[motohagiography]

not OP, but how about some technology innovation instead of governance and taxation? the effect of taxing farmers as though they were some kind of vanity industry will be similar to what nationalizing farms has done in prior schemes like this.

it creates a national dependency on imported food from countries that do not bankrupt their farmers, and suddenly (shocked!) the entire Danish food supply crosses the borders to arrive and is then subject to federal management. this latter case is of course the purpose, and climate change is merely a pretext. I hope european farmers are able to organize a revolt.

[ZeroGravitas]

> how about some technology innovation instead of governance and taxation

The history of solar, EVs, batteries etc. show these work hand in hand.

Why invent a way to capture methane from slurry, or form a business to sell that idea to farmers if they're allowed to pollute for free?

[motohagiography]

if methane were valuable, it would already exist, and there are a number of techs in development now: https://horsesport.com/magazine/farm-management/heating-with...

if you have a problem with farmers, maybe you should just eat less?

[spookie]

I think subsidies could help buying the technology, taking them out would be disastrous.

Farms, at least in Europe, are in the majority family owned. Same for those working in them, mostly those that are part of the family [1].

It's difficult being a farmer. You are much more at the will of nature than any other industry. Your effort takes a long time to bear fruit (think olives, for example, you do not have fruit for 4~years if you're lucky, and you don't want the oil from a younger tree (lesser phenols, etc...). You have to wait YEARS before you get anything to market. And, there have been many fires in southern Europe...).

All in all, it's indeed difficult to invest in machinery, new technology, etc...

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

[shakna]

What technological innovation do you think farming could adopt, that it hasn't already...? They don't operate with simple machinery. They regularly use some of the most complicated systems that mankind can build, such as satellite systems, chemical analyses, etc.

Governance is needed, where progress does not occur naturally.

[motohagiography]

invent, not adopt. that's the difference between government and industry, government doesn't invent anything except problems to manage.

reality is, governments want smallholding farmers out of the business and to replace them with agribusinesses because it's a process of de-kulakizing their subjects. it has nothing to do with science or environment at all. I think maybe a war over this stuff will give us the reset we need.

[shakna]

Governments invent things, endlessly. The infrastructure you are communicating with me was invented by a government research department. The encryption we are using to ensure we're actually communicating with HN, is a government research project.

Similarly, the solar systems on most farms, was a government research project. The satellite recon to analyse the farm - provided by the government to all farmers, including the tiniest hobby farm, is 100% government researched, deployed, and maintained.

Governments do a lot more science than you are giving them credit for.

[spookie]

My country went through a process similar of dekulakization. Our industries and farms haven't recovered ever since then.

This is similar in some ways, but not at all the same.