Tag: Farmers

PBS News Is Wrong, Climate Change Is Not Causing Georgiaโ€™s Drought

A recent PBS News report, โ€œFarmers struggle with crops as climate change makes weather less predictable,โ€ claims that droughts and flooding in parts of the United States, particularly the Southeast, are due to climate change, and are becoming more frequent and extreme. This is false, particularly for Georgia, the area PBS highlights in the story.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A recent PBS News report, โ€œFarmers struggle with crops as climate change makes weather less predictable,โ€ claims that droughts and flooding in parts of the United States, particularly the Southeast, are due to climate change, and are becoming more frequent and extreme. This is false, particularly for Georgia, the area PBS highlights in the story.

PBS reports:

โ€œMore than half of the continental U.S. is facing drought conditions. But other parts of the country are facing the opposite problem. Extreme weather conditions can have major impacts on farmers and their crops at a time when theyโ€™re already facing high production costs. Paul Solman recently traveled to southern Georgia to hear from some of those farmers. โ€œ

Extreme weather being different, and even alternating, in different parts of the country is not unusual or new. The โ€œweather whiplashโ€ phenomena is an artifact of news coverage, not a real thing. Flooding often follows after a period of drought dries and hardens or compacts the soil, preventing water from soaking into the soil as a result making runoff more severe. This is a known, natural feature of recovery from drought that PBS vaguely admits later in the coverage.

The state that PBS focuses on in the piece is Georgia. Their reporter, Paul Solman, interviews farmers who supposedly lived on their land for generations, and each of them insists that this yearโ€™s drought conditions are unprecedented.

In answer to Solmanโ€™s question about whether one farmer has ever experienced drought like this yearโ€™s before, the farmer said that he hadnโ€™t in his entire lifetime, and that he โ€œnever heard of stories of a drought this bad either.โ€

Another farmer says her crops suffered when rain finally came, and asserts that โ€œweโ€™re seeing wetter wets and drier dries.โ€

A climate scientist is interviewed next, who asserts that โ€œ[c]limate change is making these [droughts and deluge cycles] more frequent,โ€ making it harder for farmers to predict when to plant crops.

Data disagree with both farmers as well as the climate scientist.

Drought data from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental information show that not only is the current drought in Georgia not unprecedented, but major prolonged droughts that were even more severe have occurred in the state several times in just the past few decades, as well as much longer ago. Drought conditions in 2011-2012 and the mid-1950s were worse than today. The most severe drought occurred in 1925, more than 100 years of global warming ago, when temperatures and carbon dioxide levels were lower. (See figure below).

Figure 1: NOAA National Centers for Environmental information, Climate at a Glance: Statewide Time Series, published June 2026, retrieved on June 26, 2026 from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/statewide/time-series

Data show the particular county that the first and second farmers interviewed by PBS are from, Long County, saw a bad drought as recently as the summer of 2012, when the entire county suffered D3 โ€œextreme droughtโ€ conditions. The 2010-2012 drought was far more severe than this one and lasted longer. Other worse and more prolonged droughts occurred in 2007, 2002, 1990, 1981, 1954, and further back, with the worst sustained drought occurring in the 1930s. (See figure below)

The figure above also shows the periods of wet conditions. It is clear that there are many years going back to 1900 that saw even more severe swings to overabundance of rain.

Data show no long term trend towards an increase in extreme short-term precipitation events in Georgia, either. (See figure below).

Figure 2: Chart source: Frankson, R., K.E. Kunkel, L.E. Stevens, B.C. Stewart, W. Sweet, B. Murphey, and S. Rayne, 2022: Georgia State Climate Summary 2022. NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 150-GA. NOAA/NESDIS, Silver Spring, MD, 5 pp.

One should not blame the farmers for feeling like this year was particularly bad for drought in Georgia. The news, for one, has been claiming as much, as discussed in the post โ€œSorry, Los Angeles Times, Climate Change Isnโ€™t Driving Georgiaโ€™s Wildfires,โ€ where the media were trying to blame some wildfires this summer on the same conditions, falsely linked to climate trends. Human beings are pretty bad at recalling the full context of past yearsโ€™ weather conditions off the top of their heads, we often tend to feel that nothing was ever worse than what we are currently experiencing, unless the difference was really stark.

The PBS โ€œjournalistsโ€ should be ashamed of the slant of this coverage. They offered no pushback whatsoever on the suggestion that Georgiaโ€™s drought was unprecedented or part of a pattern of worsening drought, which it is not. The data are publicly available and easily found for any intrepid reporter to discover. It seems that PBS was far more interested in using a tough year for farmers as part of a larger climate alarmist narrative push, than actually digging into the truth.

