Agriculture and climate change

Climate change threatens our ability to ensure global food security, eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. In 2016, 31 percent of global emissions originating from human activity came from agrifood systems.

This includes deforestation, livestock production, soil and nutrient management, and food loss and waste. The increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are trapping more heat in the atmosphere, which causes global warming.

Climate change has both direct and indirect impacts on agrifood systems due to shifting and unpredictable rainfall patterns and temperatures, a higher incidence of extreme weather events and disasters such as drought, floods, outbreaks of pests and disease and ocean acidification.

Source: FAO Climate Change

DEFRA Agri-climate report 2022

Related Organisations

Content below is from across the PEP community and is not necessarily endorsed by Stewards or by PEP

Connected Content

Net Zero

In 2015, the UK pledged to be Net Zero by 2050, with the NFU striving for the more ambitious target of 2040. Net Zero is achieved when the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted is balanced with those removed from the atmosphere. This helps to combat climate change and reduce global warming.

Carbon Farming

Opportunities are increasing for farmers and land managers to earn revenues from storing carbon in soils or vegetation, or by reducing baseline GHG emissions from crop and livestock production.

YEN Zero

YEN Zero is a recently established network in the ADAS YEN Family, with the overarching aim of creating a net-zero community. It aims to bring key players from across the agricultural industry together to meet the industry’s target of achieving net zero emissions by 2040.

Carbon Calculators

The number of tools and calculators available can be daunting. None are necessarily right or wrong, the appropriate tool for you depends on the question you are asking.

Farm Carbon Toolkit

The Farm Carbon Toolkit was created by farmers for farmers. For over a decade, we’ve worked to further the understanding of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture. We provide tools and services to measure impact and run projects with farmers that inspire action on the ground. Our vision is a farming sector that minimises its carbon emissions and maximises its carbon sequestration, whilst producing quality food and a wide range of public goods, all produced by resilient and profitable farm businesses. Some people call this vision a regenerative farming future.  

ADAS Climate Change & Sustainability Team

The ADAS Climate and Sustainability team help clients to address their sustainability challenges.

Countryside COP 10-14 October 2022

Ahead of COP27 in Egypt, Countryside COP will once again be held in October to allow the rural community to come together and showcase the opportunities available and the contribution already being made to reach Net Zero. 

Met Office

Right across the world, every single day, people make decisions based on the weather. We provide weather and climate forecasts to help with those decisions so people can be safe, well and prosperous.

NFU Achieving Net Zero

NFU published a report in 2019 outling how agriculture can be part of the solution and commiting

Carbon Footprinting

Lots of initiatives are measuring and reporting the carbon or greenhouse footprint of products or activities, including crops, livestock and food.

AgriFood4NetZero Network+

Together, we’re creating plausible pathways, and practical, open science, to achieve Net Zero through the Agrifood system by 2050.

The Agriculture and Land Use Alliance

The Agriculture and Land Use Alliance brings together all interested organisations/individuals across the UK pre-farm gate sector to drive change to a net zero economy through results-driven collaboration.

Sus-Crop ERA-NET

Cofund on Sustainable Crop Production from EU ERA-NET programme

White Horse Energy Ltd

White Horse Energy have secured funding from Department of Energy Security and Net Zero as part of the Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme to develop a transportable pelletising technology. This will be deployed at farm level with the capability of processing agricultural residues and perennial energy crops into industrial standard biomass pellets. This produces a high-density renewable energy source, for which the demand is growing substantially because of the need to find alternatives to fossil fuels. A prototype of the mobile pelletiser is currently being developed ready to enter the market. White Horse Energy hopes to provide farmers with an opportunity to increase farm revenue, all year round, without interfering with existing operations.  Due to a lack of domestic production, current UK demand for biomass feedstocks significantly outweighs available supply. Therefore, a large proportion of biomass material is currently imported, which limits the sustainable nature of this energy source. White Horse Energy’s innovation will increase the viability of UK production and provide farmers with the opportunity to diversify into a new UK market, with lower environmental impacts and input costs. White Horse Energy are keen to engage with farmers during this development stage to understand the issues and concerns within the agricultural industry that affect growers most. This engagement assists in shaping the project to provide a diversification option that contributes positively to both the environment and farm income. Ultimately producing a solution that meets a wide variety of needs for everyone.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions at Farm Level

The Go to Guide for reducing farm GHG emissions, from Innovation for Agriculture. Funded by WWF a

Farm of the Future - Journey to Net Zero

Report from RASE on getting to Net Zero.

Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change

Scientific paper in Nature by Tim Searchinger and colleagues on Carbon Opportunity Cost of ch

The potential for land sparing to offset greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

Scientific paper in Nature Climate Change in 2016 by Antony Lamb, Andrew Balmford & Colle

Net Zero & Livestock: How Farmers can Reduce Emissions

Guide from CIEL on GHG emissions from livestock farming and how to reduce them.

Enhanced Environment

Help us collate the knowledge sources, organisations and initiatives out there that are seeking to improve the farmed environment

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The key GHGs for agriculture that contribute directly to climate change are:  Carbon dioxide (CO2)  Methane (CH4)  Nitrous oxide (N2O)   All these GHGs are often grouped under the umbrella term ‘carbon’. 

Sustainability

This Topic doesn't yet have a Stewarded summary, but connected groups, content and organisations show below. Click the 'Ask to Join' button if you would like to be a Steward for this Topic and provide a summary of current knowledge and recommend useful resources, organisations, networks and projects. "Like" this Topic if you would like to see it prioritised for providing a wikipedia style summary.

GHG costs of cropping

This Topic doesn't yet have a Stewarded summary, but connected groups, content and organisations show below. Click the 'Ask to Join' button if you would like to be a Steward for this Topic and provide a summary of current knowledge and recommend useful resources, organisations, networks and projects. "Like" this Topic if you would like to see it prioritised for providing a wikipedia style summary.

Weather

Measurement and forecasting of weather is a major interest in agriculture

Environment Digest

Environment Digest is a quarterly publication that provides a synopsis of recent news, reports and other materials that are of interest to the farming community. With a particular focus on how agriculture links with the environment, each issue focusses on articles across sustainable food production, climate change, water and waste management, soils and biodiversity. Environment Digest principally focuses on stories and policy changes that are relevant to England and/or the UK with a slant towards the arable sector.

University of Aberdeen

GHGs from cropping

An overview of the greenhouse gas costs of cropping, including an analysis of YEN data in lead up to establishing YEN Zero.  Also includes an analysis of the relationship between nitrogen fertiliser, GHG costs, yield, GHG intensity and potential indirect land use change (ILUC) consequences.  

Carbon zero: Renewables applications for the food chain

Carbon Zero Consulting, part of the RSK group, invites you to discover what natural environmental heat sources can do for your food and drink manufacturing operations, as it is clear that high energy prices are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Low Carbon Agriculture 2023

The next Low Carbon Agriculture Show will take place on the 7 - 8 February 2023 at the National Agricultural Exhibition Centre (NAEC), Stoneleigh, to help farmers and landowners to rise to the challenge of producing more domestic, climate friendly food and energy.

Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme

As part of the Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Program, White Horse Energy are developing a transportable pelletiser to process agricultural residues and perennial energy crops behind the farmgate. This will provide farmers with a diversified and increased revenue stream without interfering with existing operations. For more information, read on.

Potential co-benefits and trade-offs between improved soil management, climate change mitigation and agri-food productivity

B

NFU Net Zero Case Studies

Case studies from 26 farmers striving to reach net zero

BSSS Science Note: Soil Carbon

Increasing the amount of C stored in soil is beneficial from a climate change mitigation perspective.

Cycling of reduced phosphorus compounds in soil and potential impacts of climate change

Scientific paper from

A high-level scoping review Farming, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon storage: cereals and oilseeds

AHDB Research Review No 94. 2020.  By Elizabeth Stockdale and Vera Eory This high-

Climate change impact on hay yields will leave farmers short of feed

Scientific paper reporting analysis of hay yields from Park Grass long term experiment in Her

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