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Agriculture

Herbicide shortage underlines its importance

The United States is facing a historic shortage of weed killers due to ongoing supply chain issues. The manufacturers are struggling to get their hands on some of the inert chemicals needed to make herbicides, as well as cardboard boxes and plastic jugs for caps. Glyphosate is one of the chemicals most affected by these supply chain problems, with farmers scrambling for alternative products to fight off undesired weeds.

This comes conjointly with a regulatory and legislative crackdown on a wide array of herbicides across the country, limiting the ability of farmers to control weeds this year.

The fact that rules vary between counties complicates the matter further, with agriculture professionals confused over which ingredients remain legally accessible, and needing the assistance of weed scientists to sift through the regulatory jungle. This is particularly problematic as many farmers have land extending across different counties.

While shortages affect the day-to-day lives of farmers, law makers’s long-term actions have more far-reaching consequences.

Weed-killers have come under fire by activist groups opposing the use of crop protection, accusing it of harming endangered species. Preventing these species from going extinct is guaranteed through the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a problematic piece of legislation due to its obtuse standards as to what exactly constitutes an endangered species in the first place.

As Hank Campbell at Science 2.0 explains, the ESA has been hijacked by trial lawyers, who use the law to arbitrarily fit their litigation purposes, and perpetuate definitions of “endangered” that are far removed from what the general public understands by the term. In fact, Campbell shows that the numbers of endangered species according to the ESA has skyrocketed under the Clinton and Obama administrations. As a result, we’ve seen a large amount of chemicals companies being sued, then settled, with environmental groups over their manufacturing of pesticides.

As a consumer, why care? As consumers we need to realize that crop protection plays a role in our daily lives, and not in the way it is portrayed by activists and, all too often, the media. When news outlets publish stories with the headline “Glyphosate weed killer found in German beers, study finds,” it makes sense to read through the entire piece and understand that a single person would need to ingest 264 gallons of beer a day for it to be harmful to health. Let’s agree that a person ingesting 264 gallons of beer in one day will supposedly have bigger problems than the exposure to a weed-killer. In turn, herbicides which are so viciously attacked on unscientific grounds provide essential advantages for farmers.

Pre-herbicides we used to hand weed, a practice so painfully visible in developing nations that still practice it. Herbicides alleviate the burden on women and all too often children who are required to hand-weed. In fact, 80% of hand-weeding in Africa is done by women, and 69% of farm children between the ages of 5 through 14 are forced to leave school to work in the agricultural sector during peak weeding periods, leading to long-term spinal deformities.

Herbicides have also increased our agricultural output, and guaranteed food security. Food security– how immense the technological advance is that we don’t even think about the possibilities of food products not being available on our shelves.

That said, the current food price inflation shows how vulnerable our system can actually be. Farming is more than just putting a seed in the ground and hoping it grows. Farming has become an intricate orchestra of players, all interdependent, all relying on technology and modern science. As consumers, if we want safe, available, and affordable food options, we need to recognize the incredibly important work that farmers do, and put our trust in their professional rigor.

Originally published here

The U.S. Was Right To Warn The EU About Green Agriculture

The United Nations has warned about the looming food crisis in light of the war in Ukraine. The poorest countries in Africa, heavily dependent on Ukraine and Russia’s wheat supplies, are at high risk of starvation and malnutrition. Food security is also crumbling in Europe, packed with refugees from Ukraine and other politically unstable regions.

Until the very last moment, no one in the world⁠—except Russian President Vladimir Putin–knew whether the war would break out. One can then say that the food crisis caught Europe off guard. But that would be wrong. Europe simply ignored the red flags⁠—and now it’s paying the price.

The European Farm to Fork strategy (F2F), presented in 2019, intended to “enable and accelerate the transition to a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system.” That implied reducing pesticides by 50% by 2030 and increasing organic farming by at least 25%. Many European politicians vehemently defended F2F’s green goals. In October 2021, most Members of the European Parliament voted in favor of the F2F. 

The U.S., however, had no illusions about the F2F. A groundbreaking 2020 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that F2F would reduce “agricultural production by 7 to 12% and diminish the EU’s competitiveness in both domestic and export markets.” The U.S. also recognized that the F2F would impose additional burdens on the EU-U.S. trade talks. 