Al Gore Wants to Pay Farmers to Grow Less Food to Fight Climate Change

Former Vice President Al Gore said on Wednesday that government policy should promote โ€œregenerative agricultureโ€ during a discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

A man in a suit passionately speaking at the World Economic Forum, with a woman in the background expressing surprise.

From The Daily Caller

From THE DAILY CALLER

Daily Caller News Foundation

Harold Hutchison
Media Reporter

Former Vice President Al Gore said on Wednesday that government policy should promote โ€œregenerative agricultureโ€ during a discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The WEF is in Davos, Switzerland, for its annual meeting, with panels and speeches from world leaders, philanthropists, business leaders and A-list Hollywood actors, according to the program on the forumโ€™s website. Gore made his comments during a panel discussion titled โ€œHow Can We Avert a Climate Recession?โ€

 (RELATED: โ€˜Patrick Bateman Meets Sparkle Beach Kenโ€™: Scott Bessent Delivers Sassy Retort To Gavin Newsom)

โ€œBut the role of policy which weโ€™re discussing here is crucial in agriculture as well. In the US, the largest source of government subsidies to farmers is in a program called crop insurance,โ€

Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his documentary โ€œAn Inconvenient Truth,โ€ claimed.

โ€œThe title is a bit misleadingโ€ฆ in order to qualify for these subsidies, farmers basically have to assure the government that they are not going to engage in regenerative agriculture because the incentives have been to produce as much as possible as quickly as possible, fence row to fence row instead of taking care of the productivity of the soil and not depleting its vitality.โ€

WATCH:

โ€œSo, we need policies that in recognition of the fact that governments around the world typically do subsidize farming, but donโ€™t subsidize them in ways that incentivize them to go in the wrong direction, but incentivize them to go in the right direction,โ€

Gore continued.

Environmentalists have targeted agriculture, particularly meat production, claiming that it contributes to climate change. The Dutch government forcibly shut down 3,000 farms to meet European Union environmental policies in 2022, leading to a backlash as a pro-farmer party won 15 of the 75 seats in the European countryโ€™s legislature the following year.

During the 2023 WEF meeting, one speaker called for an end to eating meat.

โ€œIf a billion people stop eating meat, I tell you, it has a big impact. Not only does it have a big impact on the current food system, but it will also inspire innovation of food systems,โ€ 

Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of the Germany-based conglomerate Siemens AG, said during a panel called

โ€œMobilizing for Climate.โ€

โ€œI predict that we will have proteins not coming from meat in the future, they will probably taste even better. So why are we trying to mimic meat if we can have a better taste? They will be zero carbon and much healthier than the kind of food that we eat today,โ€ 

Snabe added.

A man passionately speaking and gesturing with raised hands during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum.

Farmers Donโ€™t Like Bad Weatherโ€“New Study

But asking farmers if they have had poor harvests because of bad weather in recent years would have produced the same results at any stage in the last fifty years. Bad weather is not caused by climate change and there is no evidence weather in the last five years has been any worse than in the past.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

Over 80% of farmers are concerned about the impact of climate change on their ability to make a living, as more than four fifths say extreme weather has hit their productivity.

New research [1] into farmerโ€™s attitudes to climate change and extreme weather reveals the extent to which farmers have been affected by recent extreme weather events, many made worse by climate change. In the past five years, 86% of farmers have been hit by extreme rainfall, 78% by drought and over a half by the impacts of heatwaves. Only 2% have not experienced extreme weather in some form. The research follows several recent attribution studies that draw a clear causal link between the increasingly extreme weather affecting farmers and climate change [2].
The market research of 300 farmers [3] across the UK was commissioned by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) from Grounded Research [4], specialists in gathering insights into questions about food and farming. When asked what impact recent extreme weather has had on their farms, 87% cited reduced productivity, 84% have witnessed a reduction in crop yields or livestock output.

https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2025/farmer-confidence-battered-by-climate-change-new-research

The ECIU, which is no more than a climate lobbyist outfit, has not published the survey results, presumably because they donโ€™t want people to see the actual questions.

But asking farmers if they have had poor harvests because of bad weather in recent years would have produced the same results at any stage in the last fifty years. Bad weather is not caused by climate change and there is no evidence weather in the last five years has been any worse than in the past.

I doubt too that farmers were not even asked about โ€œclimate changeโ€, not that any of them would be qualified to answer them.

But what about the actual farm data?

We know that wheat harvests were hit last year by the wet autumn in the previous year. (We also know that autumn was a long way from being the wettest on record).

But bad years come along every so often and over the last two decades cereal yields are up and down, but have changed little over all.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cereal-and-oilseed-rape-production/cereal-and-oilseed-production-in-the-united-kingdom-2024

Going back further in time, cereal yields have been rising over time.

1961 to 2023
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare

A lot has been made of the fact that cereal output is lower now than in the 1980s. This however is because of a sharp drop in the area harvested during the 1990s.

