Climate and farm growth plans: Spectacular change is unavoidable

When Food Harvest 2020 (FH2020) “a strategy to chart the direction of agri-food, forestry and fisheries for the next decade” was published in July 2010, it was an ambitious declaration.

This “industry-led strategy” was to be the bedrock of spectacular plans to “increase the value of primary output of the agriculture, fisheries, and forestry sector by €1.5bn, a 33% increase compared to the 2007-2009 average”.

In turn, this would improve “the value added in the sector by €3bn. Achieving exports of €12bn... which is a 42% increase compared to the 2007-2009 average, increasing milk production by 50%; adding 20% to the value of the beef sector.”

This level of ambition was unprecedented and, if delivered, it would be economically transformative. Judged by other criteria, however, the proposals are harder to view positively.

Last week, the UN published a report that warned that we must eat fewer animal products “to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change”. As the world’s population careers towards 9bn people, “diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable”, said the UN Environment Programme’s international panel of sustainable resource management.

It warns: “Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth... A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products... Animal products cause more damage than the production of construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as burning fossil fuels.”

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in a parallel report, has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.

Days before the UN report urging a move away from dairy products and meat consumption, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, the Dutch MEP who leads the European Parliament’s negotiating team on the EU’s revised climate targets, warned that we need to prepare for radical changes, including producing less meat.

Gerbrandy will target a loophole secured after intense lobbying by Ireland that allows countries to offset emissions from farming and transport by planting trees. FH2020 is dependent on this derogation-nation flexibility.

Under EC proposals for climate laws for 2021-30 which were published last July, Ireland would have enjoyed a particular advantage because of our relatively large agriculture sector.

Under Gerbrandy’s proposals, the convex applies — we will be the biggest losers. He proposes that emissions that might be tolerated under this facility be slashed by a third.

Gerbrandy also proposes that we should cut emissions by 80% by 2050. To do this, he warns, governments must not make economic decisions that lock in high emissions.

Our FH2020 plans, the UN report, and EU proposals are, simply put, incompatible. We can dress it up, plant all the trees we like and lobby for yet another set of not-yet, not-poor-us derogations but, in the long run, profound change in how we use land seems inevitable. We should at least begin to discuss that huge cultural and economic possibility.