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You do what you can...

Writer's picture: CripCrip

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised but I was.

I've been working the last ten days or so with a group of young Japanese farmers. We were doing the Black Soy harvest. The guys are all in their 30s, hard workers and keen to make a living from farming. They're doing alright, studying hard and always looking for a new angle, trying to find something that will make the difference between just getting by and hitting the big time.

As we worked, the conversation constantly revolved around their crops, inputs, new machinery they wanted to try out and government subsidies. They've become pretty good at tracking down and applying for all sorts of grants and subsidies. Each time they get approved for one, it leads them down the path of taking out loans for new tools and machinery and increasing their hectareage. One guy has bought 5 tractors in the 10 years he's been at it. He's got 7 now. The 2 hectares that his father farmed until he took over has now grown to more than 8 ha. Another proudly said that he's useless at farming but really good at applying for subsidies. He's also got the gift of the gab and I imagine he's an ace salesman.

Over lunch I asked if they'd heard about Carbon Credits/Offsets. They hadn't and so I explained them as best I could. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of Carbon Credits or the trading of them. I'm more of the opinion that industries should be forced to clean up their acts and in all but the rarest of cases, be closed down if they can't. Some will argue that this is what the Carbon Offsets system will do, but I think trust in and reliance on the "efficiency" of "the markets" is misplaced. While we live in a world with states - which are basically, let's face it, just regional monopolies of coercive force - this might be a reasonable case for the exercise of their monopoly.

Anyway, I digress. Obviously I didn't bother the lads with my opinions, just mentioned that there might be a way to get credited and perhaps to then profit from that position. And this is where the surprise I mentioned earlier occured. They hadn't heard of CoP26 or any of the earlier ones. They had no understanding of the reason anyone might want to pay them to reduce carbon emissions or store carbon. They had no idea that Japan has been involved in international horse trading over the details of the Carbon Offset trading scheme since at least 2006 that I know of. There was no recognition of their unique position, either for good or for bad, on the battleground that is ecological conservation...


It's a shame. They have so much energy. I wish it were focused in a different direction.

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