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DC-based think tank warns US gov’t failing to prioritize food security while China ramps up efforts

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1 month ago

7 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By J.M. Phelps

The Biden administration has incentivized many farmers to reprioritize the use of their land away from cultivating it for food production.

The United States government and the Chinese Communist Party see “national security” in two very different ways – and that includes food security.

Historically, the CCP has been known to weaponize its food supply, which it has done against millions of its own citizens, resulting in mass starvation and suffering. But today, it appears the communist government is stockpiling food, indeed, making it a major national security priority for its people. Why?

Tommy Waller, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Center for Security Policy, says most Americans do not understand that “food security is national security”. And that currently, the safety of American citizens is, indeed, being jeopardized by the U.S. government. The retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, in an interview with WND, explained that “at the federal level, our nation has catastrophically failed to prioritize food security while all of our adversaries, both hostile nations and globalists, have had their crosshairs on food for quite a while.”

For example, Waller said, in stark contrast to “having no problem starving its own people,” the Chinese government has an entire agency called the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. It is largely responsible for laws and regulations that oversee grain and material reserves of the East Asian country.

In statistics often touted by members of the Chinese regime, Waller said, “China’s grain inventories are so abundant that the stock-to-use ratio is well above the international grain security threshold.”

“The U. S. government has not put a major priority on food security or preparedness,” Waller warned. In contrast to the Chinese regime’s prioritizing strategic reserves of food, he told WND, “under the Biden administration, the USDA and FEMA have transitioned from a culture of preparedness to priorities of diversity, equity and inclusion – DEI – and climate change.”

“Less than two percent of our population produces food for everybody else in this country,” Waller noted. “The average American isn’t prepared to go without food for any duration, so you can see the importance of keeping our farmers farming.”

“Take away farming and you take away food,” he said starkly, while warning that the average person is extremely unprepared for shortages of food. “They just take it for granted, and it’s understandable because we’ve always had it very easy in this country,” Waller said, but warning about one scenario in which Americans could find themselves hungry right away: “That number one scenario is a loss of electricity caused by widespread electric grid blackouts.”

Waller’s interest in food security, he said, steadily grew due to his work to secure America’s electric grid. “All of the infrastructure we have is dependent upon electricity,” he said. “When considering the second and third order effects of electric grid outages, you can see how food becomes a very significant item of importance.”

“Most Americans don’t think twice about paying for home insurance, automobile insurance, life insurance, but for whatever reason, they don’t think about food insurance,” Waller told WND. “They don’t think about stocking up.”

While the federal government may be failing to stress the importance of preparedness, Waller attests that food security “is the one area where individual people and their communities could actually enhance national security,” adding that the lack of preparedness is “a fixable problem, if we are smart about our policies and more.”

In a 41-page report, the Center for Security Policy has published recommendations to bolster food security at the federal, state, local and individual level. With little action at the federal level, he said, it is important for Americans to do what they can at the state and local, as well as individual levels.

For example, the Center, which has a 20-year track record of helping state governments shape policies to bolster national security, is actively supporting numerous lawmakers seeking to outlaw agricultural land from being owned by foreign adversaries. The security-oriented nonprofit also promotes the concept of community-supported agriculture and the importance of citizens purchasing their food from local farmers. “By helping sustain their work,” Waller told WND, “it’s going to create more resilience at the community level.”

“Everything the Center for Security Policy does is for the public interest,” Waller said. “We exist to provide uncompromised analysis, unflinching leadership and unconventional solutions to keep Americans safer,” he explained, adding that “there are no corporations behind what we are doing.” He shared that CSP can also “provide threat briefings at the county level for emergency managers and law enforcement”.

Ultimately, as Waller explained, “food security is national security, and everyone – from citizens to lawmakers – can do their part to increase both.”

Reprinted with permission from WND News Center. 

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Agriculture

Farm for food not fear

Published on September 15, 2024

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Fall harvest is in the storehouse. Now, let’s put away all proposals to cap fertilizer inputs to save the earth. Canadian farmers are ensuring food security, not fueling the droughts, fires, or storms that critics unfairly attribute to them.

The Saskatoon-based Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) did as fulsome an analysis as possible on carbon emissions in Saskatchewan, Western Canada, Canada, and international peers. Transportation, seed, fertilizer and manure, crop inputs, field activities, energy emissions, and post-harvest work were all in view.

The studies, published last year, had very reassuring results. Canadian crop production was less carbon intensive than other places, and Western Canada was a little better yet. This proved true crop by crop.

