project called for embracing of ‘new technology’ to prevent widespread hunger & increase food sovereignty.
CLIMATE CHANGE: University of Bonn claimed ‘Genetic engineering can have a positive effect o n the climate.” And Cornell-based NGO Alliance for Science” wrote ‘GMOs could shrink Europe’s climate footprint.’
Deutsche Welle said genetically altered ‘climate sheep & eco pigs could combat global heating. The narrative is clearly set: Genetically engineered food will save us all from the food crisis & global warming too. Plus anything else they can think of. We can smell Gates hand in all this. Swiss newspaper NZZ wrote ‘stop organic farming to help future food crisis. Organic farming is worse for the plants because ploughing up fields releases more carbon-diozide into the atmosphere’
FAUX CASE AGAINST ORGANICS: Wall Street Journal wrote: Ukraine crisis reveals the folly of organic farming. The Telegraph blames organic farming policies for Sri Lanka’s bloody chaos! Allliance for Science” criticised EU’s pro-organic ‘farm to fork plans, claiming organic farming has lower yields & would be associated with increases in global greenhouse gas emissions by causing land-use changes elsewhere” We can smell Gates hand in all this. The Bird Flu outbreak also hit organic & free-range farmers hard. The Guardian said ‘year-round bird flue could spell the end of free-range eggs.
THE NEW NARRATIVE: Having just seen how the Covid ‘vaccine’ campaign unfolded, we see how the pro-GM push will go from here. Genome-edited crops & farm animals are going to become the new ‘settled science.’ They’ll be sold to the public as ‘cheaper, more nutritious, better for the environment & good for ‘preventing future pandemics’ – yes, they actually did say this already. Naturally, anyone who resists the push for gene-edited food, and/or mourns the planned death of organic farming, will be accused of ‘questioning the science.’ Eating GM foods will be ‘doing your part’ & ‘helping Ukraine’, while people who want more expensive organic products will be deemed ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘selfish.’ Not to mention the unpatriotic & selfish people who are in the process of destroying healthy food for us, while making money from genetically edit fake foods. And just as we saw Covid sceptics denounced as spreading ‘Russian disinformation’ despite Russia’s complicity in the Covid lie, those who argue against genome-edited food will be said to be ‘sharing Russian talking points’ or ‘doing Putin’s work for him,’ despite Russia being well onboard the gene-editing train. It all gets very predictable from there. Organic farmers will probably be ‘anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist Russian spies’ by the end of summer.…This probably explains why Bill Gates was buying up so much farmland last year too.
What a pile of drivel.
I was thinking of a different pile…
Naturally, anyone who resists the push for gene-edited food, and/or mourns the planned death of organic farming, will be accused of ‘questioning the science.’ Eating GM foods will be ‘doing your part’ & ‘helping Ukraine’, while people who want more expensive organic products will be deemed ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘selfish.’ Not to mention the unpatriotic & selfish people who are in the process of destroying healthy food for us, while making money from genetically edit fake foods
There seems to be an ignorance about what farming provides, alongside a zealous antipathy to meat and dairy, with little knowledge of what a farming system involves.
The first essential is the production of calories that are a major proportion of our diet, with protein, vitamins and minerals taking smaller but important proportions. Vitamin B12 is an essential part of our diet and is only obtained naturally from animal sources with vegan diets needing supplementation with synthetic B12.
Reading George Monbiot’s article from the Daily Mail it seems that we are destined to a diet of a kind of muesli based on cereals fortified with protein powder along with added vitamins and minerals. Cereals to provide calories need farmland, and in organic systems involve either significant use of an area of legumes as nitrogen building crops or the use of livestock as part of a rotational farming system.
Growing bacterial protein is nothing new, forty years ago ICI developed a process that produced bacterial protein from methanol which itself had been produced from natural gas.
Using hydrogen as a feedstock as proposed by George Monbiot will either involve the use of natural gas or a massive increase in the number of wind and solar farms over and above those we will need for EVs, transport and heating.
Electricity for cooking it seems will go by the board, as we will be eating our total diet muesli which won’t need cooking.
A point that George Monbiot also seems to have forgotten is the use of farmland to grow fibre, as his no fossil fuel use will increase the amount of flax, cotton and jute needed to replace the fibre currently produced from oil and presumably wool is a no-no as the farming of sheep and goats will cease as well.