This was due to a number of factors, including:

EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Reforms, which shifted support from production-based subsidies to direct payments and introduced set-aside schemes

As the record shows, there have always been bad harvests because of bad weather โ€“ too much rain, not enough rain, too cold, too hot, poor summers, poor autumns, poor springs. Indeed, it is very rare that farmers get a perfect year of weather.

Scottish Meat Industry Fights Back Against CCCย Proposals

For once somebody is standing up to the bullies in the Climate Change Committee, who seem to think they now run the UK.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

For once somebody is standing up to the bullies in the Climate Change Committee, who seem to think they now run the UK.

This press release is in response to the CCCโ€™s new carbon budget advice for Scotland:

Chair of QMS Kate Rowell commenting on the Climate Change Committeeโ€™s (CCCโ€™s) carbon budget advice for Scotland:

โ€œScotlandโ€™s recommendations from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) are out of touch with our societal needs and grossly undermine the powerful, multi-benefits of agriculture across food security, health, nature and economy.

โ€œOur most serious concern is the CCCโ€™s apparent disregard for the critical role of agriculture in securing a stable food supply. At a time when global demand for nutritious protein is rising year-on-year, it is unacceptable to overlook the food production capability of our Scottish farming sector. QMSโ€™s economic modelling to 2030 โ€“ based on realistic projections of per capita red meat consumption and production levels โ€“ suggests the UK could face a shortfall of 124,000 tonnes of beef. This is a gap we have the capacity to fill domestically, avoiding unnecessary reliance on imports.

โ€œWe challenge the CCCโ€™s evidence base, as we believe it is flawed. In fact, Defraโ€™s meat balance sheets โ€“ which capture the total volume of meat available for consumption by adjusting production for imports and exports โ€“ show that beef supply has increased by 3.4% over the past decade when comparing three-year averages. In 2024, beef supply reached a six-year high. This calls into question whether the consumption trends cited by the CCC truly reflect the full picture.

โ€œIt is illogical and inconsistent with sustainability goals โ€“ including those under the Paris Agreement โ€“ to allow domestic production to decline and fill the gap with imports, especially when this penalises Scotlandโ€™s highly efficient, lower-emission producers and the rural communities that rely on them.

โ€œAlso notably absent is recognition of agricultureโ€™s positive contribution to biodiversity and climate mitigation. Farming has natural carbon capture potential. The CCC must begin recognising the role that farmers play in land stewardship, including carbon sequestration through sustainable land management.

โ€œReducing greenhouse gas emissions remains a clear priority for the red meat supply chain โ€“ and we are making progress. QMS, together with AHDB, is developing robust data to help reduce emissions and quantify the net emissions of Scotlandโ€™s food and drink production. Our Environmental Baselining pilot, involving 22 Scottish beef, lamb and pig farmers, is already uncovering the real environmental services these farmers provide โ€“ both above and below ground โ€“ and we look forward to sharing the results later this year.

โ€œWe continue to press for long-term, multi-annual agricultural funding to support the sector in delivering public goods โ€“ from high-quality food to climate resilience and economic growth. But repurposing this support to shift away from sustainable livestock farming is not the answer. It undermines food security and threatens the viability of a sector that is already world-leading in efficiency and environmental stewardship.

โ€œWe will continue to assess the detail of the 29 measures to target livestock emissions along with the policy actions which have been identified for Scottish Government. As the CCCโ€™s advice does not set policy, we will keep close engagement with Scottish Government as it considers the response in the months ahead.โ€

https://qmscotland.co.uk/news/chair-of-qms-kate-rowell-commenting-on-the-climate-change-committees-cccs-carbon-budget-advice-for-scotland

For too long, the NFU and other farming bodies have kowtowed to the climate agenda.

Hopefully they will now take note of what Kate Rowell says, and fight the Net Zero agenda tooth and nail.

Farmers are being booted off their land in a drive for more solar power, former union chiefย warns

The former head of Britainโ€™s farming union yesterday spoke out against large-scale solar farms, declaring โ€˜thereโ€™s a huge amount not to likeโ€™.

But Minette Batters warned they will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming โ€“ and while wealthy investors are free to buy up large chunks of the countryside.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Patsy Lacey

From the Daily Mail

The former head of Britainโ€™s farming union yesterday spoke out against large-scale solar farms, declaring โ€˜thereโ€™s a huge amount not to likeโ€™.

But Minette Batters warned they will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming โ€“ and while wealthy investors are free to buy up large chunks of the countryside.

Ms Batters, the ex-president of the National Farmersโ€™ Union, also highlighted โ€˜horrific examplesโ€™ where tenant farmers are being booted off land for huge solar schemes so the landowner can make more money.

