Canada’s Nitrogen Policy Set to Wreck Agriculture By Chris Knight (Florida)
The ban on agriculture through the nitrogen connection, as seen in the Netherlands is set to roll in Canada, with Justin Trudeau, ideological, if not natural son of Castro, bringing in a nitrogen emissions cap that will, as in the Netherlands, polish off farming, thus accelerating the global famine wing of the depopulation agenda. The totally disastrous goal is for reducing nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer by 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030, at a time when the world needs more food produced, not less. Worse, the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40-45 percent by 2030, only eight years away. According to a report from Fertilizer Canada: “Total Emission Reduction puts a cap on the total emissions allowable from fertilizer at 30% below 2020 levels. As the yield of Canadian crops is directly linked to proper fertilizer application this creates a ceiling on Canadian agricultural productivity well below 2020 levels…
“It is estimated that a 30% absolute emission reduction for a farmer with 1000 acres of canola and 1000 acres of wheat, stands to have their profit reduced by approximately $38,000 – $40,500/ annually.
“In 2020, Western Canadian farmers planted approximately 20.8 million acres of canola. Using these values, cumulatively farm revenues from canola could be reduced by $396M – $441M on an annual basis. Wheat famers could experience a reduction of $400M.”
This, if not stopped spells the end of Canadian agriculture, a massive rise in food prices, of what is available, or starvation, or at least extreme hunger, locally, for the first time in history. All for something, global warming, with less foundation than even the Covid plandemic.
“After the truckers, will we soon see an army of tractors invade Ottawa? Because, much like in the Netherlands, Justin Trudeau is bringing in a nitrogen emissions cap that will absolutely decimate Canadian farming.
In December 2020, the Trudeau government unveiled their new climate plan, with a focus on reducing nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.
“Fertilizers play a major role in the agriculture sector’s success and have contributed to record harvests in the last decade. They have helped drive increases in Canadian crop yields, grain sales, and exports,” a news release from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reads.
“However, nitrous oxide emissions, particularly those associated with synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use have also grown significantly. That is why the Government of Canada has set the national fertilizer emissions reduction target, which is part of the commitment to reduce total GHG emissions in Canada by 40-45% by 2030…”
This is a tacit admission that any attempt to lower admissions by reducing nitrogen fertilizer will consequently lower crop yields over the next decade, hurting the Agriculture sector and, more importantly, hurting farmers.
And indeed, according to a report from Fertilizer Canada:
“Total Emission Reduction puts a cap on the total emissions allowable from fertilizer at 30% below 2020 levels. As the yield of Canadian crops is directly linked to proper fertilizer application this creates a ceiling on Canadian agricultural productivity well below 2020 levels…
“It is estimated that a 30% absolute emission reduction for a farmer with 1000 acres of canola and 1000 acres of wheat, stands to have their profit reduced by approximately $38,000 – $40,500/ annually.
“In 2020, Western Canadian farmers planted approximately 20.8 million acres of canola. Using these values, cumulatively farm revenues from canola could be reduced by $396M – $441M on an annual basis. Wheat famers could experience a reduction of $400M.”
Moreover, Fertilizer Canada doesn’t believe that forcibly decreasing fertilizer use will even lower greenhouse gases but could lead to carbon leakage elsewhere.
Nonetheless, Trudeau’s government is moving forward, with farmer’s groups speaking to Farmers Forum now wondering if he’s intentionally trying to cause a food shortage — which Trudeau previously told Canadians to prepare for.
“We’ve seen from the global pandemic to the war in Ukraine significant disruptions of supply chains around the world, which is resulting in higher prices for consumers and democracies like ours, and resulting in significant shortages and projected shortages of food and energy in places around the world,” Trudeau said.
“This is going to be a difficult time,” he continued, “because of the war, because of the recovery from the pandemic. And Canadians will do what we always do: we’ll be there for each other.”
Of course, reducing nitrogen emissions released by fertilizer crucial to the survivability of the agriculture sector isn’t the only target of Trudeau’s government. Every part of the economy has been negatively impacted by Trudeau’s climate agenda.
