Experts have claimed climate change is the greatest environmental challenge facing the world today and, with torrential rain and record floods striking a devastating blow to the UK fresh produce industry this summer following a mild winter and heatwaves last year, the sector has taken a battering - even though it is impossible to say if this sequence of weather events is a consequence of climate change or just bad luck. But what will changing weather patterns mean for UK growers?
Scientists at the Defra-funded Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the Met Office have made predictions for climate change, both on a local and global scale.
Predicting climate change involves billions of mathematical calculations and, at the centre, two of the fastest super-computers in Europe allow scientists to develop three-dimensional models that can simulate conditions in the environment.
The latest climate models from the Hadley Centre have helped the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) to develop scenarios that show how the climate might change with different levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The results show that climate change is likely to lead to hotter, drier summers and milder, but wetter winters, with fewer frosts, and with extreme weather events, such as storms or floods, becoming more common.
The average global temperature has risen by 0.7°C over the last 100 years and, in central England, average temperatures are up by almost 1°C in the same period. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since the beginning of the 1990s.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that by 2100 the average global temperature will increase by between 1.4°C and 5.8°C from temperatures in 1990.
Tara Garnett at the Food Climate Research Network is working on a paper that looks at the how climate change will affect the production and consumption of food in 2050. Her research, which is still in progress, predicts that an average temperature increase of 1-3°C is initially projected to boost crop productivity in the UK and northern Europe but, beyond that, a decline in productivity could be on the cards.
Energy costs racked up by heating greenhouses in the UK could decline, but water shortages are likely to take hold in the South East and East. The forecast for southern Europe, Africa, India and the Middle East predicts high temperatures and drought, and prospects for South America include an increase in the severity of hurricanes, both of which would hit yields, and exports to the UK. But Garnett stresses that these scenarios are subject to a huge number of uncertainties.
Farmers are more aware than most about the impact of climate change, says David Fursdon, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), but he adds that growers will need to plan ahead to prepare for its effects. “Although action to combat climate change could help to reduce on-farm costs, a relative lack of adaptive action could be a concern as the impact of change increases in the future,” he says.
UK agriculture has responded to the call of climate change with the formation of an organisation set up to inform farmers and keep the sector up to date with the latest developments. Farming Futures is a collaboration between Forum for the Future, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), the CLA and seven levy boards through the Applied Research Forum, which aims to communicate both the challenges and opportunities of climate change to farmers. The one-year project was set up in October 2006, with £170,000 of funding from Defra and the support of the partner groups. Funding for the project is up for renewal in January 2008.
“Our aim is to communicate climate change to UK producers, to raise awareness and show them both the challenges and opportunities they face so that they can address issues of adaptation and mitigation,” says Farming Futures’ project manager Katie Zabel. “There is so much research being undertaken on irrigation schedules, plant breeding and energy use, all of which is related to adapting to and mitigating climate change for the benefit of the business, and the environment.”
The information about climate change in the public arena is revised and updated all the time, Zabel says, and it can prove difficult to keep up with new developments. “Perhaps what we thought last year is not as clear this year and, when it comes to making decisions that take climate change into consideration, people can only do this with the best information available at the time,” she says. “But we can’t sit back and wait until we have a definitive guide on climate change, or the opportunity to make a difference will pass us by.”
The project has reached out to the industry at a number of events and hosted seminars and workshops, to inform the sector about climate change and its impact on agriculture.
The body put together a series of online fact sheets and case studies, which went live on the Farming Futures website in April, to help inform the agricultural sector about the environmental situation. “The fact sheets provide the most up-to-date information available at the time, in an accessible format - but with new research constantly coming out, we are always looking to update them,” says Zabel.
Farming Futures conducted a survey of 385 farmers across England in June, which shows 81 per cent of farmers believe the global climate is changing and 70 per cent believe that these changes offer business benefits, citing longer growing seasons, warmer weather, new crops and new markets as plus points.
A total of 53 per cent of farmers believed they were already affected by climate change, and more than half (62 per cent) expected to be affected in the next 10 years.
Forty-nine per cent of the respondents felt they could help limit climate change, and 50 per cent said they were improving energy efficiency. But only a quarter (24 per cent) showed an interest in measuring their on-farm emissions.
The results show that UK farmers are thinking about what climate change could mean for their businesses. “It is very difficult to say if specific weather events are linked to climate change,” says Zabel. “But people are getting to grips with the concept and thinking about how they can protect themselves against the effects of climate change and about the opportunities that it could open up.
“Farmers are used to dealing with changing weather and, because climate change is happening gradually, it may not be the doom and gloom scenario many people fear, as long as we take action to adapt to the impacts now.”
Growers are well placed to adapt to climate change, according to NFU president Peter Kendall, following the launch of the EU green paper on adaptation to climate change in Europe. “Climate change is happening and we must be prepared to adapt to the impacts,” he says. “But it is important that the steps we take to adapt link in with options to both mitigate and take advantage of climate change. Farmers are already adapting to the challenges on a daily basis on their farms, but to be able to do more it is vital that appropriate incentive structures and advisory systems are in place.