She said such changes of land use will continue while investors including overseas financiers and private equity firms are able to buy up huge chunks of the rural landscape unchecked, warning: โ€˜The country is up for saleโ€™.

Ms Batters called for the next government to prioritise a new land strategy, so protections are given to traditional farming and its economic value is properly-acknowledged.

Ms Batters warned that solar farms will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming (pictured: A proposed 1,400-acre site for a solar farm in Chickerell, Dorset)

She added: โ€˜We are a country up for sale. We are selling off land to people who donโ€™t pay their taxes here. It does have to change.โ€™

She said she could understand opposition to solar farms โ€“ but also had sympathy for farmers cashing in on such projects because they provide a guaranteed, index-linked income for decades.

โ€˜You can understand at the moment, from a farmerโ€™s perspectiveโ€ฆ ยฃ1,200 a hectare (per year), index-linked, locked in for 20 years, whatโ€™s not to like?โ€™ she said.

โ€˜For everybody else, thereโ€™s a huge amount not to like. This is the trouble with a solar farm. There will be one beneficiary.โ€™

But Ms Batters said that in some cases, farmers themselves have been forced to leave their farms to make way for solar farms if they are tenants of larger landowners.

She said: โ€˜We are seeing horrific examples of some land owners taking land back from tenants to put into solar.โ€™

Ms Batters criticised how land ownership by wealthy investors including private equity firms is being allowed to proliferate โ€“ and called for action.

Citing the debt-fuelled private equity takeover of supermarket chain Morrisons, which the Daily Mail campaigned against, she said: โ€˜We saw what happened with Morrisons. We might not have a British-owned supermarket in 10 years.

โ€˜Now, private equity has moved into land. The country is up for sale.

โ€˜I remember having a conversation with (former Chancellor) Kwasi Kwarteng. He said, you canโ€™t be a free market one day and not the next.

โ€˜We are a country up for sale. We are selling off land to people who donโ€™t pay their taxes here. It does have to change.โ€™

Ms Batters called for the next government to prioritise a new land strategy, so protections are given to traditional farming and its economic value is properly-acknowledged.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13469373/Farmers-booted-land-drive-solar-power-outgoing-union-chief-warns.html

ECB / Potsdam: Global Warming will Drive Up Food Inflation, Unless Farmers Adapt

The problems being experienced by Europe are because of EU incompetence, not climate change.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

โ€œโ€ฆ in a low emission-scenario most impacts could be removed by adjustment once global temperatures stabilise โ€ฆโ€

Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures

Maximilian Kotz, Friderike Kuik, Eliza Lis & Christiane Nickel 

Abstract

Climate impacts on economic productivity indicate that climate change may threaten price stability. Here we apply fixed-effects regressions to over 27,000 observations of monthly consumer price indices worldwide to quantify the impacts of climate conditions on inflation. Higher temperatures increase food and headline inflation persistently over 12 months in both higher- and lower-income countries. Effects vary across seasons and regions depending on climatic norms, with further impacts from daily temperature variability and extreme precipitation. Evaluating these results under temperature increases projected for 2035 implies upwards pressures on food and headline inflation of 0.92-3.23 and 0.32-1.18 percentage-points per-year respectively on average globally (uncertainty range across emission scenarios, climate models and empirical specifications). Pressures are largest at low latitudes and show strong seasonality at high latitudes, peaking in summer. Finally,ย the 2022 extreme summer heat increased food inflation in Europe by 0.43-0.93 percentage-pointsย which warming projected for 2035 would amplify by 30-50%.

Read more:ย https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01173-x

But farmers will apparently be able to adapt to these upheavals, โ€œonce temperatures stabiliseโ€;

โ€ฆ Although the empirical evidence indicates that adaptation to temperature shocks has been limited historically, we explore the potential of adaptation via adjustment to changing temperatures to reduce these future impacts. We do so by using empirical models in which temperature shocks are defined relative to a 30-year moving average rather than a constant baseline (Fig.ย S6kโ€“t), and by evaluating potential impacts using future temperatures defined in this way. This method indicates that adaptation via adjustment could substantially reduce future impacts (Supplementary Fig.ย S14). In particular,ย in a low emission-scenario most impacts could be removed by adjustment once global temperatures stabiliseย (Supplementary Fig.ย S14c, d). However,ย in scenarios of un-mitigated warming, persistent impacts of considerable size remainย despite introducing adjustment of this type which has not been observed historically (Supplementary Fig.ย S14). โ€ฆ

Read more:ย same link as above

The study authors also admit renewables may be increasing sensitivity to adverse weather.

