[DEFEATED] Fertile Farmland Protection Act

[The Dark Star Republic]

"Your definition of 'professional farmer' seems to be overlooking subsistence farmers, for whom this crop restriction pattern would not be viable.

"Also, what's an acre?"

~ Vice-Colonel Truculent Bilgewater
Ambassador to the WA

[Louisistan]

"Your definition of 'professional farmer' seems to be overlooking subsistence farmers, for whom this crop restriction pattern would not be viable.

"Also, what's an acre?"

~ Vice-Colonel Truculent Bilgewater
Ambassador to the WA

That's 10 Squaremegaglobs. You're welcome.

[Bears Armed]

This ignores the possibility of situations where the land naturally recieves new supplies of nutrients anyway and where perhaps, due to relatively high population densities, farmers effectively might have to concentrate on the same staple crops every year.

(OOC: Egypt, with the inundation of the Nile; rice paddies in parts of southern China...)

[Wrapper]

"Your definition of 'professional farmer' seems to be overlooking subsistence farmers, for whom this crop restriction pattern would not be viable.

"Also, what's an acre?"

~ Vice-Colonel Truculent Bilgewater
Ambassador to the WA

Ari shrugs and looks to Ahume, who whispers in his ear.

Oh, about four-tenths of a Hector.

Ahume whispers again aninmatedly.

Hectare. Four tenths of a hect-- oh, who cares, this proposal's going nowhere as currently written.

[Luxembourgers]

Believing the above proposal is as ready for submission as it will ever be, I hereby submit this proposal and request your approval.

Yeah no, that's not how it works. Drafting a resolution is a marathon, not a sprint. if you submit your current version you will undoubtedly fall short of quorum.

Challenge accepted!

[Separatist Peoples]

Challenge accepted!

"Ah, you aren't actually interested in drafting an effective proposal. That makes this much easier, ambassador."

"I must repeat my suggestion that you withdraw this and continue drafting, ambassador," pleaded Bell. "This, surprisingly, has a kernel of potential in it."

[Luxembourgers]

Challenge accepted!

"Ah, you aren't actually interested in drafting an effective proposal. That makes this much easier, ambassador."

"I must repeat my suggestion that you withdraw this and continue drafting, ambassador," pleaded Bell. "This, surprisingly, has a kernel of potential in it."

Of course I am interested in drafting an effective proposal! Maybe you don't like it, but after 1 hour, I already have 1/6 of the approvals I need, so apparently some people do.

[Wrapper]

"Ah, you aren't actually interested in drafting an effective proposal. That makes this much easier, ambassador."

"I must repeat my suggestion that you withdraw this and continue drafting, ambassador," pleaded Bell. "This, surprisingly, has a kernel of potential in it."

Of course I am interested in drafting an effective proposal! Maybe you don't like it, but after 1 hour, I already have 1/6 of the approvals I need, so apparently some people do.

Yeah... from the Approve Everything Brigade^TM, a couple raider puppet nations, and Ambassador Pearson, who would love to see this come to vote and fail in record-breaking fashion, no doubt.

[Separatist Peoples]

Of course I am interested in drafting an effective proposal! Maybe you don't like it, but after 1 hour, I already have 1/6 of the approvals I need, so apparently some people do.

"If you had spent any time here at all learning the ins and outs of the Festering Snakepit, you'd know that literally any draft can make it as far as halfway to quorum. There are delegates, generally called Rubber Stampers, who approve anything, legal or not. This will not make it to quorum, ambassador, do not kid yourself."

[Chester Pearson]

Of course I am interested in drafting an effective proposal! Maybe you don't like it, but after 1 hour, I already have 1/6 of the approvals I need, so apparently some people do.

"If you had spent any time here at all learning the ins and outs of the Festering Snakepit, you'd know that literally any draft can make it as far as halfway to quorum. There are delegates, generally called Rubber Stampers, who approve anything, legal or not. This will not make it to quorum, ambassador, do not kid yourself."