On April 1 — the same day he gave himself a raise — Trudeau decided to go ahead and jack up the carbon tax by an additional 25%, consequently increasing the price of practically everything.
As Alberta MP Shannon Stubbs wrote at the time in an article for The Counter Signal:
“The Liberal government is hiking the tax-on-everything carbon tax while Canadians struggle like never before with skyrocketing prices for essentials like food and fuel, heating, and housing…
“Of course, the Liberals claim the carbon tax is “revenue neutral.” Whether for governments or for Canadians, that’s just not true. The independent, non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer calculates the GST collected on carbon taxes at more than $200 million each year, which goes straight into government coffers. Years ago, Conservatives tried to end this tax-on-a-tax, but the Liberals wouldn’t budge.”
Since boosting the carbon tax, gas prices have soared to over $2.00 per liter across Canada, with one Liberal candidate saying that the “silver lining” is that Canadians will be priced out of driving.
And as with other problems facing our crumbling economy, Trudeau doesn’t appear to be taking any actions to remedy it — unsurprising, as so often he is the root cause.”
https://thecountersignal.com/trudeau-nitrogen-policy-will-decimate-canadian-farming/
The climate change fanatics, ignore of course, the role that big Agri has in all of this, with synthetic fertilisers made from fossil fuels. Children’s health Defense.org makes some good points, but they seem to accept that global warming is occurring, whereas we at the blog, see it a yet another great myth of the age. Still, some good points made especially on the need to move to organic farming.
“As The Defender reported last week, government policies developed under the guise of reducing nitrogen emissions are forcing Dutch farmers out of business — but some argue there’s something more sinister behind these and other new “climate-friendly” policies.
The nitrogen problem in agriculture is a problem created by synthetic nitrogen fertilizers made from fossil fuels — the manufacture and use of nitrogen fertilizers contribute to atmospheric pollution and climate change.
The manufacture of synthetic fertilizers is highly energy-intensive. One kg of nitrogen fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of 2 liters of diesel.
Energy used during fertilizer manufacture is equivalent to 191 billion liters of diesel in 2000 and is projected to rise to 277 billion in 2030.
This is a major contributor to climate change, yet is largely ignored. One kilogram of phosphate fertilizer requires half a liter of diesel.
Nitrogen fertilizers also emit a greenhouse gas, N2O, which is 300 times more destabilizing for the climate system than CO2.
The linear extractive agriculture system based on fossil fuels is rupturing ecological processes and planetary boundaries. The planetary boundaries that have been transgressed to a high-risk zone are biodiversity and nitrogen pollution from chemical fertilizers.
The most severe violations of planetary boundaries are due to fossil fuel, chemical-intensive industrial globalized agriculture, the disruption of biodiversity integrity and genetic diversity leading to biodiversity loss and species extinction, and the biochemical nitrogen and phosphorus cycles caused by large-scale monocultures and large-scale use of chemical pesticides.
Erosion of genetic diversity and the transgression of the nitrogen boundary have already crossed catastrophic levels. These overshoots are rooted in the chemical-intensive, fossil fuel-intensive industrial model of agriculture. Ninety-three percent of cultivated crops have disappeared.
The scientific and just response to the nitrogen problem is to shift from fossil fuel chemical agriculture to biodiverse ecological agriculture and regenerative farming and to create transition strategies for farmers to shift to ecological agriculture, which regenerates soil nitrogen while making farmers free of harmful and costly chemicals.
Chemical-free food is good for the health of the planet and people.
The unscientific, unjust and undemocratic response to the chemical industry-created nitrogen problem is to reduce farmers instead of reducing dependence on chemical fertilizers as is happening in the Netherlands.
To reduce chemical fertilizer use, governments need to make the fertilizer industry pay for nitrogen pollution, and redirect subsidies from industrial agriculture to ecological farming. Criminalizing farmers for the crimes of the chemical industry is unfair and unjust.
We need more farmers, not less, to regenerate the earth through an economy of care and belonging, and to produce real food which regenerates the health of the planet and our health.
There is a dystopian vision of a future of “Farming with Farmers,” digital agriculture with larger farms, more fertilizer use, more biodiversity loss.
