It just goes to show that reason ends up convincing the most recalcitrant! the world bank, certainly not a leftist and environmentalist Huber lulu environment, finally supports the need to completely review the agri-food system. The exorbitant ecological cost of intensive agriculture and the food that results from it would be enough to fail to achieve the objective of 1.5° of warming. Agricultural subsidies are considered environmentally and socially harmful by three UN agencies. The challenge for rich countries is to change people’s diets by increasing the use of plant proteins to the detriment of animal proteins. For low-income countries, the challenge lies above all in the preservation of forests and plant areas by developing agroforestry.
A detailed study estimates that reducing CO2 emissions from agriculture requires an investment of $205 billion per year, which in fact corresponds to less than 2% of the sector’s annual revenues… In addition, subsidies for the sector – the Pac in particular – which mainly benefit large farms must be reviewed to consider the preservation of nature and ecology. At the same time, a collective bringing together 400 researchers and experts in the field remind us that the EU’s setbacks on pesticides constitute a real catastrophe. As usual, politicians obey farmers’ demands without considering the long-term harmful effects. Too bad, we break the barometer and the tolerated thresholds to give the impression that we are going to reduce pesticides while they are increasing. We will have to expect medical scandals with increasing frequency of cancer rates and neurodegenerative diseases due to pesticides. The facts are stubborn, with 430,000 new cases of cancer per year in France – a doubling in 30 years – and a significant % due to pesticides, it will be necessary review our use of pesticides!
In another article, Stephane Foucart analyzes the inflationary effects of environmental degradation. A recently published study conducted by researchers at the Potsdam Research Institute focuses on the effects of climate change (PIK) and two economists of the European Central Bank (ECB). The authors analyzed the fluctuations, recorded between 1996 and 2021, of 27,000 consumer prices in more than 120 countries and cross-referenced them with climate data. The links between prices and the manifestations of warming that they reveal indicate that environmental degradation is becoming an inflationary force that cannot be neglected. In summary, environmental degradation produces inflation!
The icing on the cake is that economists – not leftists – indicate that agricultural production represents around a third of global emissions. To reduce them, and limit warming to 2°C, around $200 billion/year must be invested. This sum is not colossal because it corresponds to around 2% of the sector’s annual revenues. This study goes further in particular by estimating the changes that should be made throughout the food production chain. However, farmers cannot absorb these changes; the cost of the required changes is around 17% of the turnover of an average farmer and only 1% for multinationals. Too bad our politicians have their eyes on the handlebars)
