In the Neolithic age, the birth of agriculture forever changed the history of mankind, bringing about the transition from nomadic to sedentary life and fostering the emergence of stable populations, which in turn became the great accelerator of social development. The evolution of the history of agriculture has always been conditioned by two factors: demand and the evolution of technology, sometimes boycotted by voracious politicians bent on applying development-crushing taxes. A case in point is the current EU, which, with the recent law on nature restoration, intends to reverse the biblical mandate that nature should be at the service of man. Spanish, Italian, and French farmers have complained about how Brussels politicians and the green lobby, without ever having set foot in the countryside, are ruining the whole agricultural industry.
The European Green Pact includes the “From Farm to Fork” strategy, by which the EU aims to “achieve climate neutrality by 2050.” Among its objectives is to halve “pesticides and fertilizers,” promote “sustainable diets,’ “increase the amount of land devoted to organic farming,” and “improve animal welfare.”
The issue of organic agriculture, which is sold to us as more sustainable, healthier, and tastier, is quite illustrative. It is true that organic farming does not use chemical pesticides, but that does not mean it does not use any pesticides; in fact, they often use natural treatments that generally increase the price of the product. For example, pyrethrins for aphid control: conventional agriculture uses chemically synthesized pyrethrins, while organic agriculture extracts them from chrysanthemums, which is more expensive, although the effect is exactly the same.
On the other hand, organic farming is considerably less productive than conventional farming, which means that it often requires considerably more water to achieve the same amount of product. Thus, sustainability could also use quotation marks.
As for the promotion of sustainable diets, one wonders whether it is reasonable for a group of exalted politicians to decide from Brussels what any individual should eat in Toledo, Venice, or Copenhagen.
The issue of improving animal welfare is also controversial. First of all, using human terms such as ‘welfare’ in reference to animals, thereby establishing an analogy to human rights, is something that only a group of politicians in the European Parliament could do without ever having seen a chicken up close. In any case, as measuring animal welfare is impossible (experts have not yet found a way to carry out satisfaction polls for animals), the rules will be translated into very broad items: limitations of space, production, technology, or environment, which will again cause an increase in prices without actually granting any measurable improvement in animal welfare, if such a thing even exists.
A green and communist pact
Of all the specimens of progressive politics, the most interventionist is the ‘green’ agenda. There is no measure it pushes that does not include direct intervention in people’s property, life, or work. Brussels has been abducted by a very particular plague of bureaucrats: social democrats, if not full-blown communists, who combine their progressivism with an extreme environmentalist bias.
The reigning consensus on global warming makes ‘green’ policies the easiest way to muzzle capitalism and fatten the state. The pandemic was a good experiment: faced with a situation of supposed emergency and global terror, people faithfully obeyed any kind of stupidity mandated by the politicians. The climate threat, once they have managed to sufficiently inflate the balloon to an imminent explosion, is likewise considered an ‘emergency,’ and the bureaucrats in Brussels are taking full advantage of it to implement measures and interventions that the public would otherwise never accept.
Meanwhile, those who live and work in the countryside are not heeded, until they march on a capital city with hundreds of tractors and cover the steps of parliament with manure (this happens cyclically). Only the green lobbies and, of course, all the politicians doing business with savvy entrepreneurs of renewable energies are given a fair hearing in the public ear.
From the European Green Pact to the policies of the “Farm to Fork” plan and the ruinous Nature Restoration Act, there is not a single major battle that the green lobby has not won in Brussels. Yet, beyond the indignation of conservatives who refuse to accept the ruin of farm workers and the loss of national sovereignty, it is illuminating to pay attention to those who have spent their whole lives working on farms and in fields.
Spain, France, and Italy are the European countries with the most arable land. And yet, with the exception of Meloni’s Italy, none of their governments has lifted a finger to stop the various European regulations, of dubious scientific basis, which are ruining the agriculture sector and forcing these same countries to resort to agricultural imports from outside the EU to satisfy demand, as Spain has done with Morocco. As Spanish farmers are forced by the government and the EU to reduce production, citizens end up buying foreign products due to a shortage of domestic ones. Thanks to junk regulations, domestic products are now vastly more expensive than those coming from abroad, such as from any African country where there are not half the controls and regulations imposed on the European countryside. And so it will be in all sectors. This is globalism.
Who defends the European farmer?
Last July, in the midst of a drought that caused millions worth of losses to the countryside, the Union of Small Farmers and Cattle Ranchers in Spain held a demonstration in Madrid against the Spanish government and the EU. In addition to the increase in the costs of production that the countryside has had to bear since 2021, the farmers denounced the new Common Agricultural Policy, which imposes changes meant to pay for the Nature Restoration Law. Ruin seems guaranteed with “demands which are contrary to productivity and difficult to achieve,” claims the union. Among their complaints they also listed “the requirement by the administrations to go digital without taking into account our reality and needs; and the bureaucratic entanglement that, far from being reduced, increases year by year.”
With the 2024 European elections on the horizon, the agricultural issue will become a priority for conservatives. While Meloni is standing up to the 2030 agenda and promoting “Made in Italy” products, VOX is leading the way in Spain, denouncing the fact that “unfair competition from countries outside the European Union is ruining the countryside.” The faction led by Santiago Abascal will fight to end the unequal competition of non-EU producers, who have lower production costs and freedom to use pesticides that are banned in Europe, and can therefore manage to reach the market with lower prices. Local producers are thus ruined, betrayed by the EU that is supposed to protect them.
Only a radical change in the composition of the European Parliament, with conservative parties unwilling to kneel before radical environmentalism and green neo-communism, can save our livestock, agriculture, and fisheries.