“Farmers and growers are uniquely placed to be able to help adaptation to climate change through systems like rainwater harvesting, increased water efficiency, on-farm reservoirs and sustainable soil management. But agriculture can also offer significant opportunities for combating climate change, through the production of renewable energy, through systems such as anaerobic digestion.
“But education and the transfer of knowledge are also important if we want to make sure farmers are in a position to continue to respond to the challenges and projects like Farming Futures, which have been set up to help advise farmers about what they can do, have a vital role to play.”
But UK growers must not become complacent about either the effects of changing weather patterns or the impact their business is making on the environment, Kendall adds. “Our message to farmers now is to keep up the good work,” he says. “We know that more than 60 per cent are taking action on their farm to combat climate change, but this is no time to be complacent - there is still more to be done.
“The climate is central to the success of our businesses and our industry. Adapting to and mitigating climate change is about reducing risk and costs, not just about saving the planet.”
The changing conditions will bring both threats and opportunities for fresh produce businesses, with the possibility that production could be boosted by warmer temperatures or stifled in excessive heat, at a time when demand is likely to be at an all-time high. UK growers are taking steps to adapt to climate change and to reduce the risk by reducing their contribution to the causes.
Producers know the best way to fend off the effects of climate change is to protect their crop. Both the UK soft-fruit and tomato sectors, which regularly come under fire for their use of polytunnels and glasshouses from the media and members of the public, have been quick to point out that extreme conditions this summer would have devastated their crops without them and that the structures will be key in continuing to protect the fruit from the projected effects of climate change.
Torrential rain and hail in June and July would have decimated the UK soft-fruit crop if it had not been protected by polytunnels, Angus Davison, founder director of polytunnel specialist Haygrove, tells FPJ. “The weather over the last 10 weeks would have obliterated the soft-fruit industry if it were not for polytunnels,” he says. “But to a small minority of the public, as suppliers of polytunnels, we are Satan, rather than a saint.”
Polytunnels have been key to protecting the fruit from rain and hail, as well as improving yields and quality, and extending the soft-fruit season, since they were introduced 14 years ago. The temporary structures have also halved the need for chemical usage and helped achieve reliability and consistency of supply.
“In the last 10 weeks, the added advantage of food security has been superimposed onto the other benefits,” says Davison. “The industry has had a hard time with the weather as it has been - supplies are tight and prices are going up; brassicas are short, potatoes are black with blight, but, remarkably, the UK soft-fruit sector has been able to pick fruit almost normally.”
Davison hopes forecasts for changing weather patterns will encourage the government to recognise the importance of UK production and support measures that will grow the industry. “In the future, it could be seen as irresponsible not to support polytunnel production,” he adds.
His sentiments are echoed by Gerry Hayman, chief executive of the British Tomato Growers’ Association, who insists glasshouses are essential to shield UK tomatoes against the extremes of weather associated with climate change. “This summer has demonstrated beyond doubt how useful glasshouses are to protect the crop,” he says. “Tomatoes have been shielded from the problems facing potato and vegetable growers this season, keeping the crop dry and protecting against pests and diseases.”
Greenhouse production has been both praised as a way to grow more UK fruit and criticised as a threat to the environment, says Hayman, but he insists it is an essential part of the industry. “Growing tomatoes in greenhouses protects against the extremes of weather and means we can produce a consistent product in a reliable way, which adds value to the product,” he says. “Outdoor production does not produce what the market wants.”
But Garnett says UK retailers and consumers will have to redefine their expectations in order to face up to the responsibilities of climate change. People can make a difference by putting the right products in their shopping baskets, she says, but this means retailers will have to “edit” the choice on the shelves by refusing to stock products such as beans and berries that have been flown in. “Products that have been airfrieghted should be avoided, and swapped for fresh produce that is in season and field grown without artificial heat, and which was produced in the UK or in Europe,” she says.
The effects of climate change will almost certainly be felt throughout the fresh produce supply chain, from production to distribution and sales, right through to the consumer. But as long as the UK industry continues to recognise both the threats and opportunities that the changing weather patterns could bring, the clouds will not loom over the sector.
CHP OFF THE OLD BLOCK
British tomato growers are using energy-efficient combined heat and power (CHP) projects to minimise their impact on the environment.
The system uses turbines fuelled by natural gas to generate electricity for local communities and produce hot water for greenhouse heating.
The UK’s largest CHP system has just been completed at Cornerways Nursery, alongside the British Sugar processing plant at Wissington, Norfolk. “All the heat for the greenhouse is provided by the CHP system in the sugar processing plant,” says Martin Brown, managing director of The Greenery UK. “It generates enough electricity to power the factory and around 10,000 nearby homes, as well as producing steam and high-temperature water for sugar processing. Spare warm water from the CHP system is piped to Cornerways Nursery to heat the new greenhouse.”
A duct that connects the factory to the greenhouse provides CO2-rich flue gas, some of which is absorbed by the growing tomatoes, further reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the sugar factory.
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