Climate-smart agriculture needed as current policy 'woefully inadequate', study finds

The study says climate-smart agriculture requires "radical" policy changes
The study says climate-smart agriculture requires "radical" policy changes

The agricultural industry has been urged to create climate-smart policies as current EU policy is "woefully inadequate", according to a new study.

At all levels of agricultural regulation – national, European, and international – changes are being sought to ensure the industry address the challenges of climate change.

Climate-smart agriculture is seen as crucial, on the one hand, to mitigate climate damage to the agricultural sector and, on the other hand, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as increase the food production for the growing world population.

However, according to a two year study from the Tilburg University, the legal instruments to stimulate climate-smart agriculture are absent or are inadequately developed.

According to current estimates, the global demand for food will increase by 40-60% between now and 2050.

However, the required increase in food production will be hard to achieve because of the impact of climate change and will, moreover, lead to more greenhouse gas emissions.

Even now, 25% of these emissions worldwide can be attributed to agriculture. Addressing the three challenges of growing food production, climate change, and CO2 reduction requires a transition of the world's farming sector to become "climate-smart", the study says.

Smart Australia

Jonathan Verschuuren, Professor of International and European Environmental Law at Tilburg University, studied the measures to stimulate this transition.

He found Australia to be one of the few countries in the world to stimulate climate-smart agriculture.

He found that policies to stimulate climate-smart agriculture must be stable and consistent for at least 10 to 20 years, to allow farmers to make the necessary investments.

New agricultural policies will be effective only if they are not solely aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also at adapting to climate change and increasing food production.

The study states that the measures that have been taken or have been planned by the European Union are "woefully inadequate" to make the agricultural sector resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Adverse effects

It concludes that the agricultural sector will increasingly feel the adverse effects of climate change, especially in southern Europe but also in the north, for instance, droughts, extreme weather events, flooding, and plant diseases.

In addition, the increasing global demand for food must be balanced against a reduction of CO2 emissions.

The study concludes that government's must create possibilities in the emissions trading system to fund climate-smart agricultural projects by the industrial and energy sectors, similar to the ones in Australia, California, and Canada, and allow for solutions sufficiently tailored to individual farms.