In a special extended Rural View column, Charles Cowap tries hard to find answers for agriculture in the government’s net zero plans.
Farming and forestry have some strange fellow travellers in the build-up to COP26. The government published Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener in mid-October. Agriculture variously finds itself in categories such as “Agriculture and LULUCF” and “Natural resources, waste and fluorinated gases”. LULUCF? Land use, land use change and forestry. The casual visitor may be forgiven for taking a different road.
Should that different road lead our casual itinerants to the Green Zone at COP26 in Glasgow, they may be confused as they try to square their impression that farming and food production is a big part of the global warming problem with the events programme for the general public. The Green Zone is where these events take place, the Blue Zone being reserved for the grown-ups – the political leaders and their advisers charged with solving the global problems.
The Green Zone offers a programme of over 200 events. At 4pm on 6 November there is a session on sustainable agriculture, and at 9am on 11 November there is a session on climate smart agriculture. Agriculture will undoubtedly feature in other events to some extent or another, but these appear to be the only two events which are specifically focused on the industry. My own rough and ready analysis of the published programme reveals:
- 58 events about “people”, including significant sub-themes around youth and women;
- 68 events concerned with cultural aspects of climate change and global warming, including music, poetry, religion (four events), games and sport;
- The urban and built environment, and transport, together fill 10 events;
- A rough grouping of food systems, land use, hygiene and health, forestry and energy offer 18 events (including the two already mentioned on agriculture), but nine of these are about energy;
- Research, innovation and systems change are covered by 14 events;
- Economics, finance and insurance occupy six events.
Global warming as light entertainment? Bread and circuses? Plenty of circus, but not much bread. Meanwhile the UK Net Zero Strategy tells us that agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU – another net zero acronym) were responsible for 63Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2019, or 12% of total UK emissions – albeit down by 24% since 1990.
These emissions were part of a broader group of emissions from the natural environment which accounted for 20% of emissions in 2019. This compares with 17% from heat and buildings and 32% from transport in 2019.
The Net Zero Strategy: what’s in store for the rural economy?
Disappointingly, the Net Zero Strategy seems to offer very little that is new for the rural economy, while acknowledging more questions than answers. It fails to grasp the scale of the opportunity for the countryside and the rural economy, but does threaten that the strategy “may completely alter the character of some landscapes and rural livelihoods”. Details on how and why are sparse.
Woodlands will be created at three times the current rate in England. We will be planting 30,000 ha of woodland a year by the end of this parliament.
The Nature for Climate Fund will be increased from its current £640m by another £124m, and this will be spent on peatland restoration and woodland creation and management. An area of 280,000 ha of peatland has already been restored in England and the plan is to restore another 35,000 ha by 2025 using the Nature for Climate Fund, and a further 285,000 ha by 2050. The 2050 target will be achieved with the assistance of Environment Land Management Schemes funding – the successor to rural support payments under the EU Common Agricultural Policy.
The new strategy reviews progress on the government’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. Point 9 is about protecting the natural environment and it promised:
- £5.2bn for flood and coastal defences
- New national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty
- A £40m Green Recovery Challenge Fund
- 10 long-term landscape recovery projects.
What has been achieved?
- 850 jobs have been supported in environmental protection and enhancement
- The flood investment programme will lead to the better protection of 336,000 properties
- New AONBs are under consideration for the Sandstone Ridge in Cheshire and the Yorkshire Wolds, with extensions under consideration for the existing AONBs in the Surrey Hills and the Chilterns
- Landscape recovery pilot projects are to be initiated later this year
- The Nature for Climate Fund is supporting the England Woodland Creation Offer (a grant scheme) and a Tree Production Innovation Fund.
There are nuggets elsewhere in the report which are also important to the rural economy. For example, industrial non-road mobile machinery includes tractors, combine harvesters and the like on farms. The agriculture sector accounts for approximately 6Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent in emissions from these sources, but the report is vague on the implications for the agricultural sector. The report also acknowledges the difficulties posed by “dispersed sites” in the industrial sector. These include dairies and other food processors. The difficulties of rural communities with older housing, which is harder to insulate and heat to modern standards, and the greater use of cars given the lack of public transport are also acknowledged – but little further seems to be offered.
The Environment Bill
The Net Zero Strategy acknowledges that much hangs on the implementation of the Environment Bill, due to complete its passage through parliament in the next month or two. Local Nature Recovery Strategies are mentioned several times in the report, and the need to ensure that “biodiversity co-benefits” and other environmental objectives are maximised alongside decarbonisation is recognised. But how? What will this look like? We will have an independent Office for Environmental Protection. The 25-year Environment Plan will continue to exist in the background. There will be new requirements for biodiversity gain as a condition of planning approval in England, and new tools such as conservation covenants.
Lose hope all ye who enter here
As land managers, are we clear what all these signals mean? Can we plan with any confidence with so many questions still awaiting answers? Among them, the need for more practical usable technical guidance on zero-carbon and regenerative farming, the government itself telling us that it still needs at least another three years to continue to develop evidence of land-use synergies and trade-offs to inform its policy approach. Meanwhile we see the phase removal of agriculture’s Basic Payment Scheme over the same timescale.
The prospects for international trade in agricultural produce seem as vague and doubtful as ever. There seems to be great potential to export the emissions problems of food production as we use more land for trees and biofuels. And now we are promised rural landscapes and livelihoods which may be completely altered by the changes ahead. Brave new world? Confused? You will be.
What and when?
A diagram on pages 88-89 of the report shows “high-level essential activity” for each sector to 2035. The rural economy sits in the broad grouping for “natural resources” – here are the key dates in its timeline:
2021
- Interim outcomes of land use change analyses inform later approaches, while efforts continue to develop evidence of land use synergies and trade-offs to inform policy approach (complete by 2024)
- Launch of Farming for Net Zero
- Tree planting campaign to triple rates by end of parliament (2024)
- Start exploring policies to work towards near elimination of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill (achieved by 2028)
2022
- Biomass Strategy to determine UK’s available sustainable biomass
- Launch of Farming Innovation Programme
- Piloting and early roll-out of new environmental land management schemes
2023-2024
- Work already commenced continues
2025
- 35,000ha of peatland restored by now
- 30,000ha of tree planting per year from now
2026
- Explore introduction of proven agricultural innovation measures, potentially including the use of feed additives for livestock (to reduce methane and other greenhouse gases)
- Sustainable increase in tree-planting, peatland restoration and perennial energy crops
- Roll-out of Sustainable Farming Incentive, Local Nature Recovery Scheme, Landscape Recovery Scheme
- All the 2026 measures run through to 2035 and beyond
2027 to 2029
- Work continues on earlier initiatives
2030
- Water companies plant 11m trees
2035
- Municipal waste to landfill cut by 10%
- 65% of municipal waste recycled
Charles Cowap is a rural practice chartered surveyor
