Climate change: the hazards and opportunites for agriculture

For the last few months climate change has been at the centre of public debate. With so many new books, articles, speeches, meetings, conferences, media attention, and of course politicking on the subject, it is sometimes hard to keep up.

We are used to variations in the weather, but the idea that climate itself could be changing - and changing fast - is deeply worrying. Suddenly the assumptions underlying society, how we manage it, and not least how we feed ourselves, have begun to look insecure. Already it seems clear that the future will not be a continuation of the present, and that the present itself is under threat. We face not only climate change, but also - and more important - climate destabilization.

How could this have happened? How did pots of anxiety simmering away in the background suddenly come to the boil? It was clearly the science that stoked the fire, and this time the fire spread. It does not always happen this way, but this time it did. From being a long term, tricky and inconvenient problem, generating high level talk but little if any real action, it became a widespread concern. Even those who, for honest and sometimes less than honest reasons, had denied it, began to shift position.

Without going into the long and tortuous history, including the Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the tipping points in the current debate have been:

• a report from Sir Nicholas Stern on the economic and social implications of climate change published in October 2006
• the reports of the three Working Groups of the Intergovernmental of Climate Change in the first half of 2007, and the summary of them for policy makers published in the so called Synthesis report of last November
• the meeting of the G8 plus 5 at Heiligendamm in June 2007 at which practical actions to cope with climate change were in principle agreed upon. This involved a substantial change in the position of the principal naysayer, the United States
• the UN negotiations involving over 180 countries at Bali in December to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. This led to agreement on an agenda for talks, with a 2009 deadline, on measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions cope with forestry problems, and set up projects to help those countries most liable to be adversely affected by climate change. Even if a lot was not agreed upon, and the United States had to be publicly booed before accepting the final document, Bali represents a move forward which few would have thought possible only 6 months ago.

These very public events tell only part of the story. There were persuasive reports from such bodies as National Academies of Science and the European Commission. In nearly all industrial countries, business and industry began to recognise the need in their own interest to react to, mitigate, and adapt to change. In this country this was well illustrated at the Prince of Wales's two business summits on the subject. In the United States and elsewhere Al Gore's book and film An Inconvenient Truth had an enormous effect on public opinion, augmented when he and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize for their work.

Let us look briefly at the science before trying to assess the implications for agriculture. The evidence for climate change is overwhelming, and no longer in serious dispute. It shows steady acceleration since the 1970s. I begin by distinguishing natural from human-driven change.

• natural change is constant: the last 10,000 years have been a fairly warm period with ups and downs. Fundamentally our climate is a product of the ever changing relationship between the Earth and the Sun. But here are some symptoms of change, or things to watch:
• the state of the Amazonian rainforest
• the direction of North Atlantic currents
• volcanic emissions and impacts from space
• release of methane clathrates from beneath the tundra, peat bogs and the ocean bed
• the varying patterns of the Indian monsoon
• the frequency and intensity of El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific
• the state of the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets
• human driven change is something new: the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel record that:
• carbon dioxide emissions are now at their highest level in 650,000 years. We could indeed be heading back to conditions of 125,000 years ago when the configuration of land and sea was very different (and sea levels were between 4 and 6 meters higher)
• the volume of such emissions in the atmosphere rose from roughly 190 ppm (parts per million) in glacial times, to 285 ppm in warm interludes, to 381 ppm today, and at present rising by around 2 ppm a year
• the global atmospheric concentration of methane, a 20 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, has risen from a pre-industrial level of 715 ppb (parts per billion) to 1774 ppb in 2005
• nitrous oxide has likewise increased from a pre-industrial value of around 270 ppb to 319 ppb in 2005
• warming of the oceans has also increased since 1961. Such warming now reaches down to depths of at least 3000 metres. Its effects on the atmosphere have a roughly 30 year time lag. Sea levels are rising by about 3.5 cm per decade, and are now accelerating. Increasing acidification of the surface affects all marine life, including corals
• deforestation has continued to affect climate. Clearing of forests could have begun to change conditions as long as 8,000 years ago

According to the Intergovernmental Panel, the cumulative results of change could well lead to a substantial rise in global average temperature between 2030 and 2060 with wide regional variations.

What have been - and will be - the effects so far as humans are concerned? They can be seen in:

• changes in weather everywhere, and becoming more so, with more extreme events, manifest in storms and droughts
• accelerated melting of the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps, and of Himalayan and Andean glaciers with their effects on the local river systems, in particular China
• a rise in sea levels affecting coastal cities worldwide
• problems of distribution of fresh water for human and other purposes
• increasing competition for natural resources, including fertile soils, woodlands and minerals
• changes in ecosystems, including insects and micro organisms of all kinds, with their multiple effects on human health and welfare (well brought out in the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)
• potential undermining of current social, and in particular urban, infrastructure: sewage, reservoirs, buildings, public services, industry etc.
• movement of people within and between countries, in particular environmental refugees.

We also have to recognize that of all the problems now facing the Earth, climate change is only one. The others driving the current transformation arise from human multiplication; degradation of land; consumption of resources and accumulation of wastes; water pollution and supply; energy production and use; destruction of biodiversity; and some aspects of technological change. These factors have to be seen and understood together, and cannot be seen separately. If humans cannot learn how to cope, particularly in multiplying their numbers, the Great Reaper could well do so for them.

Of particular interest are the likely impacts, particularly in Britain. In general terms Britain can be divided by a line running north-west to south-east. there are likely to be warmer summers in both, with more rainfall in the north-west, and much less, even drought conditions, in the south-east. For both winters will be warmer and wetter. Sea level rise will be coupled with isostatic sinking in the south and south-east. There is the continuing prospect of more extreme events, whether of drought or flood. Together these changes will have make impacts on the whole economy, and particularly on agriculture.

