Agriculture
Alberta premier slams Trudeau gov’t for ‘ridiculous’ attempt to regulate cattle emissions
From LifeSiteNews
Danielle Smith said she is in disbelief that limiting cattle farts and burps is an important issue and warned that restrictions could lead to food shortages.
The Premier of Canada’s largest beef-producing province blasted what she said is a “ridiculous” new Liberal federal government climate policy that aims to incentive beef cattle ranchers to reduce how much gas their cows emit by giving them feed additives.
After first attacking Canada’s oil and gas industry a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced at the United Nations’ “climate change” COP28 conference in Dubai a few days ago a draft version of Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions from Beef Cattle protocol.
The Trudeau government claims that farmers who participate in the program will get green credits they can sell off to other companies if they can reduce the amount of methane their cows emit, which they say can be done by giving cattle feed additives.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that she was in disbelief the Trudeau government is attacking beef products and food in general.
“Incredibly, this is actually real,” Smith posted Monday on X (formerly Twitter).
“How is going after ranchers and dairy farmers a priority of this federal government? Completely ridiculous.”
Should beef cattle farmers go along with Trudeau’s plan, it would add extra costs that would lead to higher food prices and possibly food shortages.
Cows fed a diet richer in corn silage can reduce how much methane an animal emits; however, this adds costs.
As a natural course of digestion, as will all animals and humans, cows produce methane gas as a byproduct. Methane quickly breaks down in the atmosphere, but the Trudeau government says 31% of emissions from it come from beef and dairy cattle.
For now, the program is aimed just at beef cattle but could be extended to dairy livestock in the future.
The only other alternative for Canadian farmers to reduce the amount of gas their animals produce is to cull their herds, which does not seem to be on the table but has occurred in other nations.
Cattle farmers in Ireland and the Netherlands have faced actual forced reduction cuts in their herd size via government mandates.
Smith said Guilbeault’s plan to try and stop cows from farting and burping is a “new low.”
“Some astute journalists have flagged that the Federal government’s bizarre cow emissions announcement calls for using chemical additives to reduce methane emissions. A new low for the eco-extremists,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Guilbeault’s new incentives in trying to stop cows from farting and burping are just the latest in a series of his climate change announcements.
Earlier at COP28, he unveiled a plan to slash oil and gas emissions by 35%-38% below 2019 levels. He claimed that it is important to reach “carbon neutrality in Canada by 2050.”
Smith blasted him as a “menace” for going after her province and the oil and gas industry in general and vowed to fight him with every tool available to her government.
Last week, she warned the federal government under Trudeau to “watch” her over how she will shield her province from economic damage and high fuel prices after the feds announced Guilbeault’s plan to cut oil and gas production by a third by 2030 via an “emissions” reduction scheme.
‘Globalist’ has master plan to control food supply and force people to eat ‘bugs,’ says notable doctor
In a recent opinion piece posted to LifeSiteNews, Dr. Joseph Mercola noted how if “government and corporate entities are able to take control of the land, they can control the food supply and, with it, the people.”
“Ultimately, the war against farmers is a war on the whole of humanity, one that threatens what it means to be free,” he wrote.
Mercola noted how “Globalists suggest eating bugs will protect the planet by eliminating the need for livestock, cutting down on agricultural land use and protecting the environment.”
He highlighted the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which encourages the consumption of insects and insect-based foods, as an example.
Mercola also observed how Epoch Times reporter Roman Balmakov stated in his “No Farmers, No Food: Will You Eat the Bugs?” show that “The people in charge of some of the most powerful organizations on the planet have determined that agriculture, specifically animal agriculture, is to blame for global warming, and global warming is to blame for the high prices of food as well as food shortages.”
Trudeau’s current environmental goals are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” and include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades, as well as curbing red meat and dairy consumption while promoting people eat ‘bugs” instead.
The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Bonner Cohen
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” said President Trump in an Aug. 20 post on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”
Trump’s remarks came six weeks after enactment of his One Big Beautiful Bill terminated tax credits for wind and solar projects by the end of 2027.
The Trump administration has also issued a stop-work order for the Revolution Wind project, an industrial-scale offshore wind project 12 miles off the Rhode Island coast that was 80 percent completed. This was followed by an Aug. 29 announcement by the Department of Transportation that it was cutting around $679 million in federal funding for 12 offshore wind farms in 11 states, calling the projects “wasteful.”
Sending an unmistakable message to investors to avoid risking their capital on no-longer-fashionable green energy, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is pulling the plug on a slew of funding programs for wind and solar power.
“Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with green new deal subsidized solar panels,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on a visit to Tennessee in late August. “We are no longer allowing businesses to use your taxpayer dollars to fund solar projects on prime American farmland, and we will no longer allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in our USDA-funded projects.”
The White House is putting the squeeze on an industry that can ill-afford to lose the privileges it has enjoyed for so many years. Acknowledging the hesitancy of investors to fund green-energy projects with the looming phaseout of federal subsidies, James Holmes, CEO of Solx, a solar module manufacturer, told The Washington Post, “We’re seeing some paralysis in decision-making in the developer world right now.” He added, “There’s been a pretty significant hit to our industry, but we’ll get through it.”
