Review On the shelf
Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System
Net Zero, Food and Farming, Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System by Neil Ward, published by Routledge (£32.39)
This is an important book that examines the complex implications of the proposed net zero transition by 2050 for UK food and farming and how these can be managed to avoid catastrophic climate change in the crucial decades ahead.
Revolutionary change is needed. Fortunately, revolutions in food and farming have happened before; beginning with the historical transition thousands of years ago from hunter gatherers to farmers. There was then in Britain from 1750 to 1850 seismic productivity improvements resulting from crop rotation, plant and animal breeding and improved farming techniques.
In the 20th century the US pioneered a dramatic uptake, which eventually swept across the world and took in Britain after WWII, of chemical and mechanical technologies that boosted agricultural productivity whilst reducing the need for farm labour.
For Ward, a fourth 21st century revolution is “required, and the urgency
of climate change means this revolution will need to be swift… embracing technologies of farming practice… patterns of land use for agriculture and forestry and energy crops… and the way food is processed, distributed and sold.” For this to happen it will be healthy and instructive to see the world through food.
UK emissions from the food system account for 23 per cent of our gashouse emissions and while those from agriculture fell between 1990 to 2009, they have not fallen since. The 2020 Climate Change Committee identified changes where the agri-food and land-use system can help dramatically cut transmission levels.
They include everyone reducing their demand for meat and diary products; reducing food waste; changing land use to grow more trees and bioenergy crops; restoring peatlands and adopting a range of low-carbon farming practices to ensure agriculture remains food productive on less land – the Climate Change Committee that
just 77 per cent of today’s agricultural land will be used for food production in 2050 – whilst contributing to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Woodland cover across the UK has grown from 11.7 per cent to 13.3 per cent between 2008 and 2021. Ward makes various proposals on how to encourage more landowners to plant trees.
It is an issue that has, thanks especially to all Unite reps in the forestry sector and soil scientist Charlie Clutterbuck, been regularly aired in this magazine and it is an issue of vital concern because as Ward states in his conclusions “in the short term, afforestation looks to be the most straightforward way to reduce net emissions, and the Climate Change Committee assumes afforestation to be the UK’s most significant contributor to net emission reductions.”
Why not buy a copy to debate the issues raised and consider inviting Ward along?
■ By Mark Metcalf
38 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2023
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