Market gardeners in Iceland distributed vegetables outside parliament yesterday as part of their protest at the high cost of electricity. The protest was timed to coincide with a parliamentary debate about greenhouse farmers and the increasing cost of electricity.
Head of the Association of Horticulturalists, Bjarni Jonsson handed Jon Bjarnason, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, a selection of vegetables and a basket of flowers at the protest at the same time as challenging the minister to help, Visir.is reports. But this highly public vegetal gift will probably not be declared on the Minister’s next tax return.
“The cost of electricity for greenhouse horticulturalists has increased by 30 percent since January this year and it is causing farmers to leave the lights off in the grow houses for longer each day. The production of Icelandic tomatoes has decreased by 17 percent so far this year,” the Association says in a press statement.
People in Britain should protest to Parliament too. Here the average energy cost has doubled in just five years, according to Daily Mail. It’s now more £1200 a year!
Here in Alaska, energy costs have also doubled in the last five years. The “grid” population around Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley switched to natural gas quite a few years ago for heating, sold on the platform of clean, cheap efficient energy. Now we’re being told there’s a natural gas shortage, even though 1.1 million dollars of Alaskan taxpayer money was put out for a natural gas pipeline. We are urged to keep cooler temperatures in our homes this winter, to bundle up in extra clothing, and to close off any rooms in our houses that aren’t truly needed. Hmmm. We do have a grand stand display of oil rich homes that probably have enough luxurious space for doing this, but the average Alaskan lives in some rather modest conditions to begin with. It’s a good thing we still have a lot of beetle killed trees. A lot of people are dragging in their rusting Franklin Stoves or buying new energy efficient wood burners this year, and a whole lot of firewood is getting chopped.
who needs fresh local produce, when multi-national companies can swoop in unrestricted, tap into our grid and use all the energy to make aluminum? Let us eat lava and import crappy Dutch produce. Bon appetite!