The economic dislocation unnecessarily caused by radical green energy policies are about to be overshadowed by a far worse and equally irrational move.
Throughout the world, from distant Sri Lanka to Canada on America’s northern border, environmental extremists are seeking to eliminate chemical fertilizers. The move will do more than present financial hardships. It could easily result in significant food shortages.
“Chemical fertilizers,” notes fruitgrowers.com, refers to any number of synthetic compound substances created specifically to increase crop yield. Some chemical fertilizers, for example, are “nitrogenous” — containing nitrogen — while others are phosphate-based. Other fertilizers are potassium. Complex (or blended) chemical fertilizers often contain a mix of ammonium phosphate, nitrophosphate, potassium, and other nutrients.Chemical fertilizers allow growers to maximize their crop yield on a specific piece of land — the more the plant grows, the better. Fertilizer works to ensure that each piece of land produces as efficiently as possible.
The practice makes food more plentiful and less expensive. If used correctly, they do not harm the soil or the environment.
Climate extremists have ignored the reality that there is currently no alternative source currently in existence that can provide the world’s energy needs (wind and solar can barely produce about 20%) That same overreach is now being brought to food needs. The results will be devastating.
In Sri lanka, reports Reuters, a dramatic fall in crop yields was the result of “a decision last April by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban all chemical fertilisers in Sri Lanka…Although the ban was rolled back after widespread protests, only a trickle of chemical fertilisers made it to farms, which will likely lead to an annual drop of at least 30% in pa…The impact of the poor paddy crop could push up the retail price of rice by around 30%, said Buddhi Marambe, an agriculture professor at the University of Peradeniya, who blamed the decision to ban chemical fertilisers.”
As with other aspects of environmental extremism, exaggerated claims are used to justify policies which will have dramatically negative impacts, in this case, making food scarce and unaffordable. Reasonable measures such as ensuring that fertilizers are used correctly are ignored.
Local governments, not as swayed by environmental extremist politics as their national counterparts, are sounding the alarm. In Canada, the Governments of Saskatchewan and Albeta issued a statement estating “We’re really concerned with this arbitrary goal,” Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture David Marit said. “The Trudeau government has apparently moved on from their attack on the oil and gas industry and set their sights on Saskatchewan farmers…Western Canadian producers base fertilizer inputs on realistic targets based on moisture availability. Producers are conservative in the use of fertilizer inputs and don’t add more than what is needed. They alone simply cannot shoulder the impact of this shortsighted policy.”
The timing couldn’t be worse. Reliefweb notes that “The population continues to feel the brunt of the economic and food crises. About 3 in 10 households (6.26 million people) are food insecure, 65,600 of which are severely food insecure, according to WFP’s latest food security assessment. Food inflation is alarmingly high at 57.4 percent in June 2022. Steeply increasing food prices have crippled the population’s ability to put sufficient and nutritious food on the table. The majority of assessed households (61 percent) are regularly employing food-based coping strategies such as eating less preferred and less nutritious food, and reducing the amount of food they eat. Two in five households are not consuming adequate diets.”
Moneyscoop notes that “Decreased food production and higher prices as a result will not only hit your wallet, but could create a humanitarian emergency not seen since the 2008 global food crisis”
Illustration: Pixabay