Reaping the rewards

Shifting weather patterns are forcing us to rethink the way we grow, produce and sell our food. But there are rich pickings out there for the pioneers.

There’s perhaps no other industry which depends so much on the weather as agriculture. Farmers have always had to adapt crops and livestock to seasons, to different soils and geography. Yet never before have they had to adapt to such a rapidly changing climate.

Forecasts include earlier springs, milder wetter winters and hotter drier summers by 2025. But if that’s to be the underlying pattern, don’t go counting on a gradual incremental shift. This year, an unusually hot, dry spring made it hard for crops to get established, while July’s torrential rain destroyed vegetables in the fields and made cereal harvesting all but impossible in some areas. The shortage of certain British vegetables in supermarkets as a result was a warning sign that the food industry, despite its modern efficiencies, remains highly sensitive to variations and extreme weather events.

Indeed, many farmers are now convinced that climate change is a reality here and now. What is encouraging, though, is that, as a recent survey showed [see below], they’re prepared to see that in terms of not just challenges, but positive opportunities and business benefits too.

Catching on to climate change• 81% of English farmers believe the climate is already changing
• 53% say they’re already affected by climate change
• 70% believe these changes can offer business benefits

These are the headline findings from a June 2007 survey by Farming Futures. The initiative is encouraging farmers and landowners to adapt to prepare their businesses and take advantage of the opportunities of climate change.

Co-ordinated by Forum for the Future and funded by Defra’s Climate Challenge Fund, Farming Futures is a collaboration between the National Farmers’ Union, Country Land and Business Association and the Applied Research Forum (representing the agricultural and horticultural levy boards).

Together, they hope to empower the sector to understand climate change and take action, such as:

Adaptation: earlier planting and harvesting; cultivating unusual crops (sunflowers, grapes, peaches); growing shelterbelts against extreme weather; improving drainage.

Mitigation: low tillage crops; renewable energy; crop cover to reduce fertiliser; insulation and energy-efficient lighting; more efficient transport.

Looking at the global picture, the prospects for the UK food and farming industry are positive. In both the short and long term, North America, Europe and Russia are the only continents where yields are expected to rise, so UK farmers are likely to increase their competitiveness. By 2025, we could be seeing new varieties of horticultural produce actually becoming commercially viable in certain areas of the UK, such as grapes, peaches and apricots, or even wine.

It won’t all be plain sailing, reminds Tara Garnett, who heads the Food Climate Research Network at the University of Surrey. While energy costs (for heating greenhouses, for example) may decline, both livestock-related and crop diseases are likely to increase and water shortages will become an issue, especially in the southeast and east. There is already evidence of regional variations in predicted weather patterns affecting land prices. Hugh Fell, a land agent based in Northumberland, notes that “we are going to see some significant differentials in values start to accrue as a result of climate expectations. Non-farming investors want nothing that is at or below sea level.”

Andrew Watson, chairman of the Association of Independent Crop Consultants, predicts that “water is going to be as big a commodity issue as oil is now. We already have a climate similar to northern France.” Jim Orson expects a more southerly “Toulouse-like climate” by 2050.In his role as technical director at the Arable Group, a research charity funded by farmers, he’s already advising growers to adopt more drought-resistant crops. “Rape, which puts down deeper roots, might become more important and minor crops like sunflowers might start to do better,” he explains.

Glass half full

“We hear a lot about the negative effects of climate change – droughts and increased pests and disease,” says David Fursdon, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), whose members own and manage about half the land in rural England and Wales. “But earlier springs could mean sowing, ripening and harvesting ahead of time – and there is a lot of potential for new markets and crops. We could be seeing soya beans, sunflowers, even olives.” He is also excited about new livestock species such as ostrich and hair sheep, known to be disease-resistant and low-maintenance breeds.

It’s not just innovators with new crops who are ringing the changes; in some of our longest-established farming practices there has been incredible resourcefulness and adaptation. Livestock farmers, for instance, are enjoying the prospect of out-wintering their animals thanks to milder weather; some are starting to consider rearing lighter cattle, so that ‘poaching’ the increasingly sodden winter ground is less of an issue, and already some are switching to easy-care breeds of sheep which thrive well outdoors in warmer springs.

