Don’t Buy the Media Lies About Crop Production

One of the mainstream media’s favorite pastimes in recent years has been trying to scare the pants off everyone by suggesting that climate change is decimating crop production around the world. They are either lying intentionally, or mistaken. However, in either case, there is some journalistic malpractice going on, as well as a notable failure of logic.

We have all seen the stories, the favorites of the media usually have to do with foods that are popular semi-luxury items, depending on where you live, like cocoa beans, coffee, and wine.

For instance, Forbes put out an article claiming that cocoa, olive oil, rice, and soybeans are all “particularly vulnerable” to the effects of “climate-induced stressors.” I will be looking at this article as a case study of sorts for the kind of bad journalism I am talking about.

I am not going to get into whether or not extreme weather is getting worse or not, or climate specific subjects in this op-ed. What I am aiming to do is debunk the climate-related alarmism surrounding food production.

That Forbes article in particular stuck out to me because I already knew from the second sentence that it was nonsense based on previous work I have done looking into production and yields for all the crops listed. First, the bait and switch: Forbes’ article title, “Climate Change’s Toll On Global Agriculture: A Looming Crisis,” and introductory paragraph contain no indication that what is about to be discussed actually is not a global problem, but a regional one, and sometimes the problem does not exist at all.

For cocoa beans, they focus on West Africa, for olive oil the Mediterranean region, for rice they chose Italy and India, and for soybeans the United States and South America. In each of those regions, the overall trend for their crop production is positive.

Globally, every single crop listed by Forbes, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, has broken all-time records for production and yields year after year. On occasion, there is a less good year, but the trendline remains positive.

Since 1990, when the worst effects of climate change supposedly began to manifest, world production of cocoa beans has increased 132 percent, setting an all-time high in 2022. Olive oil has seen a rise of 124 percent. Overall rice production has risen 49 percent since 1990, and India alone saw a 75 percent increase. Soybeans, in part subsidized by the U.S. government, are certainly not struggling in this country, and worldwide soybean production has risen 221 percent.

All of this information is easy to find for the curious; you do not need to take Forbes’ or my word for anything.

This isn’t to say, again, that certain regions don’t suffer bad seasons, but this is a natural risk of farming, and nothing crop producers haven’t seen before. The media is fearmongering in order to weaken resistance to their preferred public policy goals.

There are, according to Our World in Data, around 570 million farms throughout the world. The vast majority of those are small farms, which make it exceedingly difficult for them to adapt to any weather, regardless of whether or not extreme weather is getting worse. Every single season, for every single crop, there is some region or individual farm suffering from poor yields due to the weather.

That is a whole lot of fodder for human-interest stories for propagandist journalists to choose between when they want to push a narrative. Since we are so connected worldwide now thanks to the internet and instantaneous communications, we get to hear about a wealth of stories that we never would have heard about otherwise, and likely would not even have been covered at all in the West. This generates a sense that crop failures are happening more often, but they’re not.

This also is not to say that global crop shortages do not or cannot occur – they do, they can, due to weather or geopolitical issues.

The best way to guarantee that those positive crop production trendlines reverse would be to ban the things the propagandists want us to ban, like diesel tractors, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. Just ask the farmer of Sri Lanka. Or ask the people who never had those things but would like to have them, like the subsistence farmers of Africa.

My advice is to dig a little deeper when the media hypes crop failures because in most cases there is more going on than our journalist gatekeepers admit.

Linnea Lueken ([email protected]) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute.

Originally published by The Center Square. Republished with permission.

Related Topics:#FoodProduction #HeartlandDailyNews #TheCenterSquare ClimateChangeCropProduction CropProduction GlobalAgriculture LinneauLueken

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Canada’s air quality among the best in the world

Published on December 8, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Annika Segelhorst and Elmira Aliakbari

Canadians care about the environment and breathing clean air. In 2023, the share of Canadians concerned about the state of outdoor air quality was 7 in 10, according to survey results from Abacus Data. Yet Canada outperforms most comparable high-income countries on air quality, suggesting a gap between public perception and empirical reality. Overall, Canada ranks 8th for air quality among 31 high-income countries, according to our recent study published by the Fraser Institute.

A key determinant of air quality is the presence of tiny solid particles and liquid droplets floating in the air, known as particulates. The smallest of these particles, known as fine particulate matter, are especially hazardous, as they can penetrate deep into a person’s lungs, enter the blood stream and harm our health.

Exposure to fine particulate matter stems from both natural and human sources. Natural events such as wildfires, dust storms and volcanic eruptions can release particles into the air that can travel thousands of kilometres. Other sources of particulate pollution originate from human activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels in automobiles and during industrial processes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) publish air quality guidelines related to health, which we used to measure and rank 31 high-income countries on air quality.

