Agriculture and GHG

[liberty]

Here's an article from Grainews online about Canada's new commitment to throw money at efforts to cut that famous whipping boy agriculture's contribution to alleged global warming:

http://www.grainews.ca/issues/isarticle.asp?aid=1000351476&link_source=aypr_GRN& link_targ=DailyNews

"Canada has signed on as a founding and funding member of a new worldwide research body devoted to cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in farming."

Apparently the government has pledged $27 million in taxpayer dollars to fund the "Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases".

Here's a quote which particularly bugs me:

"This will provide our farmers with new tools and practices that reduce their costs and allow them to take advantage of carbon trading systems."

"Heavy use of irrigation on cropland "raises production costs and is directly related to increased GHG emissions," the government said."

Yes, but that same irrigated cropland also raises agricultural productivity enormously and is responsible for the ability of people living in less temperate climates to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables year round, something our grandparents could only dream of.

Notice how the government frames this only as a win-win situation, while failing to take into account the costs of the obsession with cutting C02 emissions. If you're paying $8.00 a liter for diesel fuel, it's doubtful that any payment for carbon sequestration would ever come close to covering those added costs.

If deep greenies like George Monbiot get their way, North American agriculture as we know it will be finished. Canadian farmers would be lucky to cover the cost of raising cattle or sheep over most of the prairies; you can forget about cereal grains and canola.

Make no mistake about it, the green movement absolutely despises North American farming practices and would love to see them relegated to a museum.

[bucket]

Irrigation is one of the most heavily subsidized areas of agriculture in the province of Saskatchewan. The people in the riverhurst area are tickled with 60bpa canola and 100bpa of wheat. But there are people doing it on dryland for less money. It makes no sense. Most would be broke if they had to do it on their own money.

I also think the number of passes they make to grow a crop makes them an emmitter of so called greenhouse gases.

[furrowtickler]

Agriculture getting drug into this b/s makes my blood boil! We cover more acres more effeceintly now than any time in history. One tillage pass instead of up to five, one tractor instead of five. One combine with a clean burning european diesel replaces 2-3 old smoke blowing time eatin machines. Our fuel use per ac is down very significantly over ten years ago. Sprayers that cover 100 ac/hr thus less fuel/ac. In Canada we use far less Chem and fert and it is used more efficienly than most places on earth.
I would say that we already have taken massive steps foreward in ag emmisions and should get credit for this and not penalized what-so-ever. JMO

[Jay-mo]

Agriculture is the easiest of easy targets when it comes to governments and their environmental propaganda.
Farmers can scream all they want but the farm vote is so minute that we have little power.

We have seen this first hand in Manitoba with the persecution of the hog industry. The NDP bans new hog barn construction with junk-science.
They also turn farmers who try to improve their land through drainage in to criminals.
Then they try to promote organic farming as being more environmentally "sustainable". thereby inferring that conventional methods are bad for the environment.

When you really think about this obsession with banning co2 and carbon it really is laughable. I guarantee that future generations will look at this the same way we laugh about the flat earth theory or spontaneous generation.

The sad thing is that people that live 95% of their lives on concrete and pavement are writing the rules and regulations for the farmers that actually live and make a living on the land.

[sagewood]

I just heard an 'urban' woman on the radio last week and she was adamant that the cows have to go b/c it is their fault they a burping and farting and putting all that methane into the atmosphere. She does not eat meat b/c of that and she, in her words, 'is not stupid b/c I have done my homework on this'. How to you deal with that? She totally forgot to look back at history, before the white man arrived on this continent, that the million-head-sized herds of buffalo (bison) covered this country and ate and traveled and burped and farted out way more methane gas than the few herds of cattle that are left here now. The city folks buy into whatever is trendy and for sure--a few years from now, when they are starving in the dark they are going to point the finger at the ag. community and say it is our fault for not working hard enough and not employing the latest technology. God forbid that they should actually grow a garden and feed themselves and see how hard it is to fight Ma Nature when the weeds take over and the rains don't come but the frost shows up 10 months of the year. I also heard the Pres. of Greenpeace yesterday actually admitting that many years ago when they were having their hissy-fits against nuclear energy plants that they were w-r-o-n-g. He freely admitted it that on the radio. There is big money in this CO2 thing, as is evidenced by the Al Gores and the David Suzukis of the world and unless and until those kind of fear-mongering socialists stop getting rich from all of this hysteria--well folks the beat will go on and we in agriculture will fall like front-line soldiers. We get no support from governments so that we can actually make money in this business--young people are avoiding agriculture like the plague, unless it is a desk job with an expense account, and those of us left are tired of the fight and tired of attempting to tell our story. We have been the driver of our own downfall--as the last two generations on that land have become more and more efficient and have done so much more and produced so much more and expected less reward for it--you see we do it just because we like the 'life-style'. Just ask anyone from the urban crowd. If I sound bitter--I am. This has been one horrible year weather-wise in these parts--cold spring, drought, severe and devastating hail storm, no crop, no hay, no pasture--you name it, we got nailed with it this year. So any money in reserve will have to get spent again next year to pay bills and attempt yet one more year to make agriculture pay. Yes, I have had some good year--no doubt about it, but the money saved from those good years is about tapped out trying to survive these past six years since BSE hit and now to face this CO2 cow-pucky stuff--well Merry Christmas to all in agriculture.

[sagewood]

Just reread my last post--don't get me wrong--I don't expect the government to hand out money as they have been pretending to do of late, but at least with their comments that go world-wide, they could support us instead of stabbing us in the back..that was my intent when I said the government has not been supporting us. Hay-mo what you say is too true, we cannot sway government policy--we are too few anymore and our votes mean nothing to the bulk of the MP's. They get their vote support from and thus spend the bucks and their time in the urban centres in their ridings. Most of the MP's in the country don't have the first clue how to raise an animal or a crop or the cost of inputs, time and labour that it takes to get a successful outcome. I think Canada should be like Europe, instead of young people having to spend a stretch in their armed forces, our young people should have to spend a stretch actually working the pastures and fields of this country for a couple of years. It would give the urban types a whole new appreciation of this 'life-style' that we country bumpkins live...ah but I digress.

[Hopperbin]

The alliance also plans to look at carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes, including the measurement, reporting and verification of soil organic carbon in response to changes in cropland management.


Anyone got any info on the carbon footprint us farmers have now compared to 30 years ago? We are one hell of lot more efficient than years past. Plus the .4 ton per acre of carbon that we a sequestering should translate to we put no CO2 into the atmosphere. Our plants use up C02. I wonder if the lady that don't eat the cow anymore factored into her equation that the cow ate grass or grains that first took CO2 out of the atmosphere so in reality everything should equal out, well in my world anyway.

Somehow this money is probably already put to something long before coppenhagen, like gov'ts are great for saying old money is new money. But gotta do something to calm them people conference idiots

[greybeard]

This link expains how the cow BS started.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9336