โ€ฆ Second, our empirical results refer predominantly to food and headline inflation, whereas we find a limited response of other price aggregates to weather changes. However, the strong response of electricity demand to temperature5,6 suggests that impacts on electricity prices are plausible. Indeed, we find that electricity prices show some consistent and persistent response to temperature increases (Supplementary Fig. S1k), but with much larger uncertainty which precludes statements of significance at conventional levels. Lesser data availability for this more detailed price aggregate as well as complex and heterogeneous electricity price-setting practices may contribute to these large errors. However, as electricity supply is increasingly met with renewable sources, the price sensitivity to weather may change. A detailed analysis of electricity and other price aggregates may be a fruitful avenue of future work. โ€ฆRead more: same link as above

Naturally the study makes heavy use of RCP 8.5.

In my opinion, citing 2022 in Europe as an example of climate disruption caused food inflation is absurd. The problems being experienced by Europe are because of EU incompetence, not climate change.

Food inflation in Europe is a problem, because European farmers are under attack by radical greens. Ongoing demands farmers restrict use of fertiliser and chemicals, and insane attempts to cut the number of farmers, by coercing farmers to sign agreements to never farm again, are probably not encouraging farmers to invest in upgrading their land. Dutch police shot live ammo at farmers protesting climate rules in 2022.

In 2022, in response to fertiliser shortages triggered by the war in Ukraine, there were crazy policy responses to the looming food shortages. The Scottish Agriculture Minister refused to release more land for agriculture to help farmers maintain food supply. โ€œWe are still in a nature emergency that hasnโ€™t gone awayโ€ฆ so itโ€™s a noโ€œ

Europe experienced fertiliser shortages in 2022, because of their reliance on Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine and Russia are (were?) major suppliers of fertiliser, because they have lots of cheap energy. Producing fertiliser is energy intensive.

Europeโ€™s disastrous green energy policies have made it uneconomical to produce fertiliser in Europe, which made Europe vulnerable to the supply shock caused by the Ukraine war.

In addition the EU operates a strict tariff regime, The European Common Agricultural Policy, which taxes imports of food, and restricts Europeโ€™s ability to combat weather shocks by importing more food from outside the EU.

Iโ€™m not disputing that in 2022 Europe suffered adverse weather conditions, but there were confounding factors. If Europe hadnโ€™t made such a mess of their agriculture, climate and energy policies, there would have been a lot less food inflation.

As for adaption, why would a regime of continuous warming be so different to stabilisation at a higher temperature?

Are the researchers suggesting farmers are too dumb to pick up the phone? Why would persistent impacts remain in scenarios of unmitigated warming? Canโ€™t farmers talk to their friends down South, to discover what crops and techniques work in warmer climates?

Farmers all over the world adapt the same crops to radically different temperatures. Subtropical Bundaberg can grow Maine potatoes at 25 degrees South of the Equator, a few hours drive from the 23.4 degree tropic of Capricorn, the boundary of the Southern tropics, because they plant the potatoes in Fall, then harvest them in Spring before the Summer heat kills them.

If temperature rose significantly every year, farmers would adapt by borrowing last yearโ€™s planting practices from their friends 50-100 miles South, or switch to new crops.

The Potsdam researchers are wrong about farmers not adapting to a warmer climate. Canadian Geographic admitted in 2020 that global warming is opening millions of square kilometres of new agricultural land. This is a continuation of the process which begun with the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850. Farmers will move into these lands the moment they become viable, unless agriculture hating politicians prevent them from doing so. Similar land openings would occur in Greenland and far Northern Europe, were global warming to continue.

As for drought and flood,ย there is no evidence extreme weather is getting worse. Upgraded water infrastructure could capture and store floodwater, and transport water to where it was needed. If Western governments spent a fraction of the cash they squander on useless renewables, on building infrastructure which is actually needed, floods and droughts would be much less of a problem.

Green Energy Billionaire: โ€œFarmers affected could be compensated and find other places to farmโ€

This isnโ€™t the first time greens have been accused of having a callous attitude to people who get in their way.

ย Andrew โ€œTwiggyโ€ Forestย 

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

A shouting match reportedly erupted after green entrepreneur Andrew โ€œTwiggyโ€ Forest allegedly suggested to rural MP Llew Oโ€™Brien that farmers pushed out by green energy development could find somewhere else to farm.

โ€˜Gutlessโ€™: Nationals MP launches into expletive-filled tirade at mining magnate Andrew Forrest as pair become embroiled in fiery row over renewables

โ€ฆ

Andrew Clennell Political Editor
February 28, 2024 โ€“ 11:00AM

Nationals MP Llew Oโ€™Brien has become embroiled in a shouting match with mining magnate Andrew โ€œTwiggyโ€ Forrest in a meeting at Parliament House on Tuesday, where Mr Oโ€™Brien called Mr Forrest a โ€œf***ing charlatanโ€ and a โ€œf***ing snake oil salesmanโ€ after the two got into a row over the impact of transmission lines on farms.

