John Gilliland on farming and climate change

Dr John Gilliland is Chair of the Rural Climate Change Forum and runs Rural Generation Ltd, a company which designs sustainable renewable energy and waste management systems using short rotation willow trees. He has represented the agri-business sector at numerous meetings at all levels of Government, the EU and worldwide economic bodies and in 2003 was awarded an OBE for “Services to the Environment”. He farms on both sides of the Irish border and runs a thriving agri-business which demonstrates new sustainable and alternative land uses.

Q1 – What do you think are the main challenges facing the farming sector as a result of climate change?

The first challenge is getting the right message across - 7% of all the UK’s total GHG emissions come from this sector, yet it only emits 1% of the UK’s total CO2 emissions. Media coverage focuses on CO2, so some farmers don’t realise how harmful the gases they are emitting are. Nitrous oxide for instance is 296 times more potent than CO2 and 67% of the UK’s emissions of nitrous oxide come from this sector. Secondly, pretty much every activity that takes place on a farm will have consequences in terms of emitting GHGs, but in a way that is incredibly difficult to measure. This includes how you use fertiliser, fatten cattle, grow plants or labour the land. Thirdly, there are more than 100,000 farms in the UK, and some of these are very remote, so, any new policy instrument must be able to cope with this, but still be robust enough to allow the wider community to have confidence that results are being achieved. Lastly, many farmers don’t believe that action taken at the individual farm level will make a difference to solving a global problem like climate change.

Q2 – What do you think can be done to reduce emissions from this sector?

We need to communicate better and share best practice so that farmers begin to work more efficiently, for example, in the way they use livestock feed. There are still considerable gaps in our knowledge, specifically around methane production in the guts of farm animals. To understand this better, continued investment in research and development, both from within the UK, but also from around the World, is essential.

Q3 – Do you think consumers will have to change their diets in the future?

Ultimately, if this sector is to truly succeed in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, then we will have no other choice but to eat more vegetables and less meat products. The production of livestock products is much more carbon intense. The sector could dramatically reduce its GHG emissions, by dramatically slashing the size of the National herd. But if consumers don’t change their consumption patterns, all we will have achieved, apart from exporting our domestic food production, is to export our emission problems to other parts of the World.

Q4. How do you think farms will react if Government brings in climate change reduction policies which effect traditional methods of farming?

Any policies that are introduced will have the effect of driving efficient agriculture production. No farmer could disagree with this. But, it is imperative that any new policy is evidence based. Where farmers become very irate, is where policies are developed on the basis of assumptions that later, turn out to be incorrect. A recent example of this was the UK’s collective desire to set a biofuel incorporation target and to comply with the EU Biofuels Directive. Yet, as the Gallagher Review subsequently pointed out, the way that biofuels were created caused further destruction of the rainforest. I have full confidence that sector will rise to the challenge, but only if we continue to engage them in an open and transparent manner.

Q5. As a farmer, what have you done on your farm to reduce your emissions?

I looked at what I could do on my farm from the perspective of both reducing carbon plus increasing the businesses profitability. People should not be shy to talk about these two issues in the one sentence! We looked at our total energy consumption and started where it was simple, by replacing all the fossil fuel boilers with wood and straw boilers. We then looked at our total acreage and saw that there were areas which were less productive, so we planted new woodland to increase my carbon sink and to provide a long term sustainable and secure wood fuel supply. We started working with research centres and became one of the early pioneers of an embryonic wood biomass and renewable heat industry. We have now planted 1,500 hectares of willows through out Ireland, Scotland and now New York State and backed this up by facilitating this new market place, with the installation of over sixty wood fired boilers through out the country. We are currently investigating two possible sites on our farm where we could install wind turbines.