This issue is being led by "enviro-fascists" in the EU Parliament, particularly those from Germany and Austria. They seem to wish to see all EU agriculture become organic and the withdrawal of 85% of actives would see many farmers think about the difference in yields between conventional and organic. "Why not go the whole hog and become fully organic as we effectively are forced to be anyway as 85% of actives are withdrawn and the idiots in the EU Parliament still want to ban the remaining 15% anyway?" is likely to be the question on many farmers' lips.
To have an organic food supply for Grauniad readers and conventional for the rest of us is a sensible and sustainable market. However, to force all EU farmers to go organic, as the proposed Pesticides Directive is nearly doing, is crass stupidity. While there is a likely surplus of an estimated 21.4 million tonnes of wheat going into strategic store this year, this is on the back of worldwide harvest to demand shortfalls for several years preceeding this one while most of the world is not organic! Who says that next year will be a bumper harvest as well? I could just as easily be a poor harvest again.
Anybody who looks at this web site will know that the EU yield of agricultural crops will reduce dramatically and have a devastating effect world stocks of nearly all food raw materials. To say that there would be rationing in the comparatively wealthy EU States may well be straining at the edges of credulity. Obviously the EU will import its needs from other parts of the World that are not organic. The result of this is threefold.
First, we will be seeing a shortfall to the tune of tens of millions of tonnes per year in commodities which will have to be imported into the EU when the EU currently exports millions of tonnes of these same commodities out to the rest of the world each year.
Second, there is the utter hippocrisy that the shortfall generated by this environmental idiocy will be made up with foreign stocks grown with the aid of products and techniques banned in the EU by these environmental idiots.
Third, the prices of basic commodiities such as wheat will be so astanomical even by the standards of last year's highs, that inflation throughout the EU will be massive. The effect on the EU's balance of trade, frightening though that is, will be a very minor issue compared to other factors here. The EU will purchase to cover its needs whatever the cost. However, many more parts of the World will go hungry as a result. There are always small parts of the World that go hungry, whether because of the weather or because of varying sorts of human input such as in Dharfur and Zimbabwe currently. This idiocy will see food riots and starvation on a grand scale in countries that hitherto have never had any problems importing food because they will not be able to match the purchasing power of the industrialised EU. It will be difficult enough for EU member state governments having to try to feed low income families on their own turf. What if the EU takes the blame for the starvation elsewhere?
I read an article recently in the back of a NFU periodical which suggested that some members of the EU Parliament should be asked how many Third World lives they are prepared to sacrifice for each kilo of ammonium nitrate that they refuse to allow to be spread. One can just as easily substitute ml of triazole for kg of AN.
While the scenarios I have described seem apocalyptic, I do not believe that they are an exaggeration. However, I have a very strange idea! If the enviro-fascists succeed in their intentions, I and every other cereal farmer will become very rich indeed! I am quite happy to see my yields drop from 8-10 t/ha to less than 5t/ha if I'm getting £500/t for it! What's more, I'm not having to buy any chemicals or fertilisers so throw at it. Halcyon days indeed. Never mind you lot, I say! Disgruntled hijackers from starving countries aren't likely to try and crash airliners on my remote little piece of Lincolnshire!