Using data from 2022 (the latest year of consistently available data), our study assessed air quality based on three measures related to particulate pollution: (1) average exposure, (2) share of the population at risk, and (3) estimated health impacts.

The first measure, average exposure, reflects the average level of outdoor particle pollution people are exposed to over a year. Among 31 high-income countries, Canadians had the 5th-lowest average exposure to particulate pollution.

Next, the study considered the proportion of each country’s population that experienced an annual average level of fine particle pollution greater than the WHO’s air quality guideline. Only 2 per cent of Canadians were exposed to fine particle pollution levels exceeding the WHO guideline for annual exposure, ranking 9th of 31 countries. In other words, 98 per cent of Canadians were not exposed to fine particulate pollution levels exceeding health guidelines.

Finally, the study reviewed estimates of illness and mortality associated with fine particle pollution in each country. Canada had the fifth-lowest estimated death and illness burden due to fine particle pollution.

Taken together, the results show that Canada stands out as a global leader on clean air, ranking 8th overall for air quality among high-income countries.

Canada’s record underscores both the progress made in achieving cleaner air and the quality of life our clean air supports.

Annika Segelhorst

Junior Economist

Elmira Aliakbari

Director, Natural Resource Studies, Fraser Institute

Agriculture

Health Canada indefinitely pauses plan to sell unlabeled cloned meat after massive public backlash

Published on November 26, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Health Canada has indefinitely paused its plan to allow unlabeled cloned meat in grocery stores after thousands of Canadians, prominent figures, and industry leaders condemned the move.

Health Canada is pausing its plan to put unlabeled cloned meat in Canadian grocery stores, following public outcry.

In a November 19 update on its website, Health Canada announced an indefinite suspension of the decision to remove labels from cloned meat products after thousands of Canadians condemned the plan online.

“The Government of Canada has received significant input from both consumers and industry about the implications of this potential policy update,” the publication read. “The Department has therefore indefinitely paused the policy update to provide time for further discussions and consideration,” it continued, adding, “Until the policy is updated, foods made from cloned cattle and swine will remain subject to the novel food assessment.”

In late October, Health Canada quietly approved removing labels from foods derived from somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) clones and their offspring. As a result, Canadians buying meat from the grocery store would have had no way of knowing if the product was cloned meat.

Many researchers have documented high rates of cloning failure, large offspring syndrome (LOS), placental abnormalities, early death, and organ defects in cloned animals. The animals are also administered heavy doses of antibiotics due to infections and immune issues.

Typically, the offspring of cloned animals, rather than the cloned animals themselves, are processed for human consumption. As a result, researchers allege that the health defects and high drug use does not affect the final product.

However, there are no comprehensive human studies on the effects of eating cloned meat, meaning that the side-effects for humans are unknown.

News of the plan spread quickly on social media, with thousands of Canadians condemning the plan and promising to switch to local meat providers.

“By authorizing the sale of meat from cloned animals without mandatory labeling or a formal public announcement, Health Canada risks repeating a familiar and costly failure in risk communication. Deeply disappointing,” food policy expert and professor at Dalhousie University Sylvain Charlebois wrote on X.

Likewise, Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis warned, “Health Canada recently decided that meat from cloned animals and their offspring no longer needs a special review or any form of disclosure.”

“That means, soon you could buy beef or pork and have no idea how it was bred,” she continued. “Other countries debate this openly: the EU has considered strict labelling, and even the U.S. has admitted that cloned-offspring meat is circulating.”

“But here in Canada, the public wasn’t even told. This is about informed choice,” Lewis declared. “If government and industry don’t have to tell us when meat comes from cloned animals, then Canadians need to ask a simple, honest question: What else are we not being told?”

Health Canada recently decided that meat from cloned animals and their offspring no longer needs a special review or any form of disclosure. That means, soon you could buy beef or pork and have no idea how it was bred.

Other countries debate this openly: the EU has considered… pic.twitter.com/zCnqJOpvf3

— Dr. Leslyn Lewis (@LeslynLewis) November 14, 2025

Likewise, duBreton, a leading North American supplier of organic pork based out of Quebec, denounced the move, saying, “Canadians expect clarity, transparency, and meaningful consultation on issues that directly touch their food supply. As producers, we consider it our responsibility and believe our governing food authorities should too.”

According to a survey conducted by duBreton, 74 percent of Canadians believe that “cloned meat and genetic editing practices have no place in farm and food systems.”