Tractors paralyzed Brussels today in protest
(twitter.com)
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Idiot leftist euros suiciding their economies over insignificant greenhouse gasses when there is 0 scientific proof of any kind that increasing greenhouse gasses will actually harm the world as a whole.
In fact, we know now that there are extreme diminishing returns in greenhouse gas effects, contrary to the hockey stick models, which included the opposite idiotic conclusion of a "runaway" effect.
People whine about the farm lobby in the United States, but this shit would never happen here. The US govt bends over backwards for farmers in the US thanks to how the electoral college works and how farming totally dominates the economies of a number of states.
This isn't even over GHG. This is about nitrogen being bad for biodiversity. Well, that is the establishment lie. What it is really about is producing less food, particularly meat.
idk everything I see online about this is that it's because nitrogen oxides are considered to be a potent greenhouse gas (which may be true but the volume produced is also tiny compared to CO2)
Not quite true. A good chunk of farmland has been bought out by Bill Gates, and farmers are struggling hard in some states. Huge increase in prices, sheer hardship of the work, etc. In Idaho and other developing states a ton of farmers have sold their land and retired.
Part of this is the rise of the middleman and the demonization of farmers. In 1950, a kid getting an ag degree and becoming a farmer was lauded, and he got 40% of every dollar of food he sold.
Now, farmers are the butt of jokes, and even the best commodity farmers only get 9% of every dollar they sell.
The bill gate's farmland thing is somewhat silly. The dude owns more farmland than any single person in America except that basically translates into him owning a small amount of the total farmland. Remember there's...A LOT of damned farmers in America. You don't have to own 'that much' to own more than any individual.
You're talking apples and oranges. I'm talking about the US government attitude towards farmers. You're talking about other shit.
The US government would not annihilate US farmers like Belgium is trying to do to theirs. The feds subsidize farmers quite a bit here.
Also farmers whine constantly because they know it is an effective strategy for rent-seekers like they are. The truth is that they are doing quite well overall, which is why investors are trying to move in and get a piece of the action.
Your post is 100% just knee jerk headline reactions, which is a terrible way to be informed about the world.
And FYI farms in the US = 900 million acres, and Bill Gates's vaunted buying spree only netted him 270,000 acres, which is 0.03%.
Inflation benefits farmers greatly. Farmers carry lots of debt. Inflation fucks over their lenders and massively helps them, because they pay off the loans in money that is worth a lot less than the money they borrowed. Also, inflation DIRECTLY boosts farmer's profits. Just look at egg prices.
So this is bullshit. Farming is totally mechanized now. The only farms that aren't mechanized are using illegal aliens. Being a farmer in modern times is more about being an engineer, not a laborer. Farming is not the unskilled labor it used to be in old times.
It's even more mutli-disciplined than that. They have to be economist (to know when to sell and when not), they have to be chemist (due to all of the chemicals in modern agriculture), and they have to be veterinarians (to maintain livestock). They can pawn off some of that knowledge to others, but they need to at least have passing knowledge to do in the field maintenance.
There is a reason that the largest college at my local university is the College of Agriculture. Which ironically has the side effect of making sure the university stays pretty based with students that are actually tolerable.
Also agree with your original point about the Farm Lobby. I have said it many times, and I will always say it: If you tried the sort of shit the Euros are doing to their farmers here in Kansas, the response wouldnt even be a protest. It would be the farmers responding "Lol. Lmao even" and continuing on their day. Then the next day, the Farm Bureau would be breaking down your door telling you that you just signed the death warrant on your political career in the state.
Yeah, out in my rural area the farmers are all a bit multigenerationed, meaning that have the money and family to have all that outsourcing taken care of. So they went out and became all the business owners and community pillars too. So fucking with them isn't just political suicide, its basically complete ostracization from the entire multi-county area.
Nitrogen fertilizer is bad for the environment.
*burns brown coal for electricity*
I'm only disappointed in the lack of manure spreaders...
Death to climate, diversity, inclusivity and all liberal agendas.
Russia did it.
start taking heads, farmers.
How cute; they actually believe that protesting is going to change anything.
We get nice pictures out of these protests but so far none of the European farm protests have accomplished a single thing besides getting some individual farmers arrested and added to communist blacklists.