Commenting on the F2F, David Salmonsen, senior director of congressional relations at the American Farm Bureau Federation, stressed: “A concern coming out of that for us is, in the future, could [Farm to Fork] result in some new trade barriers if they decide the way they want to produce food is the only way and they only want to let products in from outside that produce food the same way?” These concerns were particularly justified and shared by African countries, especially Kenya, as well. At home, multiple EU farming associations warned about the detrimental impact of F2F.

However, it took the war in Ukraine to make the EU realize the damaging scale of its green ambitions. Ukraine is one of the EU’s major agricultural partners, and it is only natural that the trade disruption has raised questions about the EU’s own food security. Less than two weeks into the war, the realization that the green agenda is not feasible has hit the EU.

On March 8th, European People’s Party (EPP), the parliament’s largest group, asked to call off the F2F. French President Emmanuel Macron also said that “Europe cannot afford to produce less.” It took the EU less than a month of war⁠—not even on its soil⁠—to realize that the green agenda is not fit for the challenges of today. And who needs such unsustainable policies to start with?

On the one hand, it’s great that the EU has now realized that green agriculture is unworkable. On the other hand, the whole drama could have been avoided in the first place if the EU had thoroughly considered the U.S.’s concerns. Moving forward, both the EU and the U.S. should use the F2F as a reminder that green policies sound great on paper⁠—but they are not feasible.

Originally published here

The War in Ukraine is a Slap in the Face of the Green Agenda

On the 24th of February, Russia started an unprovoked full-scale war against Ukraine. As Ukrainians are dying on the battlefield, the petrol prices bring a sense of war to every household globally. On the 8th of March, the U.S. recorded the highest fuel price per gallon of $4.17. European consumers also brace for further increases.

The war in Ukraine has changed policy priorities. The comforts and privileges of the pre-war time, when we could afford to spend countless hours discussing climate change, are gone. Now we have to deal with tangible crises, with the risk of global hunger being the greatest.

Ukraine and Russia are top global exporters of wheat, grain, and various nutrients. Russia, for example, accounts for 6 percent of the U.S.’s potassium imports – second only to Canada. Belarus, now on the brink of new sanctions, also contributes 6 percent. While the U.S. will probably manage to substitute these imports quickly, the search costs and high fuel prices alone will toll food production.

Globally, things look even grimmer. According to the United Nations, the disruption caused by the war could push international food prices by a staggering 22 percent. Food insecurity and malnutrition in the world’s poorest countries will consequently also be on the rise. The Center for Global Development has found that the price spike in food and energy will push over 40 million into poverty.

The war has served as a wake-up call for the EU, heavily dependent on Ukraine’s grain and Russia’s fertilizer imports. Europe has now realized that it can no longer afford its green agriculture plans, once so passionately advocated for. The Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy ambitiously sought to cut the use of pesticides in the EU by 50 percent while increasing organic farming production from 7.5 percent to 25 percent. 

Ferociously endorsed by green groups, the strategy was also highly costly and hardly climate-friendly. As the world cripples with limited resources, organic farming requires more farmland. To drastically reduce the use of pesticides – without giving farmers an alternative – would be a final nail in the coffin of European food production. Farmers’ associations understandably protested, but that wasn’t enough to make European policymakers change their minds.

The EU’s green agriculture strategy was so expensive that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, its impact “would stretch beyond the EU, driving up worldwide food prices by 9 (EU only adoption) to 89 percent (global adoption).” The said study found that F2F would reduce “agricultural production by 7 to 12%  and diminish the EU’s competitiveness in both domestic and export markets.” A more recent 2022 study by Dutch scientists found that productionwill decline by 10 to 20%, or in some cases 30%. With strategies like this, the world wouldn’t need wars to find itself at the end of the cliff.

But, ironically, it took a war to make the EU realize that the F2F was not workable. Less than two weeks into the Ukraine-Russia war, as food prices climbed up and food security was at risk, the strategy got called off. In arguing for the pausing of the F2F, French President Emmanuel Macron said that “Europe cannot afford to produce less.”

The EU has convinced itself that green agriculture was the way forward, and it was only a matter of time until the bloc would have started telling the world to go green. Thankfully, the U.S. saw through these intentions and blasted the F2F as “protectionist,” “uncompetitive,” and misguided.” Commenting on F2F,  the U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, “The world’s got to get fed, and it’s got to get fed in a sustainable way. And we can’t basically sacrifice one for the other.” The EU had a chance to learn that green agriculture is not sustainable earlier if it listened to the U.S. Now, as the global food security crumbles, the bloc is learning it the hard way.

