“These famines that are building are biblical,” Michael Yon says. “I don’t use that word lightly. At this rate, the Bible is going to need a new chapter. It’s really that serious.”
In a recent episode of EpochTV's "American Thought Leaders," host Jan Jekielek speaks with Yon, a former Green Beret, writer, photographer, and long-time war correspondent. In his career, Yon has visited more than 80 countries to report firsthand on world events. He's currently investigating the Netherlands and its farming crisis. Here, he discusses that country, the fossil fuel catastrophe, upcoming food shortages, and the unprecedented wave of illegal immigrants into the United States.
Jan Jekielek: Your focus has been on global security and understanding what's happening in the world, because there does seem to be a significant shift, especially with the pandemic. Now, food security is becoming a serious issue. You’re in the Netherlands right now, so what are you seeing?
Michael Yon: The Netherlands is about to go into winter. Their energy prices are going through the roof, and most of the people don’t see the famine coming. The farmers are being destroyed, and the Netherlands is being brought to heel by the globalists. Some are resisting.
Mr. Jekielek: You’re saying the Dutch government has a globalist bent.
Mr. Yon: I wouldn’t say they just have a globalist bent. They are globalist. The farmers own about 62 percent of the land in the Netherlands, and this is the second-largest food exporter in the world, despite having fewer than 18 million people. The farmers are extraordinary. The government is forcing farms to close with the excuse that nitrogen is causing pollution.
When you take the most efficient farmers in the world, arguably, and you put them out of business because they’re polluting, who’s going to do the farming? The Indians? The Chinese? I don’t know. But the bottom line is, we’re going into a severe energy crisis which will lead to a food crisis as well.
People are going to freeze to death this winter. It’s very clear. And next year, we’re going to start to see profound food shortages, and this will drive more mass immigration. I was down in Darién Gap a few months ago, that jungle gap between Colombia and Panama, and they’re coming up in massive numbers: Africans, Asians, Pakistanis, and even mainland Chinese—people from more than 140 countries.
And our own government is increasing the migration flow. As the economies collapse and the food pressures increase, you’ll see Africa and Asia and maybe parts of Europe dumping out into South America and then going through the Darién Gap.
This is a big deal. We’re being completely invaded on the U.S. southern border. Everybody in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico knows this. Here in the Netherlands, it’s very similar. It’s just on a different number scale because it's a smaller country.
Mr. Jekielek: Are you saying the Netherlands government basically agrees ideologically with the World Economic Forum?
Mr. Yon: Absolutely. The World Economic Forum has nurtured this country. Of course, Brussels, its headquarters, is right next door. Things are really governed here by bureaucrats, and we don’t even know who they are.
It’s clear that the World Economic Forum has a massive influence in Canada, the United States, Japan, you name it. There are 27 countries in the European Union, and if Germany collapses, the European Union is certainly going to fall apart. And the situation is dire. I was recently in Germany and went to their equivalent of the Home Depot, OBI, and went to the wood section, where I was told “Ah, we can’t get any wood, and we don’t know when we’re going to get more.”
But most Germans don’t have fireplaces. They live in cities in apartment buildings often heated by natural gas. It’s a very serious situation.
Mr. Jekielek: There’s this huge focus right now on the Russia–Ukraine War, and you're arguably the most embedded war correspondent in U.S. history, but you aren't there. Why not?
Mr. Yon: That’s a minor battlefield compared to the food and migration issues.
These famines that are building are biblical. I don’t use that word lightly. At this rate, the Bible is going to need a new chapter. It’s really that serious.
Mr. Jekielek: You’re essentially arguing that none of this really had to happen, that this is all basically created by humans.
Mr. Yon: Knock out the gas and the energy, and agriculture’s going to go. This is clearly contrived, and this isn’t a conspiracy theory. The World Economic Forum is open about it. They say it in clear words.
Mr. Jekielek: What are they saying in clear words?
Mr. Yon: The Great Reset, reducing population on earth. The World Economic Forum doesn’t even hide that that’s what it's doing.
Mr. Jekielek: You’ve spoken with a number of Dutch farmers. What are they saying?
Mr. Yon: Farmers are wed to the land. They are a backbone of culture. Farmers and religion entwined are a backbone of culture. If you’re trying to brainwash people and break them and divorce them from the land, you have to break the farmers’ backs. They’re trying that right now.
If they take out the farmers, the globalists are putting themselves into a position where they can control food production and distribution. Bill and Melinda Gates, by the way, have put $600 million into something called Picnic, a food distribution network here in the Netherlands.
The farmers are becoming more angry, and the general population is becoming so angry that the farmers are being knocked out of the saddle and the food production and land are being taken away.
Mr. Jekielek: In what scenario can these farmers actually win and continue what they’re doing?
Mr. Yon: As a war correspondent, I would say overthrow the government because that’s the only way that I see of doing it. I don’t see otherwise how they’re going to win with this government. Sri Lanka went down this same route, and the rest is history. We saw the mob swimming in the president’s swimming pool and sleeping in his bed.
Mr. Jekielek: Everything you’re describing makes me think of pandemic policy, which I think resulted in the biggest wealth transfer from the poor and middle classes to the elites in the history of the world. It had an unbelievable effect. Everything you’re describing is in the context of a couple of years of extremely restrictive, economically destructive policy that the world is still reeling from. One solution, I think, is simply to restart energy production in all these places where it’s possible, but it isn't being done. Would you say that?
Mr. Yon: Absolutely. The natural gas has to flow. We’ve got to get these fertilizer plants going again. But we’ve already lost a huge amount of production. There’s been a flash, and we’re about to hear the boom. The crop reports in the United States should be out in a couple of weeks, and that may have a dramatic effect on food prices when people realize how short we are on food.
Mr. Jekielek: Following the worst of the pandemic, at some point, it dawned on me that we’re really never going back to what was before, that the situation has irrevocably changed.
Along with this recovery being attempted from the pandemic, food shortages basically mean a really difficult time that’s almost unavoidable. Is that what you’re saying?
Mr. Yon: Yes, I would say unavoidable.
Mr. Jekielek: It seems like we’ve crossed the Rubicon here. Is it possible to ever go back to how things looked pre-pandemic?
Mr. Yon: No. We’re going into a totally different state and there’s no turning back. Look at Sri Lanka; they’re resisting now, a little too late. Especially when you go into famine, there’s only a certain amount of time that you have while your energy is still high and you’re not malnourished, in which you can actually resist. At some point, you’re just too weak, and they’ve beaten you.
Mr. Jekielek: What do you think is the best-case scenario right now for society at large?
Mr. Yon: First, detach ourselves from globalism and the World Economic Forum and their influence, and that includes the United Nations and World Health Organization. Greatly reduce the size of the U.S. government and the bureaucracy. Become nationalist in our outlook.
Japanese need to be Japanese. Poles need to be Polish, or they’ll just be giving up their sovereignty. That’s why Europe is collapsing. They’ve surrendered their sovereignty to the people in Brussels, and it’s the people in Brussels who are leading us into a global catastrophe.
Individuals can prepare, too. Read five books on famine. Any five random books. OK, I’ll suggest one. Read "Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine" [by Anne Applebaum]. Then you’ll better understand what you need to do to prepare, because you can get through it if you know the challenges you’re going to face. It’s all written down. The people who wrote these books wrote them so we would read them.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
