IFA Promoting Harmful Culture War Against Climate Action

You may recall that the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) picked up two accolades at the Irish Greenwashing Awards 2023 in recognition of their outstanding dedication to promoting misinformation about the role of Irish agriculture in worsening the Climate Crisis.

Over recent years the IFA has engaged in an escalating pattern of behaviour that has promoted disinformation, delay and distraction from climate action at every turn. All of which is designed to maintain the organisation’s income and lobbying power as they fight back against the vital cuts to the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions – the single greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland by some margin.

However, over recent months, the IFA’s dedication to greenwashing has escalated into something considerably more alarming: a highly destructive culture war.

This article looks at how this culture war emerged, why the IFA is pushing it so hard, and why the Irish public must not allow them to continue this escalation in the face of the Climate Emergency.

And they are often used as a tactic to distract from a much bigger, more threatening issue.

For example, the culture war that has sprung up around trans rights has been led by those who oppose the rights of transgender people, and who often have broader anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment. They have made it an issue where it wasn’t previously, and they have thrust it into a wider public debate, when the majority of people didn’t pay it any mind, let alone have an issue with it.

In many ways, the anti-trans culture war has been used to distract from the greater pushback against LGBTQIA+ rights, the erosion of women’s rights, and the reversal of racial equality – all marginalised groups that were all still striving for equality as it was, even before the culture wars took hold.

All of these groups are also significantly more vulnerable than the predominantly white, wealthy and powerful male majority groups which dominate and perpetuate culture wars.

Which brings us on to the Irish Farmers Association.

Before we go any further, it is essential that we establish some immutable, verifiable and undeniable facts:

• In order to avert the worst outcomes of the Climate Emergency, we must cut greenhouse gas emissions and we must do this with utter urgency

• Ireland is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the EU – and our greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise, which is jeopardising our chances of a liveable future for all

• The single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland is the agriculture industry. It accounts for 38.4% of all CO2e emissions – which is more than double the next biggest sector

• The majority of our agriculture industry supports exports, and creates food and drink that isn’t consumed in Ireland, and which increases emissions by transporting products around the world. According to government figures, around 80-90% of all beef and dairy products are exported (2022)

• Beef and diary – which comprises the biggest part of Irish agriculture – is also responsible for the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any form of agriculture, and is responsible for more ecological destruction than any other form of farming the world over

These are all true facts. They are evidenced by verifiable, independent data from trusted sources that have no vested interest.

The current culture war perpetuated by the IFA seeks to open these facts up for debate – this is their method of delay and distraction, which threatens to lock in the worst outcomes of the Climate Emergency, which will likely see 1.2 billion people displaced by 2050 and a third of all life on Earth lost by 2070.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the Amsterdam City Council is aiming to persuade its citizens to go 50% plant-based by 2030, and the city of Haarlem has seeking to ban meat advertising from 2024.

Not to mention that plant-based diets reduce the likelihood of heart disease, cancers and aid weight loss.

It is frankly indisputable that Pádraic Fogarty was right, and that the IFA is lurching alarmingly towards the far-right in its rhetoric and actions in its culture war against climate action. Its recent actions are taken directly from the playbook of so-called ‘cancel culture,’ where those with power and a strong voice shout loudly about how they are being silenced – while actively using their money and influence to drown out those that call them out for unethical practices.

Moreover,­ it is worrying that these organisations have been so quick to capitulate to these demands for censorship by the IFA, and that media coverage of these cases has rarely addressed the misinformation and broader culture war being promoted by the IFA.

Culture wars can only be defeated by calling them out for what they are.

IFA Harming Farmers

It should be said at this point that the culture war created and perpetuated by the IFA is, perhaps, most detrimental to Irish farmers more than anyone else.

The IFA has conjured and sustained the illusion there is a culture war between climate activists and farmers. That these two groups are now deadly foes with entirely incompatible agendas.

Where, in reality, any right-minded person calling for a just climate transition is equally concerned with the hardships that many farmers already face from our current food production systems created by supermarkets and food giants which abuse farmers and our land alike.

Those of us fighting for climate action and a just transition realise that farmers are a vital ally in creating positive change. Guardians of the land who know it better than anyone else, and who need support – financial and otherwise – to make those changes and adapt to a more sustainable way of working in harmony with nature.

Stand Up To Bullies

In the end, we must understand that some truths are self-evidence. That facts are facts.

Culture wars rely on the denial of facts – the promotion of ideals over knowledge. The IFA’s legal threats, their efforts to get people sacked, to have content removed from social media: all of this is being done to bolster their coffers, promote their ideals that increase their funding.

And yet, the outcome is the same: they are failing all but a very wealthy and influential minority of farmers, they are actively worsening the Climate Crisis through distraction, delay and disinformation, and they are fundamentally doing this to get rich.

Like the EPA removing a tweet or the Irish Wildlife Trust, we all have a choice: to capitulate to their culture war and allow their fiction to become fact, or to push back and be led by science and reason. We must stand up to bullies wherever we see them, and be in no doubt that the IFA are the biggest bullies in Ireland right now.

For more on the broader issue of culture wars, including where they originate and how they fester and grow, we highly recommend Jon Ronson’s excellent podcast series Things Fell Apart.

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