It isn’t Vladimir Putin who is shutting down one of the two large U.K. fertilizer plants, threatening Britain’s food supply. Blame the Western speculative market system. Illinois-headquartered CF Industries announced on June 8 that it is permanently closing its plant in Ince, England in order to “position the business for long-term profitability and sustainability.” Producing CF Fertilizer U.K. Managing Director Brett Nightingale coldly explained that “as a high-cost producer in an intensely competitive global industry … our current operational approach” had to go. Producing fertilizer, evidently, is not the company’s mission.
The company blames the exorbitant rise in the cost of natural gas, a key input for the ammonia nitrate fertilizer and carbon dioxide (needed for many food processing operations) produced at the plant for squeezing its profits, but neither the U.K. government or the company will touch the speculative financial system on which this house of cards is based.
Farmers are raising alarm bells about a threat to their ability to produce, at a time when, according to the Food Standards Agency, the number of people who skip meals or use food banks in the U.K. has jumped in the past year, RT reported. National Farmers’ Union Deputy President Tom Bradshaw called the plant’s closure “a further blow for farmers who are already suffering from incredibly high inflation for fertilizer costs,” one voice among several cited by
RT.
Neil Hudson, MP for the area where the plant is located, shot off a letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs George Eustice, “calling for urgent intervention from the government to protect food security,” ITVNews reported.
One farmer told Farmers Guardian: “The Government has to make a decision if they want this country to go hungry or not. If farmers cannot access the fertilizer they need, or afford it, they may choose to plant less wheat and barley, as you cannot grow crops without nitrogen. Food security is the most important issue but every politician is asleep at the wheel at a time when they should be supporting U.K. farmers to produce more food.”