But according to the European Commission, Britain will be relatively privileged. For the rest of Europe, the changes could be more drastic, with

• crippling drought condition along the northern shores of the Mediterranean
• radical changes in soil fertility and biodiversity
• damage to major cities as a result of sea level rise, and acidification of the oceans with effects on fisheries

all leading to migration from south to north.

In no area of human activity is all this more important than in the field of agriculture. As David Miliband, then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said at the last Oxford Farming Conference:

"... climate change already under way means the biggest shift in comparative advantage for food production since the industrial revolution ..."

He also said that the future of farming was more about environmental security than food security. Obviously we have to think about both at the same time.

I think we should also accept that agriculture is not a business like any other. The same can be said about energy. In each case markets should operate within a clearly defined framework of the public interest. That interest can only be identified and established by governments, in our case within the European Union. It should include an assessment of risks to future food supplies (with an appropriate measure of self sufficiency and self reliance), and use of fiscal instruments for the purpose. It means establishing clear incentives and disincentives. At present some governments seem to have ignored both environmental and food security, and the result is a mess which shows every sign of becoming messier. There is also an ethical dimension well brought out in the work of the Food Ethics Council.

What are the main problems worldwide?

• At present we have short-term exploitation of soils, leading to excessive dependence on fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals, and widespread pollution of all kinds, including water. In many cases this has led to long-term deterioration of land quality;
• Maximization of yields and minimization of labour have made things worse, and contributed to destruction of local communities, and migration to towns;
• Application of new technologies has brought both good and bad results. There is a continuing, somewhat misdirected, debate on genetically modified organisms. I am not against them as such. Indeed they have happened many times naturally in the long history of evolution. But we have to know what we are doing, and what the effects are likely to be.
• For good and bad reasons trade in agricultural products has many anomalies. The current stalemate within the Doha round is a sufficient demonstration of it. Perverse subsidies, particularly to exports, and an excessive degree of protectionism have caused disruption, contributing to the current extraordinary rise in food prices. Again I am not against subsidies and protection as such, but current arrangements are in some cases hard to justify. I believe that in 2005 the US Administration paid out more than US$30 billion in direct payments to US farmers, and around US$150 billion in indirect subsidies, including tax breaks, tariffs, drought loss payments and purchase of surpluses.
• Worldwide the gap between rich and poor has become wider, and is still widening, with obesity in some societies and food poverty in others. The division is as much within countries as between them. Greater consumption of meat in China and India has already helped drive up grain prices. There are alarming possibilities for social and economic breakdown. There is no greater incentive for war and terrorism than demonstrable inequity.

To this list of woes we must add agriculture's contribution to climate change. According to a recent European study, a substantial proportion of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe come from the food and drink sector; and according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates some 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a relatively new dimension: the connexion of agriculture with energy policy. A good example is the development of biofuels and other feed stocks to lower dependence on fossil fuels. Some pretty bad choices seem to have been made, notably over ethanol, but there are prospects for better technologies in the future. All this has implications for future use of land in the widest sense. Prices of some foods are steadily rising. Last year the price of maize per unit of energy began to track that of oil.

So where do we go? Forgetting for a moment certain vested interests which favour the status quo as long as possible, we need to recognize the wider and above all social implications of agriculture, government responsibilities in assuring secure food supplies, and the place of agriculture in society as a whole. Looking ahead we can discern the outlines of a very different world. In my view our priorities should be to

• work for a decarbonized society, using intelligent technology for the purpose; we need a fundamental switch to renewable - and nuclear - energy sources;
• give more emphasis to the dietary needs of human health. As Colin Tudge has put it: "A lot of plants, not much meat, and maximum variety" (a point echoed in a Cabinet Office paper reported in the Financial Times today) ;
• value conservation more highly (I commend a recent report "Conservation Agriculture in Europe");
• begin the difficult process of adapting to a changing climate locally, nationally and globally;
• look at David Miliband's five challenges as he set them out to the last Oxford Farming Conference;
• "big is not necessarily beautiful, but small is vulnerable";
• move up the value chain; in other words get the prices right (in particular the relationship between producers and retailers);
• diversify as much as possible;
• differentiate agricultural products and reconnect with consumers;
• see climate change as an opportunity and not just as a threat.

This is not the occasion for a more general analysis of the rethinking which I believe to be necessary, but in concluding I want to make three broad observations.

• First we need to reassess much conventional economics and to bring in externalities with a wider assessment of true costs. We still seem obsessed with such measuring devices as 'growth' and 'GNP/GDP' which are more concerned with production for its own sake than for human wellbeing and welfare. The price of getting agriculture wrong is incalculable. We need new methodologies to make sure we get it right.
• We live in a largely urban society, and this year about half the human species will be living in cities. At a time of changing climate they are particularly vulnerable. Like living organisms, cities absorb food, water and raw materials, and they emit waste of all kinds. As has been shown often enough in the past, cities can and do break down with immeasurable effects on their populations. In such breakdowns food supply has always been critical.
• While developing new technologies in agriculture as in other fields, we need to recognize the hazards as well as the advantages. Agriculture can help us adapt to climate change. Indeed it will compel us to do so.

The changes depicted in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth are very real. But there is a convenient truth which he scarcely describes. This is that if we can confront our problems, including those of how best to feed ourselves, and begin on practical solutions to them, our successors could look back at this time as one in which society radically changed direction, and came to more sensible terms with itself and its future on Earth.