Zero-emissions agriculture is still years away, farmers and scientists say as food systems are set to come under the spotlight at this year’s global climate summit.
Key points:
- Food systems will be a key focus for the first time at global climate conference COP28
- Agriculture is deeply affected by climate change but also produces significant greenhouse gas emissions
- Farmers say food and fibre emissions are hard to cut back
Food production has largely been overlooked in the 30 years since world leaders first agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and halt climate change.
But agriculture will be on the agenda like never before when delegates meet at the United Nations climate conference COP28.
Host country the United Arab Emirates is drumming up support for a leaders’ declaration on resilient and sustainable food systems, and climate action.
A day dedicated to discussing food, agriculture, and water will also be on the host’s agenda for the first time.
Agriculture is deeply affected by climate change, bearing the brunt of increasingly extreme weather.
But it is also a significant producer of greenhouse gas emissions — with methane from livestock and carbon from land clearing the leading sources.
Extreme weather impact
“Agriculture is the sector in the world that is most affected by climate change,” CEO of Farmers for Climate Action Natalie Collard said.
“In an era of climate change, repeat fires, floods, droughts, are sending insurance costs through the roof.
“But also, the fine art of farming successfully has got harder for every single Australian farmer.”
Most sectors within agriculture have lost about 20 per cent productivity over the past 20 years due to climate change.
That’s about $30,000 per farm, according to federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, who has launched consultation to produce a net zero plan for agriculture.
“Farmers are some of the frontline victims of the same thing that we’re part of causing,” Tammi Jonas, a pig producer and the president of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, said.
“That interplay between causing those things and being a victim of those things puts farming in a unique position in climate change.”
Cutting farm emissions
About 17 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions come from food and fibre production — and that share is set to increase as other industries decarbonise.
While alternative technologies are being developed in other sectors, agriculture is struggling to keep up.
Researchers are looking for ways to reduce the methane that ferments in a cow or sheep’s stomach — their rumen — and is then belched into the atmosphere.
Methane is a short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas.
“It’s quite likely that we won’t ever be producing cattle that don’t produce any methane,” Jared Greenville, the executive director of the federal agriculture and water research body ABARES, said.
“We might have good technology that can help lower that amount, but at this stage with our technology it doesn’t seem to be the case.”
National Farmers’ Federation president David Jochinke is leading a delegation of Australian producers headed for COP28.
He said Australia was leading the world in climate-friendly food production and should not be the target of international policies.
“We want to make sure we can still produce food in a sustainable way, but we’re not going to cut our arms off in doing so,” Mr Jochinke said.
“There are a lot of technologies and techniques out there that have been adopted already.
“But we also want to acknowledge that there is a limited amount that we can do, when it’s dry or when we’ve got the soil types that we have, to be able to decarbonise.”
Time to change what we eat?
The IPCC, the world’s peak climate science advisory panel, has said global meat and dairy production needs to be cut back to reduce emissions.
But Richard Eckard, a professor of sustainable agriculture at the University of Melbourne, said the world had only just begun to explore how to curb livestock emissions.
“I’m a big believer in technology,” Professor Eckard said.
“Before we go down the track of radical change to diets, I believe we haven’t really given technology its full chance to solve the problem.
“The rumen of an animal took 50 million years to evolve to a steady state and we decided 20 years ago this was a problem we needed to change.”
He said dedicated research programs were needed to approach the problem “seriously”.
“If in 10 years’ time [after] giving it 10 years of concentrated funding we still can’t eliminate the methane from, say, the extensive cattle industry — well then, we have to think again,” he said.
Key stories of the day for Australian primary producers, delivered each weekday afternoon.
