Agriculture part of climate change solution – NFU message to Copenhagen

Agriculture can and will be part of the solution to climate change; this is the message that the NFU is taking to the Copenhagen Climate Change summit this week.

NFU combinable crops board chairman Ian Backhouse and Dr Jonathan Scurlock, the NFU’s chief adviser on renewable energy and climate change, will be attending the international climate talks to help raise the profile of the agricultural sector. Mr Backhouse will be speaking at a special Agriculture and Rural Development Day on Saturday December 12.

"In Britain, our Government Chief Scientist Prof John Beddington has warned of a ’perfect storm’ of increasing demand for food, water and energy in the face of a changing climate", said Mr. Backhouse. "We believe that agriculture has an important role to play in meeting all these needs - but we will need the co-operation of our governments, the private sector, NGOs, the public and media."

"Increasing productivity is critical, to improve the adaptive capacity of both rich and poor farmers against climate change, to enhance food security and to reduce pressure on our natural environment."

According to Dr Scurlock, the NFU and its national and international partners have identified four main themes for mitigation action, whereby agriculture in the UK and worldwide could actively tackle climate change. These are

• increased greenhouse gas efficiency of resource use, such as changes to nutrient management and livestock life cycles

• enhanced carbon storage in vegetation and soils

• a wide range of bioenergy technologies to displace fossil fuel use, such as biofuels and biogas and

• the deployment of other renewable energy technologies like wind energy and solar power.

Dr Scurlock added that the joint agricultural industry Climate Change Task Force, set up in response to the challenges posed by climate change, had recently delivered an Outline Greenhouse Gas Action Plan to Defra.