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Agriculture

Don’t Buy the Media Lies About Crop Production

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6 minute read

From Heartland Daily News

By Linnea Lueken

One of the mainstream media’s favorite pastimes in recent years has been trying to scare the pants off everyone by suggesting that climate change is decimating crop production around the world. They are either lying intentionally, or mistaken. However, in either case, there is some journalistic malpractice going on, as well as a notable failure of logic.

We have all seen the stories, the favorites of the media usually have to do with foods that are popular semi-luxury items, depending on where you live, like cocoa beans, coffee, and wine.

For instance, Forbes put out an article claiming that cocoa, olive oil, rice, and soybeans are all “particularly vulnerable” to the effects of “climate-induced stressors.” I will be looking at this article as a case study of sorts for the kind of bad journalism I am talking about.

I am not going to get into whether or not extreme weather is getting worse or not, or climate specific subjects in this op-ed. What I am aiming to do is debunk the climate-related alarmism surrounding food production.

That Forbes article in particular stuck out to me because I already knew from the second sentence that it was nonsense based on previous work I have done looking into production and yields for all the crops listed. First, the bait and switch: Forbes’ article title, “Climate Change’s Toll On Global Agriculture: A Looming Crisis,” and introductory paragraph contain no indication that what is about to be discussed actually is not a global problem, but a regional one, and sometimes the problem does not exist at all.

For cocoa beans, they focus on West Africa, for olive oil the Mediterranean region, for rice they chose Italy and India, and for soybeans the United States and South America. In each of those regions, the overall trend for their crop production is positive.

Globally, every single crop listed by Forbes, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, has broken all-time records for production and yields year after year. On occasion, there is a less good year, but the trendline remains positive.

Since 1990, when the worst effects of climate change supposedly began to manifest, world production of cocoa beans has increased 132 percent, setting an all-time high in 2022. Olive oil has seen a rise of 124 percent. Overall rice production has risen 49 percent since 1990, and India alone saw a 75 percent increase. Soybeans, in part subsidized by the U.S. government, are certainly not struggling in this country, and worldwide soybean production has risen 221 percent.

All of this information is easy to find for the curious; you do not need to take Forbes’ or my word for anything.

This isn’t to say, again, that certain regions don’t suffer bad seasons, but this is a natural risk of farming, and nothing crop producers haven’t seen before. The media is fearmongering in order to weaken resistance to their preferred public policy goals.

There are, according to Our World in Data, around 570 million farms throughout the world. The vast majority of those are small farms, which make it exceedingly difficult for them to adapt to any weather, regardless of whether or not extreme weather is getting worse. Every single season, for every single crop, there is some region or individual farm suffering from poor yields due to the weather.

That is a whole lot of fodder for human-interest stories for propagandist journalists to choose between when they want to push a narrative. Since we are so connected worldwide now thanks to the internet and instantaneous communications, we get to hear about a wealth of stories that we never would have heard about otherwise, and likely would not even have been covered at all in the West. This generates a sense that crop failures are happening more often, but they’re not.

This also is not to say that global crop shortages do not or cannot occur – they do, they can, due to weather or geopolitical issues.

The best way to guarantee that those positive crop production trendlines reverse would be to ban the things the propagandists want us to ban, like diesel tractors, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. Just ask the farmer of Sri Lanka. Or ask the people who never had those things but would like to have them, like the subsistence farmers of Africa.

My advice is to dig a little deeper when the media hypes crop failures because in most cases there is more going on than our journalist gatekeepers admit.

Linnea Lueken ([email protected]) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. 

Originally published by The Center Square. Republished with permission.

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Agriculture

Sweeping ‘pandemic prevention’ bill would give Trudeau government ability to regulate meat production

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Bill C-293, ‘An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness,’ gives sweeping powers to the federal government in the event of a crisis, including the ability to regulate meat production.

The Trudeau Liberals’ “pandemic prevention and preparedness” bill is set to become law despite concerns raised by Conservative senators that the sweeping powers it gives government, particularly over agriculture, have many concerned.

Bill C-293, or An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness, is soon to pass its second reading in the Senate, which all but guarantees it will become law. Last Tuesday in the Senate, Conservative senators’ calls for caution on the bill seemed to fall on deaf ears. 

“Being from Saskatchewan I have heard from many farmers who are very concerned about this bill. Now we hear quite a short second reading speech that doesn’t really address some of those major concerns they have about the promotion of alternative proteins and about the phase-out, as Senator Plett was saying, of some of their very livelihoods,” said Conservative Senator Denise Batters during debate of the bill. 

Batters asked one of the bill’s proponents, Senator Marie-Françoise Mégie, how they will “alleviate those concerns for them other than telling them that they can come to committee, perhaps — if the committee invites them — and have their say there so that they don’t have to worry about their livelihoods being threatened?” 

In response, Mégie replied, “We have to invite the right witnesses and those who will speak about their industry, what they are doing and their concerns. Then we can find solutions with them, and we will do a thorough analysis of the issue. This was done intentionally, and I can provide all these details later. If I shared these details now, I would have to propose solutions myself and I do not have those solutions. I purposely did not present them.” 

Bill C-293 was introduced to the House of Commons in the summer of 2022 by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. The House later passed the bill in June of 2024 with support from the Liberals and NDP (New Democratic Party), with the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois opposing it.   

Bill C-293 would amend the Department of Health Act to allow the minister of health to appoint a “National pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator from among the officials of the Public Health Agency of Canada to coordinate the activities under the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act.”  

It would also, as reported by LifeSiteNews, allow the government to mandate industry help it in procuring products relevant to “pandemic preparedness, including vaccines, testing equipment and personal protective equipment, and the measures that the Minister of Industry intends to take to address any supply chain gaps identified.”

