Dear Editor,
The federal government isn’t listening and food shortages could be the result.
By now you’ve heard about the Dutch farmers protest in the Netherlands over their government’s demands to reduce nitrogen and ammonia emissions 50 per cent by 2030.
This drastic action not only threatens Dutch farmers’ livelihoods, it may lead to serious global food shortages or worse.
The Netherlands is not some bit player. It is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world, second only to the United States. Kneecapping their agriculture sector is likely to come with some very negative consequences like food shortages and famine.
Like Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and committed to the same climate change policy prescriptions endorsed by that organization. In fact, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is a member of the WEF’s board of trustees.
Like the Netherlands the Trudeau government has committed Canada to reduce its fertilizer emissions by 30 per cent. And like the Netherlands, the Trudeau government isn’t listening to the people its policies will affect. You cannot arbitrarily commit to a 30 per cent reduction in emissions without serious impacts on Canadian farmers and overall Canadian food exports.
The Trudeau government wants a dramatic increase in Canada’s agricultural exports at the same time it is demanding draconian cuts in fertilizer emissions needed to grow food, all the while ignoring Canada’s farmers and food producers.
The target of an absolute reduction in nutrients used to produce our food was done without consultation with the fertilizer industry or Canadian grain and oilseed farmers.
What good will reducing fertilizer emissions by 30 per cent actually do? Where is the government’s cost benefit analysis? What actual environmental benefit will come from cutting fertilizer emissions by 30 per cent?
The federal government won’t or can’t say.
The costs of a draconian fertilizer emissions cut, on the other hand, are acute and quantifiable. A 30 per cent reduction in fertilizer emissions is estimated to reduce canola revenues by up to $441 million while wheat revenue could experience a reduction of up to $400 million.
Such drastic cuts will undoubtedly put many farmers out of business, lead to less food production, drive up the prices of food and generally make people’s lives harder and more expensive.
Given that Canada only emits 1.6 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas, what benefit will be derived from kneecapping western Canada’s agricultural industry?
Further, are fertilizer emission bans in Canada really such a good idea when you consider the threats to global food supply posed by the war in Ukraine and the draconian fertilizer emission cuts in the Netherlands?
Home heating costs and gasoline prices have gone through the roof from so-called green energy policies and carbon taxes. Food prices have similarly gone up and will shoot up even higher if the government ploughs ahead with its arbitrary emission reduction demands on fertilizer.
Agriculture is the cornerstone of food security in Canada. And arbitrary reductions in emissions will come at the cost of reduced output of food and higher prices.
As we’ve seen throughout history, disastrous catastrophes are the outcome of ill-conceived government interventions in the production of food.
Government interventions led to the starvation of millions and tens of millions of people in the Soviet famine of 1930-33 and the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-61, respectively. These are extreme examples but they illustrate what can happen when government idealism becomes divorced from agricultural reality.
The federal government needs to work with Canada’s farmers and agricultural community and not issue diktats on high that could lead to extreme unintended consequences.
Solution proposed
For example, rather than an arbitrary total emissions cut, the WCWG and other agriculture organizations have proposed emissions intensity reductions. Without getting too much into the weeds here, emissions intensity reduction focuses on reducing the emissions it takes to produce a bushel of crop as opposed to an arbitrary cap on emissions from fertilizers.
This approach would lead to lower emissions without lowering food production or destroying profitability.
The bottom line here is that Canadian farmers have been willing to work with the government in a way that would reduce emissions without threatening the food supply or bankrupting farmers.
Canada is a democracy and its people are the ultimate sovereign authority. If the Prime Minister won’t listen, we will go over his head and take up these concerns with his boss: you.
It’s said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Together, we can keep our country from going down the wrong road.
Gunter Jochum, president
Western Canadian Wheat Growers
