European farming braced for climate change

Environment Daily 1938, 12/09/05

Climate change will have far-reaching impacts on European farming, a joint meeting of EU environment and agriculture ministers heard on Sunday.  Agriculture could even be wiped out across much of southern Europe, experts said.  The sector was warned to prepare and adapt.

The joint session was hosted by the UK government, which has made climate change a priority of its current EU presidency term.  UK environment and agriculture minister Margaret Beckett, who chaired the meeting, and EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas both said they hoped the talks would stimulate further integration of environmental factors into farming policies.

Rising temperatures will make it possible to grow more crops further north, said Martin Parry, a British climate expert and member of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.  But overall, farming will suffer through a combination of lower rainfall in the south, more intense rainfall in the north, and more and more intense weather extremes.

European environment agency chief Jacqueline McGlade sketched the possibility of farming having to be abandoned in much of southern Europe.  EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel described some of the scenarios presented as "scary".

A key challenge is for agriculture to reduce its own output of greenhouse gases, which amounts to 10% of the EU total.  Ms Fischer Boel stressed that the 2003 reform of the EU's common agricultural policy had helped to cut releases and would lead to further reductions as it became fully implemented.

But agriculture can do more than cut its emissions:  in the words of Stavros Dimas "it has the potential to become part of the solution".

Agricultural soils can sequester carbon from the atmosphere - though the UK government's chief scientist David King warned of recent research showing that the potential may be less than has been thought.

Farming can also produce large amounts of biofuels and other biomass energy.

A new phase of EU research under the European climate change programme to be launched in October will focus on these possibilities, said Mr Dimas, and an EU action plan on biomass energy is to be published in October.  His colleague Ms Fischer Boel said that her officials were leading a focus group within the European Commission to stimulate production of biofuels.

Follow-up: UK environment ministry http://www.defra.gov.uk/, press release http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/latest/2005/climate-0912.htm. 

See also "Prelude" land management scenarios from the European environment agency http://org.eea.eu.int/news/Ann1126276903,

meeting statement by the German environment and farm ministries http://www.bmu.de/pressemitteilungen/pressemitteilungen_ab_01012005/pm/35998.php,

agriculture and climate emission statistics from Eurostat http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=STAT/05/113,

press release by EU farming industry associations Copa & Cogeca http://www.cogeca.be/pdf/cdp_05_53_1e.pdf, and statement by environmental groups http://www.climnet.org/pubs/Agriculture-Climate%20statement%20-%20Final.pdf.