That may not be easy. According to SolarInsure, a firm that tracks the commercial performance of the domestic solar industry, over 100 solar companies declared bankruptcy or shut down in 2024—a year before the second Trump administration started turning the screws on the industry.
As wind and solar companies confront an increasingly unfavorable commercial and political climate, green energy is also taking a hit from its global financial support network.
The United Nations-backed Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) “has suspended activities, following the departure of numerous financial institutions from its ranks amid political pressure from the Trump administration,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Established in 2021, the NZBA’s 120 banks in 40 countries were a formidable element in global decarbonization schemes, which included support for wind and solar power. Among the U.S. banks that headed for the exits in the aftermath of Trump’s election were JP Morgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley. They have been joined more recently by European heavyweights HSBC, Barclays, and UBS.
Wind and solar power require a lot of upfront capital, and investors may be having second thoughts about placing their bets on what looks like a losing horse.
“Wind and solar energy are dilute, intermittent, fragile, surface-intensive, transmission-extensive, and government-dependent,” notes Robert Bradley, founder and CEO of the Institute for Energy Research.
Given these inherent disadvantages of wind and solar power, it’s no surprise that the Department of Agriculture is throttling the flow of taxpayer money to solar projects. The USDA’s mission is to “provide leadership on food, agriculture, food, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues….” It is not to help prop up an industry whose best days are behind it.
Effective immediately, wind and solar projects will no longer be eligible for USDA Rural Development Business and Industry (B&I) Guaranteed Loan Program. A second USDA energy-related guaranteed loan program, known by the acronym REAP, will henceforth require that wind and solar installations on farms and ranches be “right-sized for their facilities.”
If project applications include ground-mounted solar photovoltaic systems larger than 50 kilowatts or such systems that “cannot document historical energy usage,” they will not be eligible for REAP.
Ending Misallocation Of Resources
“For too long, Washington bureaucrats and foreign adversaries have tried to dictate how we use our land and our resources,” said Republican Rep. Harriot Hagermann of Wyoming. “Taxpayers should never be forced to bankroll green new deal scams that destroy our farmland and undermine our food security.”
Hagermann’s citing of “foreign adversaries” is a clear reference to China, which is by far the world’s leading manufacturer of solar panels, according to the International Energy Agency.
According to a USDA study from 2024, 424,000 acres of rural land were home to wind turbines and solar arrays in 2020. While this – outdated – figure represents less than 0.05 percent of the nearly 900 million acres of farmland in the U.S., the prospect of ever-increasing amounts of farmland being taken out of full-time food production to support part-time energy was enough to persuade USDA that a change of course was in order.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
Quick Hit:
The Trump administration’s USDA is pulling back from defending Biden-era farm aid programs that gave preferential treatment based on race and gender. The move aligns with President Trump’s directive to dismantle remaining diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies.
Key Details:
- The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) sued on behalf of dairy farmer Adam Faust, challenging USDA aid programs that favor minorities and women.
- Programs under scrutiny include loan guarantees, dairy coverage, and conservation incentives, all of which disadvantaged white male farmers.
- USDA issued a final rule eliminating “socially disadvantaged” designations, stating programs must uphold meritocracy, fairness, and equal opportunity.
Diving Deeper:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Trump administration is abandoning its defense of farm aid programs created during the Biden years that granted benefits based on race and gender. In a recent court filing, the USDA declined to defend several programs that civil rights watchdogs argue discriminated against white male farmers.
The litigation was brought forward by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) on behalf of Adam Faust, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. Faust contends that the Biden-era rules violated equal protection principles by privileging minorities and women over others in loan guarantees, dairy margin coverage, and conservation cost-share programs.
Under the loan guarantee program, minority and female farmers could secure up to 95% federal backing on loans, while white male farmers were limited to 90%. This disparity directly affected borrowing power and interest rates. Similarly, the Dairy Margin Coverage Program charged white male farmers a $100 annual fee, while exempting “socially disadvantaged” farmers. In conservation projects, minority and female participants received up to 90% reimbursement for costs, while others received only 75%.
On July 10, the USDA issued a final rule to strike the “socially disadvantaged” designation from its regulations, calling it inconsistent with constitutional principles and with President Trump’s policy objectives. “Moving forward,” the USDA rule stated, “USDA will no longer apply race- or sex-based criteria in its decision-making processes, ensuring that its programs are administered in a manner that upholds the principles of meritocracy, fairness, and equal opportunity for all participants.”
The department noted that while the loan guarantee program will be amended immediately, officials are still reviewing how to apply the new policy to the dairy and conservation programs. The USDA also signaled that its decision “could obviate the need for further litigation,” though WILL has indicated its legal fight will continue.
“This lawsuit served as a much-needed reminder to the USDA that President Trump has ordered the end to all federal DEI programs,” said Dan Lennington, deputy legal counsel at WILL. “There’s more work to be done, but today’s victory gives us a clear path to do even more in the name of equality.”
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