The EU Is Ruining European Agriculture
The Veteran in a New Field (1865), a 61.3 cm x 96.8 cm oil on canvas by Winslow Homer (1830-1910), located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
In the Neolithic age, the birth of agriculture forever changed the history of mankind, bringing about the transition from nomadic to sedentary life and fostering the emergence of stable populations, which in turn became the great accelerator of social development. The evolution of the history of agriculture has always been conditioned by two factors: demand and the evolution of technology, sometimes boycotted by voracious politicians bent on applying development-crushing taxes. A case in point is the current EU, which, with the recent law on nature restoration, intends to reverse the biblical mandate that nature should be at the service of man. Spanish, Italian, and French farmers have complained about how Brussels politicians and the green lobby, without ever having set foot in the countryside, are ruining the whole agricultural industry.
The European Green Pact includes the “From Farm to Fork” strategy, by which the EU aims to “achieve climate neutrality by 2050.” Among its objectives is to halve “pesticides and fertilizers,” promote “sustainable diets,’ “increase the amount of land devoted to organic farming,” and “improve animal welfare.”
The issue of organic agriculture, which is sold to us as more sustainable, healthier, and tastier, is quite illustrative. It is true that organic farming does not use chemical pesticides, but that does not mean it does not use any pesticides; in fact, they often use natural treatments that generally increase the price of the product. For example, pyrethrins for aphid control: conventional agriculture uses chemically synthesized pyrethrins, while organic agriculture extracts them from chrysanthemums, which is more expensive, although the effect is exactly the same.
On the other hand, organic farming is considerably less productive than conventional farming, which means that it often requires considerably more water to achieve the same amount of product. Thus, sustainability could also use quotation marks.
As for the promotion of sustainable diets, one wonders whether it is reasonable for a group of exalted politicians to decide from Brussels what any individual should eat in Toledo, Venice, or Copenhagen.
The issue of improving animal welfare is also controversial. First of all, using human terms such as ‘welfare’ in reference to animals, thereby establishing an analogy to human rights, is something that only a group of politicians in the European Parliament could do without ever having seen a chicken up close. In any case, as measuring animal welfare is impossible (experts have not yet found a way to carry out satisfaction polls for animals), the rules will be translated into very broad items: limitations of space, production, technology, or environment, which will again cause an increase in prices without actually granting any measurable improvement in animal welfare, if such a thing even exists.
A green and communist pact
Of all the specimens of progressive politics, the most interventionist is the ‘green’ agenda. There is no measure it pushes that does not include direct intervention in people’s property, life, or work. Brussels has been abducted by a very particular plague of bureaucrats: social democrats, if not full-blown communists, who combine their progressivism with an extreme environmentalist bias.
The reigning consensus on global warming makes ‘green’ policies the easiest way to muzzle capitalism and fatten the state. The pandemic was a good experiment: faced with a situation of supposed emergency and global terror, people faithfully obeyed any kind of stupidity mandated by the politicians. The climate threat, once they have managed to sufficiently inflate the balloon to an imminent explosion, is likewise considered an ‘emergency,’ and the bureaucrats in Brussels are taking full advantage of it to implement measures and interventions that the public would otherwise never accept.
Meanwhile, those who live and work in the countryside are not heeded, until they march on a capital city with hundreds of tractors and cover the steps of parliament with manure (this happens cyclically). Only the green lobbies and, of course, all the politicians doing business with savvy entrepreneurs of renewable energies are given a fair hearing in the public ear.
From the European Green Pact to the policies of the “Farm to Fork” plan and the ruinous Nature Restoration Act, there is not a single major battle that the green lobby has not won in Brussels. Yet, beyond the indignation of conservatives who refuse to accept the ruin of farm workers and the loss of national sovereignty, it is illuminating to pay attention to those who have spent their whole lives working on farms and in fields.
Spain, France, and Italy are the European countries with the most arable land. And yet, with the exception of Meloni’s Italy, none of their governments has lifted a finger to stop the various European regulations, of dubious scientific basis, which are ruining the agriculture sector and forcing these same countries to resort to agricultural imports from outside the EU to satisfy demand, as Spain has done with Morocco. As Spanish farmers are forced by the government and the EU to reduce production, citizens end up buying foreign products due to a shortage of domestic ones. Thanks to junk regulations, domestic products are now vastly more expensive than those coming from abroad, such as from any African country where there are not half the controls and regulations imposed on the European countryside. And so it will be in all sectors. This is globalism.
Who defends the European farmer?
Last July, in the midst of a drought that caused millions worth of losses to the countryside, the Union of Small Farmers and Cattle Ranchers in Spain held a demonstration in Madrid against the Spanish government and the EU. In addition to the increase in the costs of production that the countryside has had to bear since 2021, the farmers denounced the new Common Agricultural Policy, which imposes changes meant to pay for the Nature Restoration Law. Ruin seems guaranteed with “demands which are contrary to productivity and difficult to achieve,” claims the union. Among their complaints they also listed “the requirement by the administrations to go digital without taking into account our reality and needs; and the bureaucratic entanglement that, far from being reduced, increases year by year.”
With the 2024 European elections on the horizon, the agricultural issue will become a priority for conservatives. While Meloni is standing up to the 2030 agenda and promoting “Made in Italy” products, VOX is leading the way in Spain, denouncing the fact that “unfair competition from countries outside the European Union is ruining the countryside.” The faction led by Santiago Abascal will fight to end the unequal competition of non-EU producers, who have lower production costs and freedom to use pesticides that are banned in Europe, and can therefore manage to reach the market with lower prices. Local producers are thus ruined, betrayed by the EU that is supposed to protect them.
Only a radical change in the composition of the European Parliament, with conservative parties unwilling to kneel before radical environmentalism and green neo-communism, can save our livestock, agriculture, and fisheries.
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