{"id":347346,"date":"2026-03-19T13:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/347346\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:21:13","slug":"the-fertiliser-spike-how-agribusiness-is-turning-a-food-crisis-into-a-corporate-handout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/347346\/","title":{"rendered":"The fertiliser spike: How agribusiness is turning a food crisis into a corporate handout"},"content":{"rendered":"

The geopolitical tremor in the Strait of Hormuz has sent fertiliser prices into the stratosphere<\/a>. But amid the devastating loss of life and destruction already unfolding, farmers and families are also being forced to worry about the cost of the next harvest, a different kind of machinery is whirring into motion in Washington and Brussels: the lobbying machine<\/a>. Now is the time to break free from their playbook and implement just solutions that feed people, not corporate pockets.<\/p>\n

History shows that for big agribusiness, a global crisis<\/a> is less of a disaster and more of a strategic opportunity. We are about to witness a masterclass in how to parlay \u201cfood security\u201d fears into corporate welfare and the gutting of environmental protections.<\/p>\n

But we know their playbook!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tethered<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tStop Big Meat and Dairy
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to cut through corporate lies, cut agriculture emissions and shift towards sustainable agroecology.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n Sign now!
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

1. Weaponising \u201cfood security\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Expect the term \u201cfood security\u201d to be hollowed out and weaponised. Large-scale industrial players are already positioning themselves as the only thing standing between the public and empty shelves. In truth, it is this highly consolidated, chemical-dependent model of industrial farming that is making our global food system so fragile in the first place.<\/a><\/p>\n

Their narrative is calculated: The world is in chaos, so the government must stop \u201cburdening\u201d agribusiness with regulations. They will attempt to use a temporary supply chain shock to permanently dismantle hard-won environmental standards.<\/p>\n

\"LiquidLiquid manure spreading by tractor on farmland in Northern Germany.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Michael L\u00f6wa \/ Greenpeace<\/p>\n

2. The demand for deregulation<\/p>\n

Their immediate targets are always environmental and community safeguards. Under the guise of \u201cunleashing production,\u201d lobbyists are likely to push for:<\/p>\n

Suspending rules to allow the spreading of animal manure, sacrificing groundwater safety and community health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stalling pesticide reduction laws with false claims that they threaten food security, despite scientists proving that long-term security is impossible without healthy soil and pollinators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forcing legal bypasses to destroy millions of hectares of land previously set aside for bees, birds and soil recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time we\u2019ve seen this script. During the 2022 supply chain shock that followed Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, the same type of lobbyists leveraged geopolitical instability to wrangle these concessions out of the European Commission. History is repeating itself as the European farmers\u2019 lobby (Copa-Cogeca) is seizing this crisis to demand even more environmental rollbacks.<\/p>\n

\"BelgianFebruary 2024: Greenpeace Belgium activists put up posters reading \u201cWho profits off farmers? Shhh\u2026 Let\u2019s not talk about it\u201d on the headquarters of interest groups like Copa-Cogeca and political parties upholding the system that penalises small and medium scale farmers.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Johanna de Tessi\u00e8res \/ Greenpeace<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also seeing lobbyists coming out in force in the UK<\/a> and the US where, in a letter to President Donald Trump<\/a>, the American Farm Bureau Federation took a predictable \u201cemergency\u201d stance, stating:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current volatility requires an immediate suspension of regulatory hurdles\u2026 We cannot prioritise administrative red tape over the ability of American farmers to feed a world in crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

What this statement obscures is how farming has shifted from locally-owned, resilient family businesses to massive industrial \u201cfactory\u201d operations run by <\/a>some of the world\u2019s wealthiest corporations. The factory farming model<\/a> is inherently fragile \u2013 as soon as one gear in the global supply chain snaps, the entire machine breaks down.<\/p>\n

3. The great public-to-private wealth transfer<\/p>\n

While big business demands less \u201cinterference\u201d from the state in the form of rules, they are simultaneously demanding more \u201cinterference\u201d in the form of cash. Agribusiness is archetypal of a system that socialises the risk and privatises the profit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When prices are low, they dominate the market; when input prices spike, they demand \u201cbridge payments\u201d to keep their fragile model afloat.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the rest of us pay the price. The cost of cleaning up polluted drinking water<\/a>, for example, generally isn\u2019t paid by Big Ag. It\u2019s paid by everyday families, through taxes and rates.<\/p>\n

The predictable outcome?<\/p>\n

Taxpayers ultimately foot the bill for emergency fertiliser subsidies, effectively bailing out the super rich Big Ag executives.<\/p>\n

Farmers remain trapped in a cycle of chemical addiction, lining the pockets of fertiliser giants like Nutrien and The Mosaic Company. During the 2022 crisis, these two companies saw their profits reach staggering record highs<\/a> while farmers struggled to break even.<\/p>\n

Agribusinesses announce record windfall profits, fuelled by the very volatility they claimed would ruin them. In 2022, Cargill reportedly raked in a record US $165 billion in revenue<\/a> \u2013\u00a0a 23% increase, during a global food crisis.
<\/p>\n

\"ExpeditionBanana plantation at the Z\u00e9 Maria do Tom\u00e9 camp, Brazil, in an area where the local population have been struggling with the impacts of Big Ag.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Nilmar Lage \/ Greenpeace<\/p>\n

Real food security comes from your local farmer<\/p>\n

If we want true independence, we have to stop propping up chemical-addicted industrial farming. Local, ecological farming<\/a> is the only real path to food sovereignty. By working with nature to fix nutrients in the soil naturally, farmers can break the cycle of dependence.<\/p>\n

This does four amazing things at once:<\/p>\n

Saves money: Farmers slash their costs, protecting your food prices.<\/p>\n

Cleans our water: It stops toxic chemical run-off from polluting our rivers and drinking water.<\/p>\n

Protects wildlife: It restores space for bees, birds, and biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Fights climate change: It cuts the massive emissions of the industrial food system.<\/p>\n

Real food security isn\u2019t something we can buy from a chemical factory in another country. It doesn\u2019t come from trading off clean drinking water for more polluting production. And it certainly doesn\u2019t come from handing over more cash to the already-wealthy.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what should happen instead<\/p>\n

Short Term: Stop bailing out the corporate middleman. If emergency funds are deployed, they should go directly to regular people to offset food costs, rather than into the bank accounts of chemical suppliers and millionaire shareholders.<\/p>\n

Long Term: Fund the transition, not the status quo. Food security is grown from the ground up through healthy soil and local resilience.<\/p>\n

We cannot allow the greed of the agribusiness lobby to use this crisis as a mandate for deregulation. It is time to fund a model that serves our communities and our planet, not just the billionaires at the top of the food chain.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tethered<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tStop Big Meat and Dairy
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to cut through corporate lies, cut agriculture emissions and shift towards sustainable agroecology.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n Sign now!
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Amanda Larsson is the\u00a0Food and Agriculture Global Campaign Lead\u00a0at Greenpeace Aotearoa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The geopolitical tremor in the Strait of Hormuz has sent fertiliser prices into the stratosphere. But amid the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-347346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}