Environmental Regulations Drive Farmer Protests

And media turns a blind eye

In a world caught off guard by a spike in energy costs and food costs this year, unrest has sprung up in different locations throughout the globe. At the heart of most of the problems appears to be new environmental regulations.

Sri Lanka, a large island off the coast of India, was flooded with protests last week. Protesters stormed the office of acting-president Ranil Wickremesinghe amid calls for his resignation, BBC reported. 

Sri Lanka has dealt with a number of problems over the years leading up to today’s crisis, with some blaming COVID-related declines in tourism, but many experts also have blamed Rajapaksa’s economic mismanagement. Ultimately, the final straw was the Sri Lanka government’s decision to ban all imports of chemical fertilizer last year, which led to widespread crop failure. 

With a shortage of food and fuel and little to export, and with inflation spiking over 50% this year, Sri Lanka is caught with little foreign currency, and no way to make its debt payments or import necessities like food.

Also last week, Al Jazeera reported hundreds took to the streets in Ghana to protest price hikes, a new tax on electronic payments, and an economic downturn. Ghana has been one of Africa’s largest economies, but has been stricken with an inflation rate approaching 15%.

Ghana’s new problem is blamed on two long-term issues that have only recently surfaced because of problems related to the pandemic. First, Ghana had a strong economy in part because they were a net-exporter of energy. That peaked in 2014, but since, The World Bank and IFC have been pushing the nation into reforming the energy sector by “the drafting of a new renewable energy law.”

Second, mirroring what happened in Sri Lanka, Ghana’s agriculture minister is urging local farmers to adopt an organic agriculture system and ditch chemical fertilizers, as reported by Ghana Business News. Critics have argued that an official ban of chemical fertilizers would lead to a food crisis there.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Netherlands government announced its target to cut nitrogen pollution from farmers by 50% by 2030, at the demands of environmentalists. Dutch farmers have protested the change, stating that such a cut is unfeasible and would cause most of the small farmers to fail. 

The Dutch government has acknowledged that the new regulation would put all but the largest farmers out, calling it an “unavoidable transition.” The government said the coming year would bring more clarity for Dutch farmers, “whether and how they can continue with their business. The minister sees three options for farmers: become (more) sustainable, relocate or stop.”

Environmentalists cheered the new regulation. “You rip a plaster off a wound in one go,” Andy Palmen, director of Greenpeace Netherlands, told the Associated Press. “Painful choices are now necessary.”

But the Dutch farmers have launched an impressive protest over the last few months, jamming traffic with their tractors, lighting hay bales on fire, and flinging manure on the steps of government buildings. 

The government has criticized the protesters, but surprisingly, the farmer protests have gained widespread public support for their cause, with some projecting that the movement could have a major impact on the upcoming election.

Jordan Boyd, writing for The Federalist, criticized American mainstream media for largely ignoring the farmer protests in the Netherlands. “Despite the effects of the Dutch farmer protests on not just the global food supply but global climate policies, the issue has received little to no attention from corporate U.S. press outlets,” she wrote.

Boyd’s argument is in line with others now who believe that the “fearmongering” of the environmental movement, promoted by mainstream media and aided by big tech, has misrepresented its critics and tried to hide the growing movement against its efforts. 

In the United States and abroad, the environmentalists have been losing traction as more and more people across the globe see the damaging results of their practices. Certainly we can work for a better tomorrow by easing into better practices both in agriculture and energy, but the people will not tolerate being pushed too hard or too fast.

At this point, corporate media and environmentalists pushing the agenda have painted themselves in a corner, Boyd argues. If now they showed the world the devastating effects of so-called green policies, “they might not only lose even more credibility with Americans than they already have, but also inadvertently bolster the case that climate policies like the ones adopted by the Netherlands will be disastrous.”

– by AJ Martel

Feature image caption: Dutch farmers block the drawbridge over Princess Margriet Canal in northern Netherlands, July 4. Courtesy of AP/Peter Dejong.

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