Al Gore Wants To Pay Farmers To Grow Less Food To Fight Climate Change

Former Vice President Al Gore said government policy should promote “regenerative agriculture” during a debate at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.

The WEF is in Davos, Switzerland, for its annual meeting, featuring panels and speeches from world leaders, philanthropists, business leaders and A-list Hollywood actors, according to the program posted on the forum’s website. Gore made his comments during a panel discussion titled “How can we avoid a climate recession?” » (RELATED: ‘Patrick Bateman Meets Sparkle Beach Ken’: Scott Bessent Delivers Sassy Retort to Gavin Newsom)

“But the role of policy that we are discussing here is crucial in agriculture as well. In the United States, the largest source of government subsidies to farmers is a program called crop insurance,” said Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” “The title is a bit misleading… to qualify for these grants, farmers essentially have to assure the government that they won’t go into regenerative agriculture, because the incentives have been to produce as much as possible as quickly as possible, from fence to fence, instead of looking after the productivity of the soil and not depleting its vitality.

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“So we need policies that recognize the fact that governments around the world generally subsidize agriculture, but don’t subsidize them in a way that incentivizes them to go in the wrong direction, but incentivizes them in the right direction,” Gore continued.

Environmentalists have targeted agriculture, particularly meat production, saying it contributes to climate change. The Dutch government forcibly closed 3,000 farms to comply with European Union environmental policies in 2022, sparking a backlash when a pro-farmer party won 15 of the 75 seats in the European country’s legislature the following year.

At the WEF 2023 meeting, a speaker called for an end to meat consumption.

“If a billion people stop eating meat, I tell you, that will have a big impact. Not only will it have a big impact on the current food system, but it will also inspire food systems innovation,” Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of German conglomerate Siemens AG, said during a panel titled “Mobilizing for Climate.”

“I predict that we will have proteins that don’t come from meat in the future, they will probably taste even better. So why are we trying to imitate meat if we can make them taste better? They will be carbon-free and much healthier than the type of foods we eat today,” Snabe added.

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