Global warming poses enormous challenges to British agriculture but could also hold a number of opportunities, according to speakers at a prestigious seminar.

World population is set to increase from six billion to 9bn by 2050, said Lord Cameron, former chairman of the Countryside Agency, and with global gross domestic product forecast to rise by 400 per cent over the next 50 years - leading to an increase in meat consumption - farmers would have to produce significantly more food.

The seminar, entitled Land Use Priorities, was one of a series of conferences held by the Royal Bath and West of England Society. Organised in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society, it outlined impending changes to land use in the face of climate change and population growth.

Lord Cameron said: “Politicians must take their obligations seriously to ensure sustainable food production around the world - and to ensure farmers are rewarded for their efforts. There are opportunities for enterprising land managers, and we need to inspire the world to change and meet this new and exciting future.”

British farmers are particularly well placed to increase food production and to mitigate climate change through carbon initiatives and renewable fuels, according to Professor Brian Hoskins, a leading authority on global weather patterns.

He expected Equatorial countries to get even hotter and drier, making it extremely difficult for food production. But while northern Europe would also get warmer, the climate would allow productive farming to continue, he said.

The government had to offer greater incentives for land managers to invest in energy production, carbon sequestration and conservation of the environment, claimed the Earl of Selborne, former president of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.

He said: “There are enormous benefits that land managers can and should provide - but priorities have to be balanced, and we need to find a way to pay them for those benefits. Unless society can work out how to reward farmers for delivering all of these services, it probably isn’t going to happen.”

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