The argument over wind farms and transmission lines to create renewable projects descended into a stare-off between the men, according to multiple Nationals sources, including a witness to the stoush.

โ€ฆ

When Mr Forrest made comments about how farmers affected could be compensated and find other places to farm, Mr Oโ€™Brien blew up, according to sources.

โ€ฆRead more: https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/gutless-nationals-mp-launches-into-expletivefilled-tirade-at-mining-magnate-andrew-forrest-as-pair-become-embroiled-in-fiery-row-over-renewables/news-story/7272e20e78a3af15f67a0a3124818fcc

This isnโ€™t the first time greens have been accused of having a callous attitude to people who get in their way.

According to the BBC, in Africa disregard for the rights of people who get in the way of money making green projects has led to violence and allegations of war crimes.

I hope similar violence doesnโ€™t occur in Australia. I am certainly not accusing Twiggy of wanting to kill anyone or commit war crimes. But seriously: What is the plan if thousands of Aussie farmers in the path of green energy transmission lines or other infrastructure projects simply refuse to move?

What would Aussie farmers do if the government responds to rural refusal to comply, with insensitivity, state backed violence, and mass expropriation? Do they think farmers would sit down and take it quietly?

I donโ€™t know exactly what was said in that meeting. It is possible the whole situation has been wildly exaggerated, sometimes these tales grow in the telling. But you Twiggy had better issue a clarification, and fast. Because if you donโ€™t, you might put a match to the powder keg of discontent which is building in rural Australia, over the Albanese Governmentโ€™s aggressive disregard for farmers, during their rushed implementation of their poorly planned green energy policies.

โ€˜On The Edge Of What Is Bearableโ€™: Why Are European Farmers Protesting?

Farmers have risen up in protest across Europe to slam national and European Union (EU) climate policies that threaten their economic interests.

From The Daily Caller

NICK POPE

CONTRIBUTOR

  • European farmers across the continent have protested against national governments and the European Union (EU) over cheap imports and green agricultural policies that are undermining their livelihoods.ย 
  • Countries including Germany, Spain, Poland, Italy and the Czech Republic have all engaged in disruptive demonstrations to vent their frustrations.
  • โ€œWeโ€™re going to increase the pressure because itโ€™s clear that the proposals we are seeing from the EU and the Spanish government are purely cosmetic and do not resolve the problems of farmers,โ€ Luis Cortรฉs, the leader of a major Spanish agricultural trade union, told The Telegraph.

Farmers have risen up in protest across Europe to slam national and European Union (EU) climate policies that threaten their economic interests.

Czech farmersย descendedย upon the streets of Prague on Monday in their tractors, protesting burdensome regulations and green policies that are adding to inflationary stress that the farmers assert is ruining their livelihoods, according to Euronews. The Czech farmersโ€™ protests are the latest in a wave of similar demonstrations across Europe lashing out against EU climate policies, coming on the heels of outcries in Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, Hungary, France and the Netherlands.

The farmers are enraged that the EU has attempted to inject climate policies into agricultural practices at a time when poor macroeconomic conditions are already straining their ability to compete with farmers from other places who are able to sell their products for less, according to numerous reports.

The European Commission โ€” the de facto executive arm of the EU โ€” sets what is known as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which sets standards and the guidelines for agricultural subsidies that govern European farming. The most recent CAP went into effect on January 1, 2023, and it is specifically designed to force the European agricultural sector into closer compliance with the European Green Deal.

The European Green Deal calls for aย 50% reductionย in the use of certain pesticides by 2030, and the European Commission isย pushingย to achieve a 90% reduction in emissions by 2040 in a move that would substantially alter how European farmers manage their farms.ย (RELATED: Germany Went All In On The Green Transition. Now, Its Economy Is Crumbling)

In Prague, farmers are rallying against stifling bureaucratic supervision of their operations and climate regulations that they assert make their products artificially more expensive than imports from outside of the EU, according to Reuters.

โ€œWe came today mainly because of the bureaucracy around farming, the paperwork is on the edge of what is bearable,โ€ Lukas Melichovsky, a Czech farmer, told Reuters on Monday.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala suggested that the protesters are aligned with the Kremlin, referencing the fact that the nationโ€™s leading agricultural unions have largely distanced themselves from the demonstrations.

Hundreds of Italian farmers ventured to Rome in early February to vent similar frustrations, deriding the EUโ€™s efforts to impose climate policy into agricultural production while not doing enough to level the playing field with non-EU products subject to less stringent regulatory regimes, according to Politico.

Protesting farmers displayed signs and placards with slogans like โ€œUnfair Market โ€” You Are Taking Away Our Dignity!โ€ and โ€œNo Farmers, No Food!โ€ while they demonstrated, according to Politico.