That depend Ambassador Bell....

Someone may just take the time to campaign this to vote, and then watch the NatSov's smash it to smitherneens and urinate on the remains.

Just saying....

[Separatist Peoples]

That depend Ambassador Bell....

Someone may just take the time to campaign this to vote, and then watch the NatSov's smash it to smitherneens and urinate on the remains.

Just saying....

"Quite a lot of effort for a vindictive, nasty joke, that. Largely irrelevant, as it would be quite simple to loophole this out of effect."

[Chester Pearson]

That depend Ambassador Bell....

Someone may just take the time to campaign this to vote, and then watch the NatSov's smash it to smitherneens and urinate on the remains.

Just saying....

"Quite a lot of effort for a vindictive, nasty joke, that."

What effort? The employees over at The Campaign Office have nothing better to do anyway...

[Louisistan]

"Quite a lot of effort for a vindictive, nasty joke, that."

What effort? The employees over at The Campaign Office have nothing better to do anyway...

"Please don't, Ambassador Pearson. We might even invite you for a drink in the Stranger's Bar, if you... just don't."

[Lexicor]

Something was mentioned about urination on remains? Someone should be arrested for this transgressioN!

[Wrapper]

Something was mentioned about urination on remains? Someone should be arrested for this transgressioN!

Wait... is the transgression the urination per se, or is the transgression this piss poor proposal?

[Louisistan]

Something was mentioned about urination on remains? Someone should be arrested for this transgressioN!

Wait... is the transgression the urination per se, or is the transgression this piss poor proposal?

Associate Ambassador Barber clears his throat. "The transgression is certainly not, I repeat not our Ambassador pissing against the door of the Office of Building Management Offices. Because... that never happened. Obviously.

[Potted Plants United]

OOC: Since you acted like a predictable newbie - which I had hoped you weren't - and submitted a bad attempt at a proposal, not sure how much you'll get from this dissection. You probably should file a GHR to have the submission removed, so that you can improve on it.

Fertile Farmland Protection Act

A large potted plant in a big plantpot with wheels suddenly comes to life, revealing a large leaf curled up to form a cone, from which a somewhat hissing voice can be heard:

"As this proposal is "right up our alley", as they say, we have decided to leave comments in the hopes that the authoring ambassador has the sense to have the immature draft rescinded, so that it has the chance to mature."

NOTING that most -- if not all -- WA States rely heavily on professional farmers to grow crops through agricultural means

"We find our selves wondering what other means there are to grow crops than agricultural means? Unless that word is understood in its most basic form of involving using soil?"
OOC: Probably not worth specifying agriculture versus aquaculture or whatever. Just "...rely heavily on professional farmers to grow crops" suffices.

and deeming it necessary for agriculture to remain intact having realized the benefits to the farmers, the economy, and international trade, but

"How does international trade benefit from a nation's food security?"

REALIZING that when the same crop is planted in the same field too frequently, it rapidly depletes necessary nutrients from the soil, causing the soil to become infertile and unable to continue to produce enough crops to benefit anyone,

"We take it that you have never heard of fertilizers? Or, indeed, of the most basic of methods; plowing the remnants of the plants back under the surface after harvest, to let them decompose naturally. In addition there are plants which themselves enrich the soil, rather than take away from it."

RELUCTANTLY AWARE that whenever a fertile field is destroyed by any means, a portion of similarly sized area of forest must be deforested in order to replace that field,

"Our selves find this claim to be bewildering at best. Why should forest be destroyed? Why not reclaim a field that has lain fallow in order to regain its full fertility? Or, indeed, return the nutrients into the soil by sapient action."
OOC: That claim would only fit the most primitive farming methods practiced by poor people in the (usually tropical zones) areas where untouched forests abut farming lands.

BELIEVING it is necessary for fertile farmland to be protected, this resolution hereby:

OOC: You want to separate that and make it read

BELIEVING it is necessary for fertile farmland to be protected,

Hereby,

and start the whole proposal, before all the BELIEVING and such, with "The World Assembly".