A close look at this bill shows that, if it becomes law, it would allow the government via officials of the Public Health Agency of Canada, after consulting the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and of Industry and provincial governments, to “regulate commercial activities that can contribute to pandemic risk, including industrial animal agriculture.”  

The bill has been blasted by the Alberta government, who warned that it could “mandate the consumption of vegetable proteins by Canadians” as well as allow the “the federal government to tell Canadians what they can eat.” 

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Trudeau government has funded companies that produce food made from bugs. The World Economic Forum, a globalist group with links to the Trudeau government, has as part of its Great Reset agenda the promotion of “alternative” proteins such as insects to replace or minimize the consumption of beef, pork, and other meats that they say have high “carbon” footprints.  

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. 

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Agriculture

Time to End Supply Management

Published on

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Marco Navarro-Génie

According to a 2021 report from the Montreal Economic Institute, Canadian families pay up to $600 more per year on dairy products alone due to supply management.

The New Democrats and the Liberals have pledged to tackle inflation, curb price gouging, and address child poverty. Leaders like Jagmeet Singh have railed against corporate greed while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has introduced programs claiming to feed your children.

But despite these announcements, food affordability remains a serious problem in Canada. If our political leaders are truly committed to making nutritious food accessible for all Canadians, they must confront the largely ignored factor: Canada’s supply management system.

Supply Management Hurts Families

Supply management, which governs the production and pricing of dairy, eggs, and poultry in Canada, was designed  to stabilize farmers’ incomes. However, it now acts as an unnecessary burden on consumers, artificially inflating the cost of essential food items. Farmers are given strict quotas on how much they can produce, and sky-high tariffs—often more than 200%—are imposed on imports.

This creates a closed market that keeps prices far higher than in a free-market system. According to a 2021 report from the Montreal Economic Institute, Canadian families pay up to $600 more per year on dairy products alone due to supply management. This is no small sum to households already feeling the pinch.

To put it in perspective, a litre of milk in Canada costs between $1.50-$2.50, compared to USD 1.00 (around $1.35 CAD) in the United States, where such market controls don’t exist. The cost of other staples, such as eggs and chicken, follows the same pattern, with Canadians paying significantly more than their American counterparts.

These artificially high prices disproportionately affect families struggling. As inflation continues to drive up the cost of housing, fuel, and other essentials, paying extra for basic food becomes the tipping point between having three meals a day or skipping meals to cover rent or bills.

The Conservative Opportunity: Free Markets and Family Values

The Conservative Party has historically championed free markets and policies promoting family well-being, but they also support the food cartels.

In a genuinely free market, prices are determined by supply and demand, leading to lower consumer costs and more production efficiency. Ending supply management would achieve both goals.

While Conservatives have long supported free markets, they have been reluctant to challenge supply management, largely due to political concerns in Quebec, where the system is popular among producers. Being pro-trade and supporting supply management are incongruous political positions.

However, with the Conservatives drawing closer to forming government, potentially without significant electoral support from Quebec, now is the time for a strategic shift. Shedding the protectionist policies would be a bold and forward-thinking move to distinguish the party as serious about free markets and family welfare.

It would also send a powerful message to voters across the country, particularly in regions where food insecurity is rising. Conservatives could frame the policy change as a direct effort to reduce food prices, ease the burden on low-income families, and protect Canadian consumers from the high costs supply management imposes.

The Ethical Case: Dumping Food While Canadians Go Hungry

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of supply management is the appalling waste it produces. To keep prices high, in 2023 alone, tens of millions of litres of milk were discarded—wasted food that could have gone to Canadians in need. This is an unconscionable practice in a country where nearly 2 million people rely on food banks to survive. How can wasting food while so many families struggle to afford basic groceries be justified?

This waste flies in the face of compassion and fairness, and contradicts the principles of a free market.

The Bloc Quebecois’ Game

Given that the significant dairy industry in Quebec benefits immensely from supply management, the Bloc Quebecois is seeking to leverage the weakness of the Trudeau minority in exchange for a Bloc bill, Bill C-282, that would shield supply management from future changes.  The Bloc Québécois Bill C-282 wants to amend the Trade and Development Act. Reportedly, it has support from all parties in Parliament.

One of the key setbacks is the restriction supply management places on open market access. It hinders the ability to fully embrace free trade agreements. A primary objectives of Bill C-282 is to prevent the Canadian government from making concessions in international trade agreements that could undermine the supply management system. This is particularly relevant in trade negotiations where foreign countries often seek increased access to Canada’s agricultural markets.

Consequently, this limits the potential for growth in agricultural exports. Central Canada benefits the most from supply management, and although its trade reverberations hurt everyone, they seem to hurt Western producers the most.

A Call to Action for All Parties

For New Democrats and Liberals, the solution to supporting families and children through food affordability lies  in targeting alleged corporate greed and expanding social programs. But if they are serious about addressing child poverty and food insecurity, they would confront supply management. Likewise, for Conservatives, ending supply management is a natural extension of their free-market impetus and commitment to family values.

The time for change is now. Regardless of party, all political leaders should recognize that dismantling supply management would be a direct, meaningful step toward making food more affordable for all Canadians, as well as maximizing agricultural chances to expand Canada’s exports. With the rising cost of living pushing more families into food insecurity, we cannot afford to let outdated policies continue to inflate prices, immorally perpetuate waste, and curtail chances for greater growth in Agrifoods.

Dismantling supply management would offer tangible relief to millions of Canadian consumers, particularly low-income families.  All other parties should start by killing Bill C-282.

Marco Navarro-Génie is the Vice President of Research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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