Meanwhile, in Spain, farmers staged disruptive protests for more than two weeks in February, blockading highways and distribution hubs to demonstrate their displeasure with the new CAP, according to The Telegraph.

โ€œWe have to leave 11 per cent of our land unsown or fallow, but we still have overheads and pay taxes; itโ€™s absurd,โ€ Luis Cortรฉs, the leader of a major Spanish agricultural trade union, told The Telegraph.

โ€œWeโ€™re going to increase the pressure because itโ€™s clear that the proposals we are seeing from the EU and the Spanish government are purely cosmetic and do not resolve the problems of farmers,โ€ Cortรฉs said, adding that the CAP has been โ€œcatastrophicโ€ in part because โ€œsubsidies have decreased while environmental measures increase.โ€

Polish farmers also continued a wave of disruptive protests into February, blocking border crossings with Ukraine to highlight perceived trade imbalances and criticizing elements of the EU Green Deal, according to multiple outlets. The countryโ€™s leading agricultural unions backed the demonstrations, unlike in Italy and Poland, Euractiv reported.

โ€œWe oppose restrictions that the European Green Deal would impose on us and the influx of low-quality Ukrainian food to Poland under the liberalized EU trade rules,โ€ one unnamed Polish apple farmer, who did not engage in the protests but supports the message, told Euractiv.

The EU extended the suspension of tariffs against certain Ukrainian agricultural goods at the end of January, justifying the decision as standing in solidarity with Ukraine while it tries to repel the ongoing Russian invasion, according to Euractiv.ย (RELATED: Europe Imposes First-Ever Climate Tax On Imported Goods)

Hungarian farmers launched their own simultaneous protests in conjunction with those seen in Poland, for nearly the same exact reasons, according to Euronews.

German farmers launched a massive, week-long protest in January to push back against the German governmentโ€™s plans to slash key agricultural subsidies to plug a 17 billion euro budget gap and maintain funding for green initiatives.

The German government warned that extreme right-wing elements were co-opting the demonstrations.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), the countryโ€™s leading right-wing populist party, supported the protests. The party has seen its popularity rise significantly since Russia invaded Ukraine, and it is now the second-most popular political party in Germany, according to polling data aggregated by Politico.

French farmers also rose up in January and early February, blockading roadways across the country to cause disruption and protest stifling regulations and cheap imports undercutting their share of the market, according to France24. Demonstrators sprayed manure on government buildings to express their discontent, according to The Associated Press.

About one in every five French farms went under between 2010 and 2020, according to France24.

Dutch farmers engaged in similar protests in November 2023, preempting the wave of demonstrations that has marked the first two months of 2024 elsewhere in Europe. The farmers were enraged by the governmentโ€™s plans to reduce the amount of livestock in the country by about 50% and shutter major farms in order to come into compliance with EU nitrogen emissions regulations, according to The Economist, and their protests precipitated the unexpected electoral victory of right-wing populist Geert Wilders in November 2023.

The European Commission did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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Farmers are in revolt and Europeโ€™s climate policies are crumbling. Welcome to the age of โ€˜greenlashโ€™

Brussels is ditching green measures as EU leaders panic over rural protests, upcoming elections and the threat of the far right.

Brussels is ditching green measures as EU leaders panic over rural protests, upcoming elections and the threat of the far right.

Ursula von der Leyenย surrendered to angry farmersย last week faster than you could shake a pitchfork or dump a tractor-load of manure outside the European parliament.

The European Commission president, expected to announce herย candidacy for a second termย heading the EU executive next week, told lawmakers that the commission was withdrawing a bill to halve the use of chemical pesticides by 2030 and would hold more consultations instead. The Guardian has the story.

The proposed measure was a key plank in the commissionโ€™s European Green Deal and its Farm to Fork strategy, intended to make the EU carbon-neutral by 2050, make agriculture more environmentally friendly and preserve biodiversity.

Von der Leyenโ€™s sudden U-turn on one of her signature policies was not just an attempt to defuse a spreading continent-wide rural revolt over rising fuel costs, burdensome environmental regulations, retailersโ€™ price squeezes and cheap imports. It was also a sign of growing panic among the EUโ€™s mainstream parties over the seemingly inexorable rise of far-right nationalists ahead of the June elections.

Von der Leyen, a former German defence minister, is vying to lead the centre-right European Peopleโ€™s partyโ€™s campaign for the elections even though she isย not herself seekingย a European parliament seat. Her coronation at a party congress on 6-7 March as the EPPโ€™sย Spitzenkandidatenย (lead candidate) to run the commission from 2024 to 2029 is a formality, since there is no other contender. But she has had to water down her green policies to placate a party so spooked by the โ€œgreenlashโ€ against net zero legislation that it is rushing to reposition itself as the voice of gradual adaptation at a pace that citizens can accept and afford.

