It is hard to understand that the mankind needs big crises to begin to understand the basics. After the exceptional years caused by covid, we seemed to be going back to normal, but due to the narcissistic ideology of the leadership of our eastern neighbor, return to former is no longer in sight. Our world has changed, but very many things have not! In my opinion the most worrying matter is that the decision making on food production is stuck.
We as the people, have a constant number of problems, but the better we do, the smaller they really are. In today’s politics, these little problems are rapidly developing bigger, so what we need right now is leadership! I don’t have the competence to start advising how politics should be done, as I’m quite an ordinary person. My dad has sometimes described me as a wrench “quite handy in many places, but not an expert anywhere.” However, I have a right to question things, and I think that current politics is steered to be too complex. I want to simplify myself now: I personally feel that the harder the matter, the more it needs to be simplified so that a sense of proportionality is maintained, at least with such a wrench as me!
Attached to this text is a screenshot of the evolution of the world’s population, which has not changed radically despite our current crises. So I would like to ask in general, what will those people be fed in the future? The situation is getting worse by the fear that people’s hunger will be used as one of the instruments of war. There is now a danger that the Ukrainian grain can not be transported by the sea to countries in need.
People in North Africa and Middle East are beginning to wake up to this ever-growing threat. The most difficult thing in cultivating in these areas is the scarcity of water, and the groundwater limit, which is even now considered critical, is being lowered to an even lower level due to the emergency. At the same time, here in Europe the European Union is still pushing hard for an environmental policy in which about 30,000 ha of arable land in Finland alone is being diverted to wetland cultivation, such as energy willow and bulrush. These crops have nothing to do with food production! In my mind, this does not fit. The evolution of the world’s population has been in our knowledge even before the ongoing crises, yet such madness is being allowed to happen. Or does the European decision-maker accept the starvation of an African at the expense of doing everything possible in Europe to prevent global warming? Sounds like hypocrisy to me! I do not underestimate global warming, it is a real threat to us and the world must be further developed for it, but not at the expense of food production! Food shortage is a global threat that needs to be addressed now at the latest!
Too many farms are wondering is it possible to be sowing in the future. The market economy is not currently operating in the field of food production, although at the same time world hunger is on the rise. I would like our decision-makers on their own dining tables to be thinking about how every single hectare of arable land can be taken in cultivating use. How can we get the market economy working so that farmers get the wages they deserve? Now if ever, it is possible to make food an export product, so actions are needed. To you farmers, practicing the world’s most important profession, I would like to wish confidence that you will be able to cultivate in the midst of all this madness. There is no food without sowing!
Have a happy Midsummer and a safe summer!
Jorma Lähetkangas,
Managing Director, Tume-Agri Oy