The war in Ukraine is a brutal reminder that our reality remains vulnerable to external shocks, so we should only build food systems that last and stand firm. Green agriculture is not one of them, and it should never be back on the agenda. Not in the EU, or the U.S., not anywhere.

Originally published here

What would a world without herbicides look like?

Pesticide shortages, increased labor costs, and transportation bottlenecks are raising the cost of food across the EU. With war roiling this season’s crop planting in Ukraine — often called the breadbasket of Europe — grain shortages are expected to add to the growing number of factors impacting food security.

Yet, looking past the short-term crisis, Purdue University agricultural economist Jayson Lusk remains optimistic. He believes that biotechnology and entrepreneurship can help mitigate climate change while limiting soil erosion and boosting soil health. Genetically modified plants can produce their own, safer pesticides, reducing insecticide application. Yields can also be increased using gene tinkering, reducing land use and carbon emissions.

Read the full article here

EU Green Policies Back On The Table

Europe’s Green Deal is supposed to revolutionize energy and agriculture. Now, the continent can’t afford it.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has shaken every political consensus in Europe. Within weeks, Germany’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal with Moscow was cancelled, and the principle of not sending weapons to war zones went out the window. Just three years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron called NATO “braindead.” Now, nobody in Europe is echoing this view. The same will happen with the European Green Deal, the mothership of Europe’s environmental ambitions.

The Green Deal encompasses all the regulatory measures the E.U. envisages to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. It has been spearheaded by France and Germany, the latter already having started its energy transition (Energiewende) in 2011. Since Berlin’s radical decision to phase out nuclear power, Germany has experienced the highest electricity prices in the developed world, reduced competitiveness, and higher carbon-dioxide emissions as a result of increased reliance on coal and natural gas—from Russia. Now that Moscow has plunged European diplomacy into chaos, its hand hovering over the gas lever, Germany is scrambling to find alternatives.

Germany’s economy minister Robert Habeck—incidentally a Green Party official—did not rule out a delay to the phase-out of coal power and a halt to the phase-out of the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany. Frans Timmermans, E.U. Commissioner in charge of the Green Deal, has also accepted that coal will remain an energy source for longer than Brussels initially anticipated. What is so striking about the European conversation is that practically nobody is talking about wind mills or solar panels, but instead countries are attempting to import more LNG (liquified natural gas) from Canada and the United States, max out the natural gas pipeline from Azerbaijan, or (in the case of the U.K.) argue to put a halt to bans on fracking.

Meanwhile, Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio has travelled to Algeria and Qatar to help ramp up alternative natural gas imports to the one Rome currently gets from Russia. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi had said in a recent statement that he regretted the choices that were made in the past, as Italy is one of the countries most dependent on Russian gas imports. Algeria, which currently supplies 11 percent of Europe’s gas needs (a third of which goes to Italy), has said that it’s ready to increase output by 30 percent in the short term. Tunisia and Libya in Northern Africa are also strategic partners for Europe to ramp up natural gas imports, as are Nigeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Ghana for LNG shipments. LNG terminals in Europe were running at 45 percent capacity last year, with most of the infrastructure in Europe located in Spain. Europe would need significant investment, which will take time, to even get close to what it needs to substitute Russian natural gas.

Europe also faces considerable challenges in agriculture. The European Commission’s “Farm to Fork” strategy seeks to reduce pesticides by 50 percent, devote 25 percent of agricultural land use to organic farming, and reduce fertilizers by 20 percent. Farming representatives have heavily criticized these plans, as they would tighten food supplies and increase dependence on imports. With sanctions on Russia severely disrupting the international food trade in fertilizers, can Europe afford plans to reduce agricultural output? Banking on organic food, which is notoriously under-productive, is unlikely to guarantee European food security. On Tuesday, that recognition came from the European Parliament’s leading parliamentary group, the center-right European People’s Party, calling for a moratorium on green agriculture policies.

USDA study on the “Farm to Fork” plans found that the targets will lead to a reduction in productivity for wheat and oilseeds, as well as a reduction in E.U. exports. The strategy would also lead to a decline in agricultural production in Europe between 7-12 percent. Meanwhile, the E.U.’s decline in GDP would represent 76 percent of the decline in the worldwide GDP. Adding to that, the situation of food security and food commodity prices deteriorates significantly under a worldwide adoption scenario, as USDA researchers have found. The outlook of agricultural prices soars between 20 and 53 percent due to the package. The legislation should entice none of the lawmakers in Brussels—and it appears that now it could be killed altogether.

