Food Security and Mandated Fertilizer Restrictions*
Limiting fertilizer use will limit food production and intensify the world food shortage.
*Re-posted 3-29-22
There is a trend developing in countries around the world that is extremely disturbing to people concerned about the growing worldwide shortage of food. Governments are dictating to farmers that they must decrease fertilizer use by unreasonable levels, supposedly to fight climate change. Last week I highlighted the crisis in Sri Lanka precipitated by a ban on synthetic fertilizers. Sunday, Blackmon’s newsletter pointed out the most recent example of this trend, Canada pushing a decrease of fertilizer emissions by 30%.
This Toronto Sun article outlines the misguided policy that not only ignores the science and the people in agriculture who could help the government develop a reasonable policy, but also will have the unintended consequences of less food and higher food prices for Canadian’s and the world.
“Provinces were disappointed by the lack of flexibility and consultation regarding the federal target,” Ontario’s Lisa Thompson said after the meeting.
Several provincial governments, and organizations representing farmers have asked for emissions reductions from fertilizer to be measured via intensity – how much food is produced compared to the amount of fertilizer used. The Trudeau government is demanding an absolute reduction in emissions, which farmers say will result in less food being produced at a time when the world can ill afford it.
“The world is looking for Canada to increase production and be a solution to global food shortages. The Federal government needs to display that they understand this,” Alberta minister Nate Horner said.
“We’re really concerned with this arbitrary goal,” Saskatchewan’s David Marit said.
A previous article, also in the Toronto Sun, compared the new Canadian mandate to the fertilizer reduction imposed on farmers in the Netherlands that sparked widespread protests.
Dutch farmers have been blocking highways, supermarkets and food distribution centres for the past week over a policy that is similar to what we could soon see in Canada.
In fact, if Justin Trudeau isn’t careful, the next protest he sees might be tractors and farmers rather than truckers.
Farmers across the Netherlands are protesting rules that will require them to reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 50% by 2030. It’s a move to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also one that could see them lose money, have lower crop yields or force some farms to close for good.
Government officials who have absolutely no experience in farming or soil science are making arbitrary rules that do not make sense in the real world.
Industry groups say they were not consulted before the Trudeau government pulled the 30% reduction target out of thin air and that there has been no analysis and no modeling provided to farmers or industry groups.
While still described as a voluntary reduction, those in the agriculture sector say they don’t feel the government understands the way things work. Bureaucrats talk as if farmers across the board are using far more fertilizer than they need.
While best practices can always be improved, most farmers aren’t spreading fertilizer across the their fields like your Uncle Bob does after a sale on lawn fertilizer at Canadian Tire.
“I only use as much as I need to grow the crop,” one farmer in Southwestern Ontario told me Thursday.
“You can only afford so much of this,” said another farmer from Saskatchewan.
Fertilizer is either the most expensive input for farmers or one of the most expensive inputs depending on the crops and scale of the operation. No one who wants to be successful is using more than they need and some have told me they should probably use more based on soil analysis but that it becomes cost prohibitive.
It seems that governments are using the excuse of climate alarmism to impose unworkable restrictions on everyone regardless of the science or the consequences, all at the expense of the poorest people in their countries whom, in the past, they claimed they wanted to help.
The end result of reducing crop yields.
Governments need to understand if they reduce crop yields by restricting inputs, more planted acres will be required to produce the same amount of food as before. More planted acres requires more forest, pastures, or rangeland to be converted to cropland. These people really don’t have a clue what they are doing. The only other alternative is less food production and more hunger.
We need people who understand the science of agriculture and the consequences of their policies on the people and ecosystems of their country making these decisions - not some career politician who has no knowledge or experience of the subject and who will not suffer the consequences of his misguided mandates.
"farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." Dwight Eisenhower 1956
There are things government shouldn't try to "fix", farming and energy are the two biggest. First they break it so they can offer a solution, then they can offer all the solutions to all the problems their 1st solution created....Sophisticated State Failure/job security