Farming and global warming - The effects

FARMERS tend to be the ultimate cynics: should their political masters tellthem that they must pursue a certain direction, then the odds are that theywill move towards another point of the agriculture compass. That sense ofnous has more often than not been proved to be well founded.

The farming industry has been berated for some years regarding the problemslikely to be faced with the onset of global warming. There cannot be afarmer in the land who would disagree with the assertion that the spring of2008 has not been the most difficult season for at least 20 years.

Cows havenever been so late in being turned out while feed supplies were down to amargin of little more than a few days. They have reason to doubt theforecast of a warmer world.

However, the theme yesterday in Edinburgh at the first "summit" climatechange conference hosted by the International Dairy Federation – anorganisation based in Brussels – was basically that dairy farmers must wakeup soon to the negative effects of their sector in relation to globalwarming and the emission of greenhouse gases.

Jim Begg, a Scot who is the current president of the IDF, set the tone inmeasured terms. He said: "It will be far better for producers to take theinitiative. It's not just about what happens down on the farm in terms ofreducing emissions, but throughout the whole food chain. We have to worktogether – it can be done, but time is not on our side."

From the producer perspective, John Gilliland, a former president of theUlster Farmers' Union and the current chairman on the UK government's RuralClimate Change Forum, was the most effective speaker.

Gilliland has never been afraid of expressing his opinions, and he said: "The world is changing fast and we have to appreciate that we arenow having to feed an extra 70 million people each year. We also have toconsider that at least one billion people out there are experiencing realfood poverty as result of the massive rise in commodity prices in recentyears."

There are no simple answers to the problems of global warming, but Gillilandis convinced that governments, including the UK, need to step up researchfunding by at least a factor of three.

He concluded: "Agriculture gets much of the blame for global warming, andwith some good reason.

"But if we get the right funding, agriculture can be part of the solution inproviding the resources for the next green revolution – feeding the worldand reducing many of the environmental problems. But the politicians have towake up, not just to the problems, but the answers that farmers can provide.I think we can do it."