Europe’s green ambitions have met the harsh realities of geopolitics and the feasibilities of their environmentalist ideologies. Had it listened to partners on the heavy reliance on Russian gas, Europe could have prepared by reading the IPCC report and banking on nuclear power as part of the energy mix by allowing for modern agricultural practices to take root. This should serve as a wake-up call for those in the United States, who for years have applauded the European decarbonization and agricultural policy model as an example to follow for Washington.

Originally published here

Front-Of-Pack Nutrition Labelling

As part of the Farm to Fork Strategy, the European Commission has decided that, by the final quarter of 2022, it will present its proposal for a harmonised front-of-pack nutrition labelling system, which will be mandatory across all EU countries. The aim is to encourage consumers to shift to healthier and more sustainable diets.

Don’t worsen the position of consumers

The highest inflation in 13 years is hitting American consumers. Since September 2020, overall food prices have risen by 4.6%, with eggs, poultry, meat, and fish being the most affected.

As consumers scramble to make ends meet in a labor market that remains volatile, it stands to reason that U.S agriculture policy should follow suit.

Over in Europe, the situation for consumers is comparable: with food prices on a 3.4% inflation rate, automatic indexation systems in countries that apply them have already affected wages. However, not all European countries benefit from the same luxury, and even those getting a salary boost are still seeing their purchasing power reduced. Meanwhile, European Union lawmakers continue their push for mechanisms set out to make the food system more sustainable.

Sustainability in agriculture means different things depending on who you ask. For the EU, sustainability has long meant a reduction in crop protection tools (i.e. pesticides), even though there is no link between organic pesticides and a more environmentally friendly food system. Since the early 2010s, the EU has been leading the way in confronting neonicotinoid insecticides, which have been accused of harming honeybee populations. On top of these bans, the EU now seeks to export its policy abroad: The European Commission has announced that food products grown with the help of two specific neonicotinoids will no longer be allowed to be sold in the EU.

There are two ways in which you can analyze this decision: Is it scientifically sound; and is it suitable for trade? Uniquely, the European Commission gets it wrong on both ends.

Just this year, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency decided that the two neonicotinoids in question – clothianidin and thiamethoxam – were not harmful to pollinators, reversing its own 2018 decision. The entire conversation on “bee-harming pesticides” needs to get back to the facts, meaning that the European Commission needs to establish that these insecticides harm pollinators and should be transparent about the fact that bee populations are not declining. If it did those things, we would not be looking at increasingly dire situations for farmers needing to protect their crops from pests.

The other issue is that of international trade. This is not a food safety concern, per the idea that the imported foodstuffs are bad for European consumers. It applies European political and environmental conclusions to trade partners who did not reach those conclusions. Decisions like this need to come under close inspection by the WTO and have no place in an international food market based on free exchange. Consumers should have choices, including those choices that the European Commission disapproves of politically.

For consumers, reduced crop protection toolboxes for farmers is bad news. Unable to protect their crops from pests, farmers will see a significant reduction in output, leading to higher prices. This is not just theoretical. Just last year, France voted to cancel its ban on neonicotinoids because it saw a dire situation for its beet farmers, who saw a dramatic production decline. At the brink of needing to import sugar beet from abroad, French lawmakers abandoned the ban for three years.

In 2015, the French far-right National Front campaigned in the European Parliament for a ban on the insecticide sulfoxaflor, often named as an alternative to neonicotinoids. Back then, Marine Le Pen’s party was shot down politically on the issue, only for the French government to outlaw the substance early last year. One of many decisions that led to the crisis of beet farmers last year.

The United States cannot afford to follow the path of Europe. Increasingly, environmental groups have targeted insecticides, leading to a battle in New York between farmers and legislators wishing to outlaw the substances in question. For all the talk of listening to farmers in the push for sustainability, political actors have done very little of it.

In fact, the policies seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all solution to farming will reduce agricultural output and increase prices at the time we can afford it the least.

Originally published here

Let’s Learn Well What Farming Once Was, Don’t Go Back

Those privileged of having met their grandparents, or even better, their great-grandparents, know of the staggering improvements in human prosperity over the last 100 years. For those born into wealth it’s noticeable through the advances of modern medicine (allowing you to meet your great-grandparents in the first place), but the changes are even more breathtaking for those whose ancestors have a background in farming. 