But there’s evidence of wider change afoot in an industry which is ideally placed to get involved in actually reducing the environmental impacts of our food economy. As Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) puts it, “agriculture is in a unique position to be able to tackle both the impacts we expect from climate change and its causes”.

As well as joining the Farming Futures project [see box above], the NFU has teamed up with the CLA and the Agricultural Industries Confederation to launch a ‘climate change task force’. Its mission is to help find all practicable ways for members to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases associated with farming – the nitrous oxides from fertilisers, and the methane from livestock. Kendall is enthusiastic about both the ecological and financial benefits. “We believe every farmer can become a net ‘energy exporter’ through on-farm biomass boilers, biofuels or anaerobic digesters.”

Some of the most effective carbon-cutting solutions can be less to do with technology, more with subtle changes in practices. “Of the energy used to produce wheat,” explains Rob Stobart of the Arable Group, “about 50% is fertiliser. So we’re putting a lot of emphasis into driving down those inputs.” He’s testing cover crops to reduce nitrogen loss in the winter, experimenting with sowing clover alongside wheat to create nitrogen for the cereal as it grows.

The concept of by-cropping is nothing new. Farmers have long known that clover is one of a group of plants with rhizobia bacteria living symbiotically in their root nodules. These bacteria ‘fix’ atmospheric nitrogen that other plants can use. But only when this is released, the research has found. “We now know that trying to keep the clover healthy was a mistake,” explains Stobart. “If it’s ‘stressed’, the plant is encouraged to give up some of the nitrogen.”

There is a long way to go before these low-carbon farming methods are economical, Stobart admits. Planting and harvesting a cover crop uses fuel, and it’s essential that the process saves more nitrogen than the fuel costs if it is to be used. If there were money to be made out of the by-crops themselves, however, the picture would look very different. “One of the biggest challenges is trying to find an end use for them,” he says. [See box, below, for more on low-carbon soil management.]

Not so shallow thinkingDeep ‘inversion’ ploughing flips the soil over, burying many problem weeds. But it takes time and uses a lot of fuel. So today, about 45% of combinable crops in Britain are grown using shallow (or ‘minimum’) tillage instead. Jim Bullock at Mill Farm in Malvern, says this method has cut his fuel consumption from 97 litres of fuel per hectare of crop to 48 litres per hectare. “When we started ten years ago, fuel was 15p a litre, but now it’s nearly 40p,” he explains.
A key to shallow tillage is getting the agronomy – particularly the crop rotation – exactly right. “Over the winter, we put in mustard. That keeps the soil covered and mops up any nitrogen that’s in there. It also sucks the moisture out of our heavy soils. If we left the ground bare, it would be too wet to establish the bean crop.” When it’s time for the beans, the mustard is killed off with a spray of herbicide that also kills off the blackgrass weeds before they seed.

“We can do 40 hectares in a day compared to 10-15 hectares with the conventional ploughing system,” he says. “It gives me more time to manage the business. And when you’re not running the tractor you’re not burning carbon.”
Another part of the financial equation is whether the produce from all this innovative low-carbon farming attracts a premium price – or a government incentive. There’s something of a precedent in the popularisation of organic food, of which Peter Melchett, policy director for the Soil Association, is a major proponent. He believes that not only should “people move to a more seasonal diet so that they are eating food that can actually be produced in a more sustainable way,” but “secondly, we need to buy organic.” Not everyone agrees that this is as catch-all solution. Liz Genever, of the Meat and Livestock Commission, points out that organic agriculture does not necessarily release fewer greenhouse gas emissions per hectare of output than ‘nonorganic’, and warns that, at present levels, the sector in the UK could not supply all our needs.

Indeed it’s a non-organic-orientated ‘green standard’ that Defra is currently developing with the Carbon Trust. A handful of supermarkets are raising the bar through their purchasing policies too. Waitrose, for example, requires all its (non-organic) British fruit and vegetables to be sustainably produced, under the LEAF Marque Scheme. Marks & Spencer will be asking all its suppliers of food, including meat, to meet an independently audited environmental standard within the next five years.

