Farmers go back to school to save the climate

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

European policy makers are entering a phase of high-pressure programs to save the environment and many of the schemes are aimed straight at farmers

by NORMAN DUNN

British farmers are getting the chance of going back to school. It's all part of Europe's current program to save the environment and our climate. The European Union (EU) wants more natural habitats preserved out in the countryside. Most of all, of course, it wants drastic reductions in climate-changing gas emissions.

Farmers are responsible for much of the European countryside, says the EU parliament and agriculture produces a substantial amount of greenhouse gases. So it stands to reason that farmers are also responsible for a considerable amount of global warming, too.

This is the thinking behind many of the schemes to save the environment and moderate climate change – and why British farmers are being offered a place in the classroom once more.

Not that most have any choice. Their government is one of the most enthusiastic users of "cross compliance" within the EU. Farmers receive EU subsidies as part of the European agricultural support package. Increasingly, environmental protection measures are expected in return for these payments. That's cross compliance.

Looked at in this way, EU agricultural subsidies have subtly changed over the years.

They used to be enviously ridiculed by the rest of the business world in Europe as nothing less than charity handouts. Certainly, many of the more developed farming businesses on the western side of Europe did not need these payments to begin with.

Then, as with all regular incomes, the payments became expected and depended upon.

Now, farm subsidies in Europe are little more than tools used in the worst cases to coerce farmers into following a line of policy. This could be protecting the environment (often good) or unrestricted public access to privately owned farmland (often very bad).

So farmers won't have much choice about going back to school, if they want to keep their EU payments. It's all part of the latest initiative to save the countryside and the climate in England, Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE).

During the next three years, CFE will be "encouraging" farmers not already involved in other agri-environment schemes to undertake environmental management on their land, and these are the tasks that'll need at least some schooling. Other requirements under CFE include undertakings not to re-cultivate any land that is currently out of production.

This sort of political approach, which is being followed to a greater or lesser degree in most European countries, has the obvious parallel effect of reducing any planned increases in feed and food production per farming unit. The fact is that artificial fertilizer spreading (claimed to be responsible globally for some three per cent of greenhouse gas emissions) and meat and milk production (causing over 50 per cent of CO²  emissions) will have to be controlled if this sort of policy is to be followed to its logical conclusion.

Of course, there are plenty of great thinkers in this world, even outside of the EU Commission and some of these people are already shifting responsibility for saving our planet away from farmers. They're pointing out that consumers have the ultimate choice. That's not just for food, of course. It might mean eating a few steaks less every year, but it could also involve driving an electric hybrid instead of a Porsche, or forgetting about flying to Hawaii and holidaying nearer home.

But it could be that Europe's policy makers are already working on consumer control of food production. The Danish government's saturated fat tax imposed this year adds around C$4.50 a kilogram to the store price of meat and milk products. It is aimed at reducing the number of obese people in the country, according to government.

But there are a few holes in this explanation. Firstly, experts calculate that the resultant reduction in consumption would only reduce the average Dane's annual intake of saturated fats from the present 12.8 kilograms to 12.3 kilograms, statistically adding about five days to everyone's average life expectancy. Secondly, wouldn't it be much simpler to put a legal limit on saturated fat levels in some foods?

On the other hand, making steaks, pork chops and cheese more expensive effectively limits consumer demand, production throttles back in response and climate-damaging emissions are reduced. Whatever way we look at it, farmers end up paying for the policy. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.