DEFINES a "professional farmer" as a person who is a farmer, planter, or gardener by profession, and farms at least one acre of farmland,

"We find this definition odd, and the specified area strangely small. A subsistence farmer trying to keep their family fed, would easily use up that area, especially if they had any fruit trees or berry bushes. Those take up surprisingly large areas. We suggest simply not defining a professional farmer - let nations decide what is professional farming and what isn't."

RESTRICTS professional farmers from planting the same crop in the same field in back-to-back growing seasons so that fertile farmland might be preserved,

"This would make maintaining vinyards and orchards impossible."

ADVISES professional farmers to alternate crops so that a perfectly good field does not go unused,

"Not allowing a field to go fallow every now and then is perhaps the reason why the soil would lose its fertility."

ESTABLISHES the World Assembly Agricultural Association (WAAA) to oversee a agricultural communities and enforce the given guidelines, and

"Why would you need a committee just for that? This sounds to us like creating a committee just for the sake of creating a committee."

STRONGLY ENCOURAGES the World Assembly Forest Commission to consider creating restrictions on the number of acres that can be deforested for agricultural purposes in a given area.

"Repeating our bewilderment on how forest management has anything to do with keeping soil fertile, we would also ask where you got this particular committee from? Why would you need two committees in one proposal? Why not give both their duties to WASP instead?"

[Grays Harbor]

Submitted after One Whole Day of debate. How quaint.

[Normlpeople]

Submitted after One Whole Day of debate. How quaint.

OOC Along with the bad idea = submit immediately. The rubber stamp brigade and the environment is good man crowd has already weighed in, though I expect it to be destroyed at vote should it get that far. At least it has glaring loopholes making "compliance" easy.

[Chester Pearson]

Submitted after One Whole Day of debate. How quaint.

OOC Along with the bad idea = submit immediately. The rubber stamp brigade and the environment is good man crowd has already weighed in, though I expect it to be destroyed at vote should it get that far. At least it has glaring loopholes making "compliance" easy.

Hey! I am not a rubber stamper... I am simply acting under a new policy:

The Newbies don't want to listen, and send their shit to the floor after a day? That's fine. I will do what I can to bring it to vote, so it can be desecrated on the floor, and they can hear the opinions of nations who rarely speak their minds unless something affects them. Then maybe these newbs will start to get the message, that us regulars might have a fucking clue what we are talking about....

Warmest regards,

[Araraukar]

The Newbies don't want to listen, and send their shit to the floor after a day? That's fine. I will do what I can to bring it to vote, so it can be desecrated on the floor

Except you'll end up enabling one of them to pass sooner or later, thus creating the need for even more repeals.

[Elke and Elba]

I filed a GHR, anyway, since I have SERIOUS doubts this actually passes the "at least get the member states to do something" rule.

Then again, I'm so out of touch I have no idea....

[The Eternal Kawaii]

In the Name of the Eternal Kawaii, may the Cute One be praised

We must rise in dismay to oppose this proposal. Not because we are opposed to what the author is attempting; in a world of global agricultural trade, farmland preservation is a legitimate international issue. However, this proposal is incredibly poorly worded, to the point where it is actively harmful. We point out this passage as an example:

2. RESTRICTS professional farmers from planting the same crop in the same field in back-to-back growing seasons so that fertile farmland might be preserved,

While crop rotation has proven benefits, not all crops need rotation every season. And as the Bears Armed representative has pointed out earlier, some crops simply cannot be rotated due to the way they're grown.

We have seen the passage of far too many well-meaning but badly written proposals that end up doing more harm than good. We should not add to the harm they have caused by passing yet another one.

[Wrapper]

And... quorum? Seriously? What the....

Ari casts a suspicious glance toward the innocent-looking Ambassador Pearson.

Oh, Chet, what the fuck did you do?

[The Dark Star Republic]

OOC: Forcing this to quorum to win a pissing contest was a spiteful, childish move.