The Biden administration’s European climate policy will drive up costs for American farmers and cause families to spend $1,300 more every year on more expensive groceries, a new trend. report warns.
Researchers at the Buckeye Institute, an Ohio-based free-market think tank, say the cost of diesel, propane and fertilizer will rise thanks to the federal government’s climate action.
Farmers will pass these costs on to consumers — meaning cheese, beef and other staples will cost as much as 80 percent more, increasing the annual grocery spend of a family of four by $1,300.
“Federal policymakers are pursuing expensive climate control and emissions policies that have largely failed in Europe,” said the report’s co-authors, Trevor Lewis and M Ankith Reddy.
Some farmers, like John Williamson in North Bennington, Vermont, have turned to biofuels to reduce emissions
“The American farm and the American household will have to pay for it.”
Climate activists say agriculture is taking a toll on the environment, thanks to pesticides and fertilizers, methane emissions from livestock and other planet-warming gases from tractors, trucks and combines.
Researcher Trevor Lewis says food prices will rise
Farmers must help reduce emissions, they say, or they will see their lands devastated by droughts, fires, floods and other extreme weather events that are becoming more common as the planet warms.
However, in their 49-page report, the researchers outline the downside of forcing farmers to go green.
They point to President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Paris Climate Accords and a way to invest in companies to advance socially conscious environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards known as “woke capitalism.”
These drive up costs for farmers, says the report, titled Net-Zero Climate-Control Policies Will Fail the Farm.
Farmers will pass the costs on to consumers, and supermarket prices will rise by as much as 78 percent, researchers warn
Tim Crow in Rocky Ford, Colorado, is one of many farmers affected by water conservation
To illustrate this, they created a model of a hypothetical corn farm that had to comply with new federal environmental regulations and standards.
Researcher M Ankith Reddy says US farmers will be affected
Climate control policies have increased the costs of nitrogen fertilizer, diesel and propane – on which farmers depend – by a total of 34 percent.
“Oil and gas producers, chemical companies and U.S. agriculture are likely to bear the heaviest compliance burdens,” the researchers wrote.
“But they will inevitably share costs with American consumers as government-induced high prices for fuel, fertilizer and food ripple through the economic pond.”
The model showed that farmers had to pass these prices on to consumers.
They calculated that American cheese would cost as much as 78 percent more thanks to the climate rules.
Other staples to be affected include beef (up 70 percent), rice (56 percent), chicken (39 percent) and eggs (36 percent).
A typical family of four would have to spend an extra $1,300 annually to put food on the table, the 49-page report said.
Thera Farms in Brentwood, New York, operates on a sustainable model, with leased organic farms, a native pasture, beekeepers and a solar panel system
Costs for farmers will rise by 34 percent, meaning families will have to spend $1,300 more on groceries every year, report warns
These increases would come on top of the double-digit inflation that Americans have battled in recent years.
“Misguided climate policies can and must be combated at every level,” the researchers concluded.
Republicans have expressed support for the investigation.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said it “confirms our worst fears about ESG investing.”
“Imposing costly ESG requirements on American farmers and ranchers will have a devastating impact on American agriculture and global food security.”
Miller was one of dozens of Republican agriculture heads who wrote to major financial institutions last month about how their ESG commitments would hurt farmers.
Recipients included top executives from Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, all of which are members of the climate-control Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
The “climate cult and ESG elites are causing costs to skyrocket,” says Will Hild, director of Consumers’ Research, a nonprofit policy organization
Will Hild, director of Consumers’ Research, a nonprofit policy organization, said the report shows how the “climate cult and ESG elites are causing costs to skyrocket.”
“The livelihoods of America’s farmers and ranchers should not be jeopardized because of high operating costs or loss of access to capital from woke banks,” Hild said.
“Nor should the American people be victims of a crushing tax that climate extremists place on their groceries.”
Still, climate activists argue the shift is necessary to prevent global warming.
“The impacts of animal agriculture on the environment and climate are enormous,” members of the California-based Oceanic Preservation Society posted on X/Twitter this week.
‘It is a major cause of deforestation, is responsible for significant biodiversity loss and pollution, and emits large amounts of greenhouse gases, especially methane.’