Jeremy Clarkson has claimed it would be near-impossible for farmers to continue feeding the country if the government continues towards Net Zero targets.
Ahead of next month’s election, political parties are currently gearing up their plans to try and negate the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity.
Labour has pledged for clean power by 2030 – something critics deem an uphill battle of the steepest sort – while the Tories are aiming for 2035.
However, Clarkson has suggested that “strong economic growth and net zero” are mutually exclusive – they cannot work side by side.
“It’s very important that we have the ability to feed ourselves, but we simply cannot do that when the main mission is to achieve Net Zero,” Clarkson stated in his latest column.
He went on to detail how he’s had to face a dilemma of his own at his Diddly Squat farm in Oxfordshire, where cost-cutting hasn’t resulted in the greenest of outcomes.
Clarkson’s had to stop using “extremely expensive” weedkiller as it’s “possibly not that good for us… so this year we ploughed some of the fields”.
He explained: “This old-fashioned system means the soil is turned over, so the weeds are buried and, owing to a lack of sunshine, die.”
But Clarkson soon realised the impact this method had on the environment: “That sounds rustic and bucolic and lovely, but I did some maths the other day and worked out that when it was pulling an eight-farrow plough, my tractor was using a gallon of diesel to cover 100 yards.
“You read that right. A gallon for 100 yards. That’s a lot of carbon. Plus, the soil is a huge carbon sink and when I turn it over some of that carbon escapes.”
The Grand Tour star quipped it meant he’d produced more greenhouse gases “than India, Brazil and China combined”.
But ultimately, the former Top Gear star summed up the situation into a simple “dilemma” – farming is either “kind to the sky or kind to the soil”.
“You choose. I have, and the sky can eff off,” Clarkson wrote.
With a General Election called for July 4, it sounds like Clarkson will be keeping a keen eye on each parties’ approach to Net Zero – and British farming.
However, this past weekend, he also had another idea when it came to voting, taking aim at Surrey Police after a video emerged showing police using their cars to stop a loose cow.
The video taken in Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, shows the police car viciously ramming into the runaway calf – called Beau – sending the animal flying.
Surrey Police has since said it will refer itself to the police complaints watchdog following the incident and Home Secretary James Cleverly said he would be asking for an urgent explanation, describing the actions as “heavy-handed”.
The force said in a statement that after attempts to safely capture the cow “over a period of a number of hours” failed, “the decision was made to stop it using a police car”.
Clarkson weighed into controversy with a post on social media, writing on X: “I will vote for any party which stops the police from running over cows.”
His post has been liked more than 92,000 times and reposted more than 6,600 times.
