French farmers almost entirely shut down sections of Paris this week protesting a new European Union (EU) climate command that would ban a type of fertilizer for sugar beets. EU climate ideology-fueled regulations have been causing controversy for a year now, as thousands of farms across Europe could be shut down by the restrictions even as a potential food crisis looms.
Breitbart explained, “In what is reported to be the largest farmer demonstration in France since 2019, some 500 tractors and thousands more people converged on Paris on Wednesday to protest against the decision last month by the government of Emmanuel Macron to ban the use of neonicotinoid insecticides for sugar beets following a ruling from the EU’s Court of Justice.“ As regulations became more difficult this year, production costs also spiked because of a lack of irrigation water and the European energy crisis.
Meanwhile, recent data shows that the world has not experienced global warming for eight years and that climate alarmism, which has fifty years of failed predictions behind it, continues to be based more on ideology than science.
The targeted insecticides are tied to nicotine and are supposed to be better for mammals and also useful in reducing the amount of pesticide needed. The insecticides are put on seed coatings instead of sprayed. The insecticides do reportedly have some negative effects on bees, however, and so the EU is trying to quash them altogether.
One farmer explained the issues from his perspective to Le Parisien, ”My brother grows beets and I use beet by-products as fertiliser. Without them, we are exposed to risks of disease in our crops.” There’s also the possibility of losing the farms. In fact, EU nitrogen emission regulations could end up causing 3,000 private farmers in the Netherlands to be dispossessed by the government, Breitbart noted. The Netherlands is one of the biggest global food exporters. Germany is also imposing business-killing fertilizer restrictions on its farmers on the basis of climate alarmism.
Breitbart added on Feb. 9:
”[The Paris protest] has apparently forced the government to accept a meeting with protest leaders. Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau met with a small delegation of farmers in the morning to ‘discuss the challenges they face and the future of the agricultural sectors’ and will hold a further meeting on Thursday with beet sector representatives to ‘present a plan of action and support in response to the European decision’.”
Hopefully, the French government listens to reason and doesn’t help launch a food crisis on top of every other disaster afflicting Europe right now.
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