Our great patriot farmers' subsidies aid planetary destruction

Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser.

The security of humanity is at risk without reform to these subsidies, a big reduction in meat eating in rich nations and other damaging uses of land, the report says. But redirecting the subsidies to storing carbon in soil, producing healthier food, cutting waste and growing trees is a huge opportunity, it says.


  Guardian

This cannot matter to an individual farmer. And, taken as a group, it's a similar problem as Elizabeth Warren has selling Medicare-for-all without talking about raising taxes and still emphasizing the the actual net savings.

[ Jeremy Oppenheim, principal at the Food and Land Use Coalition (Folu), the collaboration of food, farming and green research groups that produced the new report] said the true global total was likely to be $1tn a year, as some subsidies are difficult to quantify precisely: “That trillion dollars of public funding is available and is a massive, massive lever to incentivise the farming community across the world to act differently.”

Again, I'm with Elizabeth Warren on this: while it's good to do your part, this is not a problem that individual behavior can change.

Overall, the Folu report said the damaging way the world currently produces food and uses land causes $12tn a year in hidden costs to the environment, human health and development.

[...]

Transforming food and land use would also make the food supply more secure, said Oppenheim: “Stick with the model we have got and you can be reasonably confident that in the next 20 years we are going to have a number of climate-related food price spikes, because we have a highly concentrated system, with a small number of [regions] that are absolutely critical to the supply of grains.”

“We need a big system reset and I think it is the role of government is to lead on these issues,” said Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi, research director at Folu and formerly at the World Bank.

Good luck with that. Maybe in Europe. They're a lot more environmentally responsible than the producers in America, China and Russia, but Europe produces only a fraction of those three.

Benefits from reforming subsidies has been seen in some places. Farmers in the European Union have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from fertiliser by 17% while yields rose, and China is phasing out support for fertilisers.

Not on environmental concerns, I would guess.

The “remarkable” return of forests in Costa Rica, the report says, followed the eliminating of cattle subsidies and payments for improving nature. “But there is a long way to go,” the report concludes. “Perverse subsidies need to be rapidly redirected or phased out.”

We need to work out a global plan for economic stability and equitable sustainability for people and the planet.

Yes, I know. It will never happen. Because...people.