In fact, most of our ancestor’s stories relate to farming. European immigrants to the United States are often referred to as “seeking a better life”, but the harsher reality is that in most of Europe famine and disease was haunting those living from day to day. The Irish famine of 1845 killed one million people, which at the time represented 15% of the total population. About a century before the mainstream introduction of fungicides, the farming population had no ability to fight potato blight – leading to famines across Europe which caused civil unrest, even toppling the French July Monarchy in the Revolution of 1848. 

Read the full article here

Anti-chemical campaigners misleadingly invoke a looming ‘insect apocalypse’ to justify demands to junk targeted, synthetic pesticides

Alternatives to sulfoxaflor exist, what are we waiting for?” titles a blog post on the website of the Belgian environmentalist NGO Nature&Progrès.

The post argues that given the available alternatives to modern insecticides, it should be reasonable to phase them out indefinitely. It claims that we are facing an insect apocalypse caused by crop protection tools – however, both statements are untrue.

The warnings of a so-called “insect apocalypse” date back to 2019, when a study titled “Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers” by Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, from the School of Life & Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney, predicted a spiralling decline of insect populations worldwide.

“It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none”Bayo told The Guardian in February.

Read the full article here

With Rising Food Prices, We Can’t Afford To Worsen the Position of Consumers

The highest inflation in 13 years is hitting American consumers. Since September 2020, overall food prices have risen by 4.6 percent, with eggs, poultry, meat, and fish being the most affected. As consumers scramble to make ends meet in a labor market that remains volatile, it stands to reason that U.S agriculture policy should follow suit.

Over in Europe, the situation for consumers is comparable: with food prices on a 3.4 percent inflation rate, automatic indexation systems in countries that apply them have already affected wages. However, not all European countries benefit from the same luxury, and even those getting a salary boost are still seeing their purchasing power reduced. Meanwhile, European Union lawmakers continue their push for mechanisms set out to make the food system more sustainable.

Sustainability in agriculture means different things depending on who you ask. For the EU, sustainability has long meant a reduction in crop protection tools (i.e. pesticides), even though there is no link between organic pesticides and a more environmentally-friendly food system. Since the early 2010s, the EU has been leading the way in confronting neonicotinoid insecticides, which have been accused of harming honeybee populations. On top of these bans, the EU now seeks to export its policy abroad: The European Commission has announced that food products grown with the help of two specific neonicotinoids will no longer be allowed to be sold in the EU.

There are two ways in which you can analyze this decision: 1) is it scientifically sound? and 2) is it suitable for trade? Uniquely, the European Commission gets it wrong on both ends.

Just this year, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency decided that the two neonicotinoids in question – clothianidin and thiamethoxam – were not harmful to pollinators, reversing its own 2018 decision. The entire conversation on “bee-harming pesticides” needs to get back to the facts, meaning that the European Commission needs to establish that these insecticides harm pollinators and should be transparent about the fact that bee populations are not declining. If it did those things, we would not be looking at increasingly dire situations for farmers needing to protect their crops from pests.

The other issue is that of international trade. This is not a food safety concern, per the idea that the imported foodstuffs are bad for European consumers. It applies European political and environmental conclusions to trade partners who did not reach those conclusions. Decisions like this need to come under close inspection by the WTO and have no place in an international food market based on free exchange. Consumers should have choices, including those choices that the European Commission disapproves of politically.

For consumers, reduced crop protection toolboxes for farmers is bad news. Unable to protect their crops from pests, farmers will see a significant reduction in output, leading to higher prices. This is not just theoretical. Just last year, France voted to cancel its ban on neonicotinoids because it saw a dire situation for its beet farmers, who saw a dramatic production decline. At the brink of needing to import sugar beet from abroad, French lawmakers abandoned the ban for three years.

In 2015, the French far-right National Front campaigned in the European Parliament for a ban on the insecticide sulfoxaflor, often named as an alternative to neonicotinoids. Back then, Marine Le Pen’s party was shot down politically on the issue, only for the French government to outlaw the substance early last year. One of many decisions that led to the crisis of beet farmers last year.

The United States cannot afford to follow the path of Europe. Increasingly, environmental groups have targeted insecticides, leading to a battle in New York between farmers and legislators wishing to outlaw the substances in question. For all the talk of listening to farmers in the push for sustainability, political actors have done very little of it. In fact, the policies seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all solution to farming will reduce agricultural output and increase prices at the time we can afford it the least.

Originally published here

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