While creating “Farming without Farmers” billionaires like Bill Gates are promoting more synthetic fertilizer use, aggravating the nitrogen problem.
Gates is promoting nitrogen fertilizers and chemical-intensive GMO soya as raw material for lab-made fake food that is being labeled as “plant-based.”
The billionaire’s recipe is to have larger chemical-intensive monoculture artificially fertilized by synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, which will emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas.
In total denial of climate science and soil ecology, Gates is continuing the “chemical hocus pocus” when he says we need to use more fertilizer.
“To grow crops, you want tons of nitrogen — way more than you would ever find in a natural setting. Adding nitrogen is how you get corn to grow 19 feet tall and produce enormous quantities of seed.”
This statement is scientifically and ecologically false.
Soil is a living system. There are multiple pathways to regenerate the soil and soil nitrogen and heal the nitrogen cycle.
The living soil was forgotten for an entire century with very high costs to nature and society. Soil was defined as an “empty container” for pouring synthetic fertilizers into, which were falsely seen as the source of soil fertility.
“Bread from air” was the slogan after the discovery of the Haber Bosch process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen by burning fossil fuels. The illusion grew that we did not need soil.
There was the exaggerated claim that artificial fertilizers would increase food production and remove all ecological limits that land puts on agriculture.
Today the evidence is growing that artificial fertilizers have reduced soil fertility and food production and contributed to desertification, water scarcity and climate change. They have created dead zones in the oceans.
The process used to make explosives by burning fossil fuels at high temperatures to fix atmospheric nitrogen was later used to make chemical fertilizers.
Justus von Liebig was the father of organic chemistry, the first scientist to explain the role of nitrogen in plants, which was quickly appropriated by greed for commerce. A new industry was created for external inputs of nitrogen, dubbed “growth stimulants.”
Outraged at the distortion of his scientific findings, in 1861 he wrote a book, “The Search for Agricultural Recycling.”
Liebig’s book was the voice of a true scientist, protecting his truth from distortions of a pseudo-science being created by commercial interests. He writes:
“I thought it would be enough to just announce and spread the truth as is customary in science. I finally came to understand that this wasn’t right, and the altars of lies must be destroyed if we wish to give truth a fair chance.”
The truth that Liebig was defending was that the soil is living, and its life depends on recycling, or what Sir Albert Howard later called “The Law of Return” in his “An Agricultural Testament” nearly half a century later.
The lie he wanted to destroy was what he called the “chemical hocus pocus,” that you can keep extracting nutrients from the soil, giving nothing back, and have “high yields.”
Selling more fertilizers is good for the profits of the chemical industry, but it is not good for the soil or the climate. It violates nature’s law of return. And it denies farmers the ecological alternatives to regenerate and renew soil nitrogen.
Farmers did not create the nitrogen problem. The problem is created by the chemical industry. According to the polluter pays principle, the chemical industry must pay for the pollution. Farmers are consumers of fertilizers, not the manufacturers.
They are victims of a chemical-intensive industrial agriculture system, like the biodiversity of plants, and animals and the consumers whose health is degenerating with industrial food style chronic diseases. The planet and people need more farmers, not less.
Sacrificing farmers pretending to address the nitrogen problem is dishonest because it blames the farmers for a problem created by the chemical industry. It is dishonest and inconsistent to say farms and farms must be reduced while continuing to promote the use of chemical fertilizers as Gates, the chemical industry and governments are doing.
While the chemical industry has spread the myth that chemical fertilizers are necessary for food production and address hunger, they have destroyed biodiversity by promoting monoculture, and they have contributed to the desertification of soil by destroying the biodiversity of living soil.
The destruction of soil organic matter destroys the capacity of soil to conserve moisture, thereby creating the need for intensive irrigation, and therefore further disrupting the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles.
Our practice and research at Navdanya over the last two decades show that regenerative ecological agriculture builds up soil nitrogen, while synthetic fertilizers deplete it.
Reducing fertilizer use does not reduce yields.
The more nitrogen fertilizer you use the more you must use because nitrogen fertilizers kill the live organisms in the soil.