Carbon hoofprint

If there’s one area of farming that’s been held up recently for its heavy environmental impact, it’s the livestock industry. A report published last year by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation revealed that the global livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport. That’s down to both the energy and fertiliser used to grow their feed, and the methane and potent nitrous oxides given off by their digestive systems.

The science of cow burps seems to have a special appeal for the world’s media. In the Netherlands, we hear, they’re desperately trying to shrink the ‘hoofprint’ of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. In Germany, there’s talk of anti-flatulence pills. Here in the UK researchers at Reading University, in a project funded by the Meat and Livestock Commission and the Milk Development Council, are hoping to offer some sensible suggestions to the industry. “We’re not looking at introducing anything unusual into ruminants’ diets, but simply altering it,” says Charlotte Bullock. The research will take into account the huge number of factors determining methane excretion, such as the amount of fermentable organic matter the animals eat, as well as the amount and type of fibre, starch and sugars.

Another approach to reducing livestock’s overall impact could be to feed them only on the waste streams from crops that were first produced for people to eat [read Colin Tudge’s view on this]. Done efficiently, this has the potential to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per kilogramme of meat. One Dutch researcher has calculated that pigs fed with the waste from sugar beet and vegetable oil processing can provide enough meat to match dietary recommendations from the World Health Organisation.

Garnett, who is just completing a highly detailed research paper on the livestock industry’s contribution to climate change, asks if we will have to consider more radical changes: “I think we’ll need to produce far fewer animals, with correspondingly less meat consumption,” she says. To meat and dairy farmers her suggestions could be a red rag to a bull. The NFU’s climate change advisor, Jo Hughes, believes such a move in the UK could mean we just end up importing these products from countries with less developed animal welfare standards and higher emissions. “The best way is to reduce our emissions, or start using methane for anaerobic digestion,” she insists, “because people aren’t going to stop putting meat on the barbecue when the sun comes out.”

Garnett’s not so sure. She thinks diet will look very different in 2050, as the focus on low-carbon lifestyles increases [see ‘My low-carb(on) menu' for a leading chef’s low-carbon menu]. What we eat will vary according to where we live and how much money we have to spend, she predicts, but “the bulk of the population will be eating far lower down on the food chain. Meat and dairy products will be more expensive. Fish could be a rare luxury.” She speculates that there may even be intensive public information campaigns, run by supermarkets or by government, showing people how to cook and eat lower carbon foods such as cereals and pulses.

Greening the GlasshousesSince the mid-1990s, tomato growers and horticulturalists have made it something of an art form to get the best out of combined heat and power – using generators in vast greenhouses to provide light and warmth, and the waste carbon dioxide (CO2) in the exhaust fumes to fertilise the plants and stimulate further growth. In Yorkshire, John Baarda Ltd has made it an object lesson in industrial symbiosis. The company has teamed up with fertiliser manufacturer, Terra Nitrogen, whose waste steam is now heating its greenhouses and whose 12,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission are fertilising the tomatoes.

The biggest producer of traditional round tomatoes in Britain is actually British Sugar. Its subsidiary, Cornerways, turns out 34 million tomatoes a year and has just opened an eight-hectare glasshouse extension adjacent to its Wissington sugar factory in Norfolk. The facility uses the surplus heat from sugar refining to heat the greenhouses through more than 70 miles of pipework, and the CO2 from sugar manufacture to fertilise the tomatoes. The plant processes a quarter of Britain’s sugar beet and, cleverly, the water used to wash the beet is then fed to the tomatoes to make use of the nitrogen within it.

The Horticulture Development Council is gathering all this best practice together to advise commercial growers on how to make their Britishgrown salad, tomato, peppers and herbs as ‘green’ as possible. On the menu are biomass-fired generators, sealed glasshouses, heat retaining ‘blinds’ and heat-storing underground aquifers.

Trevor Lawson is a journalist specialising in environmental issues. Additional material by Hannah Bullock.

11 October 2007