Throughout history the climate has always changed. The effects from our way of life have had an effect on climate change. There’s a large majority of the world’s population that relies on farming, as an industry, to provide food for their continuing existence and that agricultural production has an effect on the environment.
Farmers have always understood the co-relation between farming and its effects on the environment. Farmers know that they can get better at managing their environmental impacts and generally they have been good at voluntarily adopting environmentally sound best practice options for food production.
Farmers don’t necessarily need or want to be told what to do. If they are part of the problem they want to be part of the solution and not have somebody tell them that they’ve made a decision for them, or have regulation forced on them from people who have never gotten their boots muddy.
The weather’s impact on our daily life is hard to pin down but we need a real understanding of the trade-offs between food production and GHG emissions so we can then lay out a path toward a more environmentally-friendly future.
We need three basic commodities to survive as a species, air, water and food. By the simple act of using each of these commodities to survive we all have an effect on the environment in which we live and the scale of this effect is controlled by how we use these commodities.
We all have direct access to the air which we breathe and we have access to water either direct from nature or from a supply provided by others.
The same situation applies in respect to food. Many people cannot/do not produce their own food and so rely on commercial producers to supply them with good nutritious food items for their survival.
With the use of air, water and food we humans produce a negative effect on the environment and this is controlled by legislative requirements to maintain an acceptable standard in relation to these effects on the environment.
Globally, the World Resources Institute says agriculture emits 25% of GHG when you combine food production with practices like land clearing (deforestation) and ploughing, but that 25% has been called into question by several noted climate experts.
It’s possible many of us in rich countries over consume not just animal protein but carpets, curtains, cappuccinos and cocktails! On the other hand, 10% of the world lives on $2 a day. That’s 700 million people, mainly in Africa and Asia. When they are able to make more money, they upgrade diets to add animal protein.
Imagine telling them they should stick with vegetarian diets.
Oxfam’s report, ‘Confronting Carbon Inequality,’ based on research conducted with the Stockholm Environment Institute assesses the consumption emissions of different income groups between 1990 and 2015 – 25 years when humanity doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It found:
Let’s be clear: humankind made a conscious decision to engineer the land to produce food. We introduced strategies around soil health, water and fertilizer, to make sure we have food security. We made a careful determination to scale up production methods so that most everyone could afford to eat and go on to become doctors, teachers, artists and plumbers.
This was not a difficult call. Mother Nature could rest easy if not restore itself if we decided at some point not to feed humans. Even so, the farming industry admits that what we’re doing; is not always perfect. Arguably even dedicated vegan’s cycling to protest declining water quality and melting ice shelves would struggle to demonstrate environmental perfection, if only because the nuts and mung beans powering their trip caused some disruption in production and supply!
The impediment to a rational debate is that people forget to weigh the food security provided by production agriculture against its environmental impacts. They want a perfectly natural New Zealand and a full belly and simply ignore the fact that the 2 outcomes are mutually exclusive.
Greenhouse gas emissions are another problem. If you’re really serious about climate change and all you’re doing is justifying what we already do to someone it’s not solving the problem.
Critics find it easy to lump all greenhouse gas emissions together, including those coming from ruminants. But they are not all the same.
CO2 and Nitrous oxide (N2O) are considered ‘long-lived climate pollutants’ while methane from cattle is a ‘short-lived’ pollutant. Methane’s half-life is just 10 years, so it degrades in the atmosphere relatively quickly. CO2’s half-life is believed to be approximately 1,000 years! Because it lives for so long it accumulates, and that build-up of warming continues to grow as long as we’re emitting CO2. Nitrous oxide’s half-life is 110 years.
The methane that our cows and other livestock put out today will be gone after 10 years.
Plants need carbon and water. Carbon as CO2 in the atmosphere is taken in by plants; that carbon is made into carbohydrates such as cellulose starch, or components in feed, eaten by cows, which then goes into the ruminant’s stomach and there some is converted into methane. So the carbon from methane originates in the atmosphere, goes through plants, then into animals, is then emitted, and becomes atmospheric CO2.
This is a biogenic cycle. It’s an important distinction.
Oxford University research makes it clear that biogenic methane is not the same as fossil-fuel derived methane. It is the same chemically, but the origin and fate are drastically different.
Fossil-fuel based carbon originates from oil, coal and gas, ancient forests and animals that died a million years ago and got stored in the ground. We extract it and burn it in factories, cars, planes, ships – and by doing so, put it in the atmosphere.
Instead of a cycle, this is a one-way street. The amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere by far overpowers the potential sinks that take up CO2, like oceans and plants.
This is the main culprit of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. I have yet to see a climate scientist say it’s the cows who are the primary culprit.
If countries want accurate and realistic greenhouse gas reduction goals, they should separate biogenic methane emissions from others.
Otherwise, we assign an incorrect blame to livestock, and we get rid of part of it or we regulate them out of business. In the New Zealand context this means that the only thing that will happen is that when we get rid of stock numbers and farmers go out of business, the lost agricultural production will go someplace else in the world, maybe less well regulated.
It’s important for farmers to understand the greenhouse gas issue. Farmers should be able to discuss policy and solutions and also explain the process of farming, and do it in a way that shows the world how we produce food so everyone can understand why we do what we do.”
It is also important for the world to understand that the level of impact from agricultural production in New Zealand must be balanced against the total numbers of the world population that is supported and fed by that level of production not just judged against the population of New Zealand.
New Zealand agricultural producers have been judged as being far and away the most environmentally efficient and sustainable food and fibre producers in the world and when this is combined with the amount of production that is exported our farming industries should be seen as beneficial on a global scale.
There’s a load of factual data being produced on how agriculture can lower its carbon footprint and in line with our commitments under the Paris accord if we take a narrow internal view we could use these methods to reduce our carbon footprint considerably.
But if we take a holistic global scale view we see that by continuing to maintain the current methods of agricultural production we are actually providing a world’s best practical option for food and fibre production that is environmentally efficient and sustainable, and an option that in effect reduces the world impact on humankind’s carbon footprint.
Let’s face it: data can make eyes glaze over but people pay attention to stories and without a clear explanation from the farmer’s, that connects consumers with the reality of farming, then farming risks pressure from the consumers that could hamstring agricultural efficiency and profitability.
Farmers must ensure that they are using the best practicable options for production in farming operations based on reputable science. Farming needs people to hear and understand that there are trade-offs to be made in farming, in the same way that the well off have to weigh the GHG cost of flying to Queenstown for a skiing holiday.
There is no such thing as a free emission any more than there are free flights, free ski passes and free hospital care for broken limbs. Someone has to pay. When it comes to the environment it’s deciding who that’s the hard part!
Farming needs to be committed to best practicable options for production, high quality research, science and communication to bring clarity to the relationship between agriculture, the environment, and people’s daily lives.
Since the occurrence of the coronavirus and the lockdowns we are now back to the situation where we are reliant on agricultural exports for the vast majority of our overseas income yet we are still making it harder for the agricultural sector to produce these export commodities through using the agricultural production sectors to meet our agreed reduction targets for GHG emissions under the Paris Agreement, even though this agreement specifically excludes food production from reductions.
Food production was judged as being of such a necessity that the Paris Accord actually exempted food production from the requirements of reductions in carbon footprint based on security of food supplies.
Andy Loader P.L.U.G.
Primary Land Users Group