Fertilizer response has dramatically reduced. Sharma and Sharma (2009) mentioned the declining fertilizer response for the last 30 years from 13. 4 kg grain kg nutrient in 1970 to 3. 7 kg grain kg nutrient in 2005 in irrigated areas.
According to Biswas and Sharma (2008), while only 54 kg NPK / ha was required to produce around 2 t /ha in 1970, about 218 kg NPK/ha was used in 2005 to sustain the same yield.
Chemical fertilizers are leading to a decline in productivity because they are destroying soil health. During three and half decades, fertilizer productivity declined from 48 kg food grains/kg NPK fertilizer in 1970-71 to 10 kg food grains/kg NPK fertilizer in 2007-08.
Since synthetic fertilizers are fossil fuel-based, they contribute to the disruption of the carbon cycle. But they also disrupt the nitrogen cycle.
And they disrupt the hydrological cycle, both because chemical agriculture needs ten times more water to produce the same amount of food than organic farming, and it pollutes the water in rivers and oceans.
Pulses fix nitrogen non-violently in the soil, instead of increasing dependence on synthetic fertilizers produced violently by heating fossil fuels to 550 degrees centigrade. Chickpea can fix up to 140 kg nitrogen per hectare and pigeon pea can fix up to 200 kg nitrogen per hectare that fix nitrogen non-violently.
Returning organic matter to the soil builds up soil nitrogen. A recent study we are undertaking shows that organic farming has increased the nitrogen content of soil between 44-144%, depending on the crops.
Since war expertise does not provide expertise about how plants work, how the soil works, how ecological processes work, the potential of biodiversity and organic farming was totally ignored by the militarized model of industrial agriculture.
To address the nitrogen problem, we need to bring back biodiversity in farming.
Farming did not begin with the green revolution and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
Whether it is the diversity-based systems of India-Navdanya, Baranaja, or the three sisters planted by the first nations in North America, or the ancient Milpa system of Mexico, beans and pulses were vital to indigenous agroecological systems.
As Sir Albert Howard, known as the father of modern agriculture, writes in “An Agricultural Testament,” comparing agriculture in the West with Agriculture in India:
“Mixed crops are the rule. In this respect, the cultivators of the Orient have followed Nature’s method as seen in the primeval forest. Mixed cropping is perhaps most universal when the cereal crop is the main constituent.
“Crops like millets, wheat, barley and maize are mixed with an appropriate subsidiary pulse, sometimes a species that ripens much later than the cereal.
“The pigeon pea (Cajanus indicus), perhaps the most important leguminous crop of the Gangetic alluvium, is grown either with millets or with maize. … Leguminous plants are common.
“Although it was not until 1888, after a protracted controversy lasting thirty years, that Western science finally accepted as proved the important role played by pulse crops in enriching the soil, centuries of experience had taught the peasants of the east the same lesson.”
Vegetable protein from pulses is also at the heart of a balanced, nutritious diet for humans. The Benevolent Bean is central to the Mediterranean diet. India’s food culture is based on “dal roti” and “dal chawal.”
Urad, moong, masoor, chana, rajma, tur, lobia, gahat have been our staples. India was the largest producer of pulses in the world. And our proteins are rich in nutrition, delicious in taste.
Pulses have been displaced by the Green Revolution monoculture, and now the spread of monocultures of Bt cotton.
The nitrogen problem due to synthetic nitrogen fertilizers is real. Uprooting farmers is a false, violent, unjust solution. Governments that have subsidized and promoted the fertilizer industry now need to shift public tax money to regenerative agroecology that is chemical-free.
New Agroecology schools need to be open for farmers to make a transition to ecological agriculture over a 3-5-year period. We need democratic debates on the use of public money to serve the public good, not private greed.
Since how we grow our food impacts our health and the health of the planet, growers and eaters of food need to join hands to regenerate the health of the soil and communities.
Living soil is the answer to the nitrogen problem. To regenerate living soil, we need regenerators. Farmers are the custodians and caretakers of the land. We need to create a new culture of Earth care in agriculture. Getting rid of farmers is an extinction and extermination project which has no place in free, democratic and just societies.”
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