Carbon emissions per tonne of canola production were more than twice as high in France and Germany as in Canada. Australia was slightly less carbon intensive than Canada, but still trailed Western Canada.

For non-durum wheat, Canada blew Australia, France, Germany, and the U.S. away with roughly half the carbon intensity of those countries. For durum wheat, the U.S. had twice the carbon intensity of Canada, and Italy almost five times as much.

Canada was remarkably better with lentil production. Producers in Australia had 5.5 times the carbon emissions per tonne produced as Canada, while the U.S. had 8 times as much. In some parts of Canada, lentil production was a net carbon sink.

Canadian field peas have one-tenth the carbon emissions per tonne of production as is found in Germany, and one-sixth that of France or the United States.

According to GIFS, Canada succeeds by “regenerative agriculture, including minimal soil disturbance, robust crop rotation, covering the land, integrating livestock and the effective management of crop inputs.”

The implementation of zero-till farming is especially key. If the land isn’t worked up, most nutrients and gases stay in the soil–greenhouse gases included.

Western Canada has been especially keen to adopt the zero-till approach, in contrast to the United States, where only 30 percent of cropland is zero-till.

The adoption of optimal methods has already lowered Canadian carbon emissions substantially. Despite all of this, some net zero schemers aim to cut carbon emissions by fertilizer by 30 percent, just as it does in other sectors.

This target is undeserved for Canadian agriculture because the industry has already made drastic, near-maximum progress. Nitrates help crops grow, so the farmer is already vitally motivated to keep nitrates in the soil and out of the skies–alleged global warming or not. Fewer nutrients mean fewer yields and lower proteins.

The farmer’s personal and economic interests already motivate the best fertilizer use that is practically possible. Universal adoption of optimal techniques could lower emissions a bit more, but Canada is so far ahead in this game that a hard cap on fertilizer emissions could only be detrimental.

In 2021, Fertilizer Canada commissioned a study by MNP to estimate the costs of a 20 percent drop in fertilizer use to achieve a 30 percent reduction in emissions. The study suggested that by 2030, bushels of production per acre would drop significantly for canola (23.6), corn (67.9), and spring wheat (36.1). By 2030, the annual value of lost production for those crops alone would reach $10.4 billion.

If every animal and human in Canada died, leaving the country an unused wasteland, the drop in world greenhouse gas emissions would be only 1.4 percent. Any talk of reducing capping fertilizer inputs for the greater good is nonsense.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Agriculture

Canadian pandemic bill wants to regulate meat production, develop contract tracing

Published on September 15, 2024

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Included in Bill C-293 are provisions to ‘regulate commercial activities that can contribute to pandemic risk, including industrial animal agriculture,’ produce ‘alternative proteins,’ and ‘enable contact tracing of persons.’

A “pandemic prevention and preparedness” bill introduced by a backbencher MP of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party would give sweeping powers to “prevent” as well as “prepare” for a future pandemic, including regulating Canadian agriculture.  

Bill C-293, or “An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness,” is now in its second reading in the Senate. The bill 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.”

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.  

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.” 

Text from the bill also states that the government would be able to “promote commercial activities that can help reduce pandemic risk,” which includes the “production of alternative proteins, and phase out commercial activities that disproportionately contribute to pandemic risk, including activities that involve high-risk species.”  

It is not clear when Bill C-293 will proceed to the third reading in the Senate. When it was in the House, it took over a year for it to go from the second to the third reading. Should an early election be called this year, or the bill not get to its third reading before the fall of October of 2025, the bill will die.  

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Trudeau government has funded companies that produce food made from bugs. The Great Reset of Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum (WEF) has as part of its 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.

Bill would give the government powers to ‘enable contact tracing’  

Bill C-293 would 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.” 

The bill will also “take into account the recommendations made by the advisory committee following its review of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Canada.” 

The federal government, and most provincial governments, during COVID, pushed and enacted contact tracing to monitor the general population. Any Canadians who traveled out of the country had to also use the government’s much maligned and scandal-ridden ArriveCAN travel app, which had a contact tracing feature.  

Also during COVID, the Trudeau government took a heavy-handed approach when it came to enacting laws or rules under the guise of “health.” For example, in October 2021 Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector. He also announced that the unvaccinated would no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally. 

This policy resulted in thousands losing their jobs or being placed on leave for non-compliance. It also trapped “unvaccinated” Canadians in the country.  

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