Navigating the dangers

How science can balance climate change and food production priorities

Like the mythical sailor Odysseus trying to navigate a safe path between a giant whirlpool and a six headed monster, in the coming years Europe must steer a path between the perils of climate change and the threat of global famine. The challenge will be to keep producing enough food while adapting to climate change and not making it worse.  Massive population growth, land pressure and the need to reduce the environmental impact of farming all contribute to this dilemma, for which the right solutions need to be found and soon.

Feeding a changing World

The United Nations has predicted that the World’s population will rise from 6.5 – 9.2 Billion by 2050, prompting the G8 to conclude recently that agricultural production must double over the same period.  However, with an estimated 36% of the World’s land area already being used as farmland and important efforts underway to protect our remaining ecosystems and green spaces, how can this be achieved?

The solution can only be found by further integrating the discoveries of science and technology into modern agriculture.  Agricultural output has tripled on a static area of cultivated land since the 1960s thanks largely to crop protection products including herbicides, fungicides and insecticides and new plant breeding techniques.  Without these advancements billions would already have starved.

Increasing the availability and effective use of pesticides remains of vital importance to worldwide yields.  Even today, the most technologically advanced producers can expect to lose an average of 20% of their crop to pests, and those without access to these products risk losing everything.

In the future, climate change will increase the potential for food losses as increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather patterns bring drought, flooding and increased threat from pests and disease. The degradation of agricultural ecosystems through climate change is already causing desertification, resulting in the total loss of the productive capacity of land, and reducing the quantity of land under cultivation.

Agriculture’s contribution to Climate Change mitigation 

Food Security and climate change are linked in a variety of complex and important ways.  Climate can dictate the amount and quality of a crop, not just by affecting the growing conditions of the plants themselves but by raising the threat of fungus, disease, weeds and insect pests that can destroy them.  Agriculture, in turn, affects climate.  Like every industry, agriculture’s carbon footprint has contributed to climate change, and increased cultivation of wilderness reduces the Earth’s ability to absorb emissions.

To mitigate the worst effects of climate change, scientific consensus now suggests that we must reduce global carbon footprint by 80% by 2050.  How can this be achieved in agriculture without affecting production?

Some profess faith in organic farming but these methods actually increase the environmental impact of agriculture. Recent research from the University of Cranfield shows that to produce food supplies equivalent to today’s from so-called organic sources would require between 65 – 200 percent more land; meaning emissions related to ploughing, planting and harvest would all potentially triple.  The greatest environmental impact of organic farming would, however, be the necessity to put more land into cultivation: significant tracts of wilderness, parklands and woodlands, including rainforests, would have to come under the plough to create new farmland.

The Solution

The plant protection industry is working in partnership with farmers to encourage the adoption of Integrated Crop Management (ICM) systems. Through scientific management and careful crop monitoring, ICM offers a whole-farm system that involves managing crops productively while respecting the environment and meeting our need for a reliable, affordable, and nutritious food supply. 

In order to navigate the hazards surrounding food security and climate change, more science based solutions like ICM must be found and introduced to worldwide agriculture.  Then, like Odysseus, we may set a clear course for the good ship ‘Earth’ and avoid the perils on all sides.