Farming must be part of fight against climate change

Published on Friday 16 May 2008 21:48

MOST of us imagine farming as being very different from other industries. We see farms as pastures green and fields of corn, while we identify manufacturing with clanking production lines and belching chimneys. The truth is that modern, intensive farming has long since become highly industrialised.

Traditional agriculture has given way to new methods that require huge inputs of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides; and that consume large quantities of fossil fuel. The upside has been a massive increase in agricultural productivity and food production. But the downside is that this new industrial agriculture is a major contributor to global warming. In effect, we cannot tackle climate change without revisiting modern ways of feeding ourselves.

Globally, agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions in four main ways: through releases associated with deforestation in South America and Africa; through methane releases from rice cultivation in Asia; through further methane releases from fermentation in cattle across the developed world; and through nitrous oxide releases from fertilisers everywhere.

Agriculture, including deforestation for farmland, contributes as much as one third of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the global livestock sector alone now generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in equivalent – 18 per cent – than transport. Worse, this sector produces a massive share of the most harmful greenhouse gases, including 37 per cent of all human-induced methane emissions.

Of course, there are other industries which are bigger priority targets for reduction than food production, and with the world's population slated to grow by another 50 per cent this century, there are obvious limits to how far agriculture can be restructured. Yet it will not be possible to curb greenhouse gas emissions without expecting some commitment from agriculture. In short, we need a 'cool' agriculture.

The first step is to recognise the problem and put it on the political agenda. The second is to re-examine the need for the most profligate and energy-intensive forms of agricultural production, particularly feeding grains to livestock which could be consumed directly by humans. Third, we need to make a quantitative reduction in the use of chemical fertilisers. Fourth, we need to turn away from the use of corn as a feedstock for biofuels. As well as sending the price of human foods to unsustainable levels, this process adds as much to emissions as it substitutes for ordinary petroleum.

In Scotland, 75 per cent of land is under agricultural production. The issue here is not to diminish the stature or importance of the industry, but to recognise the strategic role agriculture must play in mitigating global warming. This matter must be addressed directly in the Scottish Government's forthcoming Climate Change Bill.