EU leaders tried to take another contentious issue off the table by agreeing in December on a long-stalled migration pact that includes stricter external border controls, faster procedures for processing asylum seekers and expelling those whose applications are rejected, and sharing the burden of the refugee crisis among EU countries. But populists such as the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbรกn, continue to rail against being forced to choose between admitting unwanted migrants and paying for other countries to take them in under the new system.

I have seen unpublished opinion polling conducted for the European parliament in January that showed Eurosceptic, sovereigntist or populist parties have taken the lead in eight of the 27 EU members, and are in second place in four more. Moreover, the countries where the far right is polling most strongly include those with the most seats in the legislature โ€“ Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Romania and the Netherlands.

This is getting scary, and events such as the farmersโ€™ furore are playing into the hands of populists such as Franceโ€™s Marine Le Pen, Germanyโ€™s Alice Weidel and Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, who thrive on grassroots grumbling against the metropolitan elites.

โ€œThe (pesticides) proposal has become a symbol of polarisation,โ€ von der Leyen admitted to parliament in Strasbourg. โ€œTo move forward, more dialogue and a different approach is needed.โ€ She may have been slamming the stable gate after the horse has bolted.

Farmers have traditionally voted for mainstream conservative and Christian Democratic parties, while the socialists and social democrats had their bastions in industrial urban areas. Remember former president Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist farmersโ€™ friend, jovially slapping the hindquarters of cows in his southwestern Corrรจze constituency or at the annual Paris agricultural fair. Nowadays, those voters are more likely to vote for Le Penโ€™s National Rally, recent polls suggest.

In France, the centre-right Republicans, Chiracโ€™s heirs, are polling at barely 8%, while the National Rally stands above 30% in latest surveys, and anti-Islam ideologue ร‰ric Zemmourโ€™s even further right Reconquest! bags another 6-8%. Le Penโ€™s list is led by the charismatic 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, already an MEP and party president, while Zemmourโ€™s is topped by Le Penโ€™s niece, Marion Marรฉchal, 34, a favourite of US far-right political strategist Steve Bannon.

In the Netherlands, farmer discontent over curbs on nitrogen emissions led to the sudden rise of the Farmer-Citizen Movement, a party that came from nowhere to win the most votes in regional elections last March. Many of those protest voters have since switched to Wildersโ€™ Freedom party, which topped the poll in a general election in November and has gained more ground since then.

Appeasing rural revolt may stop farmers blockading motorways or burning bales of hay outside government offices, but it is unlikely to herd them back towards the mainstream centre-right, given the depth of their discontent.

Read the full story here.

Operation Starve Paris: French farmers begin ‘indefinite’ tractor siege of the capital as it’s warned the city only has THREE DAYS of food, Toulouse is ‘cut off’ and hay bales are used to build blockades

French farmers have today started an ‘indefinite’ tractor siege of Paris, blocking off key routes after threatening to ‘starve’ the city โ€“ amid warnings the capital only has three days of food.

French farmers have today started an ‘indefinite’ tractor siege of Paris, blocking off key routes after threatening to ‘starve’ the city โ€“ amid warnings the capital only has three days of food.

Tractors are clogging major roads bringing traffic to a grinding halt around the city with stacks of hay bales also used to block carriageways as part of a bitter on-running dispute over work conditions. Theย Daily Mail has the story.

Meanwhile, the southern city of Toulouse has nearly been ‘cut off’ in the midst of similar protests in what will be a major test forย France‘s youngest ever PM Gabriel Attal โ€“ just weeks after he was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron aged 34.

In recent weeks there has been a slew of protests in France, a major agricultural producer, by farmers angry about incomes, red tape and environmental policies they say undermine their ability to compete with other countries.

Protesting farmers started the operation by blocking the A13 highway to the west of the capital, the A4 to the east and the A6 on which hundreds of tractors rolled towards Paris from the south. The government in response has deployed some 15,000 police officers.

By mid-afternoon they appeared to have met their objective of establishing eight chokepoints on major roads into Paris, according to Sytadin, a traffic monitoring service.

‘We need answers,’ said Karine Duc, a farmer in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne department as she joined a convoy of tractors heading for Paris. ‘This is the final battle for farming. It’s a question of survival,’ she added.

A banner on a tractor in the convoy said: ‘We will not die in silence.’

The crippling protests are the first major test for the country’s youngest ever Prime Minister Gabriel Attal who was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron just weeks ago.

The agriculture workers are protesting for more protection against rising production costs and for an end to green net zero policies that they say are putting them out of business.

The government, wary of seeing the protests escalate and with an eye on European Parliament elections in June, has already dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised to ease environmental regulations.

France also said it would push itsย European Unionย peers to agree to ease regulations on fallow farmland. But farmers’ organisation said it was not enough.

Read the full story ย here.

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