Oh dear, it seems as if we need to go back to the drawing board, as I fear the 25 million euros granted to Solar Foods are likely to have been wasted alongside the money already frittered away on carbon capture and storage research.
No worse than the lunacy in the West of using vast amounts of good agricultural land to grow rape for ethanol to supplement fossil fuels and covering vast amounts in solar panels.
I’m a non-believer but “heaven help us”!!!!!!!!
I agree that the policy of subsidising solar panel farms in the UK, covering over good agricultural land in a country that already imports 40% of its food, is nothing short of insane.
Or paying farmers to grow trees on perfectly good arable or grazing land.
Rapeseed is grown to provide oil that is used in diesel fuel.
Maize/corn is grown for fermentation to produce ethanol for mixing with petrol.
In the UK the percentage of ethanol in petrol has been raised from 5% to 10%, designated as E5 and E10. It is still possible to buy E5 as E10 is not suitable for classic cars and most garden, horticultural and forestry machinery.
A side effect of E10 is that it is less energy dense than E5, and drivers have found that they are getting 5 to 10% fewer miles per gallon, so any saving in CO2 emmissions is lost alongside the CO2 emitted in growing and fermenting the corn in the first place.
This fine supporter of the Government says what we only dare think.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MichaelTakeMP?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Off topic: I noticed this week there seems to be widespread pre-alerting of “record heatwaves” making headlines in Europe and USA. The weather conditions have not happened but they portray them as a done deal and without precedent.
Been the way for years. Warn of forecast “extremes”, ignore the fact they don’t happen. The BBC weather forecast ran hot for a number of years – 7 days out was almost always warmer than actual temperatures. It embeds higher temperatures in our consciousness. We have been “nudged” and terrified for decades, quite deliberately by government and other institutions. Covid exposed some of it.
I sound like a conspiracy theorist these days, but we know “nudge” exists and we know Covid was a deliberate policy if terrifying us with lies.
meanwhile at the athletics meeting in Birmingham right now both commentators and athletes cannot help but remark upon the uncomfortable coolness of the ambient temperature being distributed by the light prevailing breeze.
This illustrates the fragility of wealth in many countries, as Venezuela has done before it. The West has a bedrock of wealth going back centuries but even that can be eroded over time, and once it has gone, economies crumble rapidly. Idiots like Johnson, Monbiot, Juniper, all take for granted that wealth but after decades of low growth we are rapidly approaching a real tipping point, where government policy destroys wealth far more quickly than it can be created. That will make the current cost of living crisis look like a small hiccup.
There is no ‘cost of living’ crisis. There is an OVERTAXED crisis. Time for the Sri Lankan approach to politicians.
I thin when essential like energy and petrol double or triple, that;s a cost of living problem, not a tax problem.
It’s classic decadence.
‘the country had proudly achieved upper-middle-income status’
Prosperity inevitably leads to decadence. Sri Lanka wanted to emulate Western countries and go green. Decadence will end with the end of prosperity. Rinse, repeat.
No, it was stupid economics, another moron politician who doesn’t understand trade and who had been taken in by the Socialists/Greens
Dismiss the History of Man if you wish.
If not, read From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun.
Ferilizers are too large externt made by fossils. Very difficult to replace and surely more expensive.
So Sri Lanka had acheived upper-middle-income status? Sounds about right, that’s usually when the woke idiots take control from the people who actually know how to run things.
Has a campaign to link inorganic fertilisers to ‘climate change’ started?
CERN says “anthropogenic ammonia has a major influence on atmospheric aerosol particles”.
— https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/cloud-discovers-new-way-by-which-aerosols-rapidly-form-and-grow-at-high-altitude/
Nutters.
https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/nasa-boeing-ucf-to-study-zero-carbon-ammonia-jet-fuel/#:~:text=Ammonia%20in%20jet%20engines&text=At%20COP26%20last%20year%2C%20a,aviation%20applications%20(amongst%20others).
You can’t put up an offshore wind farm without consulting Juniper’s team. They’re experts, apparently.
Juniper, a green zealot running defra and his sidekick greenyman goon george useless and food production – whoever thought that combo up – doesn’t like the UK one little bit. johnson’s unerring ambition, to stuff the UK by whatever means possible, carbon zero not quick but final.
Seems George Monbiot wants to abolish farming.
Seems it’s high time someone abolished the Moonbat!
Perhaps with a bit of luck his re-wilded wolves and bears might eat him.