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VIII. Recommendations
55. The preceding sections have identified the main issues surrounding agriculture and climate change in Scotland. Addressing these issues requires joint action across various arms of government, to improve the consistency and co-ordination of policy objectives, funding and implementation not just within agriculture but across land use more generally. It also requires joint action across the agricultural industry, the research community and other stakeholder groups. Consequently, after due consideration, ACCSG has agreed four groupings of key recommendations.
Recommendation 1: Research and development needs.
56. To be effective, policies and actions to combat climate change need to be grounded in a sound evidence base. Currently, various Research and Development activities related to climate change and farming systems are underway in Scotland - some of it sponsored directly by the Scottish Government, those commissioned at the Scottish Government Main Research Providers being summarised recently by Matthews et al (2008) ( Annex D). It is essential that this Scotland-based capacity is maintained to provide focussed adaptation and mitigation solutions to Scotland`s particular climate change challenges. To reinforce this, particular emphasis needs to be paid to certain aspects.
57. First, on-going developments in UK-level scenarios and projections for climate change must be monitored. Existing research to interpret these within and across Scotland must be updated and extended to more sites - particularly in the Highlands and Islands - to identify likely regional variation in, for example, length of growing season and susceptibility to drought or flooding plus pests and diseases. Moreover, the UKCIP08 scenarios represent an important step-change towards developing a more probabilistic risk-based framework that incorporates uncertainty, and new research is required to develop and refine these risk based approaches for agriculture and other land uses, including spatial and temporal variability such as extremes.
58. Second, the methodological basis for estimating and reporting agricultural emissions must be improved to more accurately reflect the baseline and on-going sectoral position. Failure to do so risks misdirecting mitigation efforts by misrepresenting the volume and pattern of emissions and industry attempts to adjust. Given the role of the National Inventory within international reporting, revisions to data sources and estimation techniques need to be co-ordinated across the UK (Defra has already initiated some work in this area). Improved estimation procedures will also help in "carbon proofing" policies and in monitoring emissions in relation to targets likely to be set for the sector.
59. Third, further research must be conducted within the Scottish context to identify and cost both adaptation and mitigation options, to assess their individual practicalities and their relative cost-effectiveness rankings. This must encompass genetic, agronomic and environmental research into adaptation but also adjustment to business and management structures - including financial and risk management, and household behaviour and choices - in response to challenges and opportunities. Research priorities include durable resistance to likely pest and pathogen challenges, water and nutrient acquisition and internal efficiency in plants, developmental adaptation of plants to stress, and carbon and nitrogen cycling and sequestration in soil plant systems. The principles of sustainable agriculture, for example those implemented in organic farming standards, are highly relevant here. That is, a sustainable systems perspective is needed to account for both biophysical and socio-economic linkages and effects, particularly the impact of human resources on overall ecosystem services, but also driving forces. Farming is subject to numerous pressures and the relative importance of climate change alongside on-going CAP reform, volatile commodity markets and trade liberalisation needs to be considered. In this context, research into the capacity of different farm types and regions to adapt is also merited to identify vulnerable groups or areas in need of particular assistance given prevailing economic circumstances.
Recommendation 2: policy design needs.
60. Tackling the challenges posed by climate change requires appropriate policy responses. Several key aspects of this may be identified.
61. First, better integration between currently separate policy themes such as agriculture, forestry, deer management, flooding and biodiversity - all of which are linked to land use and require some degree of spatial co-ordination and co-operation across different parcels of land and therefore different farms - must be pursued. This is essential because agricultural climate change issues can not easily be separated from other aspects of land use policy, or from broader sustainable production and consumption issues. This echoes recommendations from other perspectives where a need for institutional change to join-up across different aspects of land use policy has also been noted. 3 However, it is essential that there is co-ordination and consistency of climate change policy across all other areas of the economy. In particular, adaptation and mitigation options need to be compared across, not just within, sectors to ensure comparability of true costs (including the shadow cost of carbon and other co- and dis- benefits) and application of these options. Failure to do so may impose disproportionate burdens on some sectors, raising total costs to the economy. Hence agricultural policy and interest groups should seek clarity and consistency of approach to climate change targets and responses across all sectors. In addition, since it is not possible to set both prices and quantities, the compatibility of emission reduction targets and policy responses with the quoted shadow price of carbon needs to be clarified
62. Second, recent experience of incentive schemes under Pillar II of the CAP and of regulatory controls under (especially) NVZs or the WFD must be used as a guide to how best to encourage Scottish land managers to respond to climate change. Research to identify and cost adaptation and mitigation options will be relevant here, but so too will an improved understanding of the context for adoption and the barriers to behavioural change - such as lack of awareness, high capital costs, and perceived risks arising from policy, market or technological uncertainties.
63. Third, in the short-run, the scope for modifying SRDP measures and funding and/or enhancing cross-compliance to better control net emissions must be explored. This links to the previous recommendations regarding identifying and costing mitigation options, but also on improving measurement of emissions. There is a need to avoid `one size fits all` policies, instead having policies structured to allow for localised flexibility, whilst achieving national aims. For the longer-term, attention needs to be paid to designing market mechanisms to promote mitigation. In this context, progress in New Zealand towards agriculture's inclusion in an emission-trading scheme should be explored.
Recommendation 3: industry action needs.
64. In responding to the challenge and opportunities posed by climate change, individuals and representative bodies across the industry have a key role to play.
65. First, in adapting to climate change, farmers and other land managers need to be aware of the potential positive and negative influences of climate change and adjust their business practices accordingly. This includes both within-season adjustments to, for example, the timing of field and marketing operations but also longer-term adjustments to, for example, choice of cultivar and livestock breed, mix of enterprise and business structure and land use system.
66. Second, farmers and other land managers need to contribute to mitigation of anthropogenic drivers of climate change and to helping wider society adapt to climate change. This will require wider adoption of current best management practices - such as nutrient budgeting and energy efficiency informed by carbon and energy audits - but also (given appropriate policy support) more significant adjustment to the nature of land management in line with sustainability principles. A key area will be in matching applications of fertilisers and manure/slurry to plant growth conditions to reduce nutrient wastage and N 2O emissions, with possible co-benefits in reduced water pollution. Further examples include soil and wetland restoration, woodland creation, and renewable energy generation.
67. Third, representative industry bodies at all stages of the supply-chain need to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities of climate change - including sectoral responsibilities - and then to help shape and guide collective and proportionate responses in collaboration with government, research institutions and other stakeholders.
68. Fourth some of the most important measures that land managers can take to mitigate climate change or adapt to its impact on the environment are likely to be more effective if they are taken collaboratively, acting together at the landscape or catchment scale. Such an approach is likely to be particularly advantageous, for example, in relation to management for reducing the risk of flooding, making better use of animal waste as a substitute for chemical fertilisers (as a means of reducing emissions of nitrous oxide), and connecting isolated and dispersed habitats to give more scope for animals (and possibly plants) to move through the countryside. There is an important role for the SRDP in encouraging this co-operation, and collaboration between land managers applying for Rural Development Contracts could significantly increase the scheme's ability to contribute to Scotland's Climate Change Programme.
Recommendation 4: communication needs.
69. For research findings and policy mechanisms to be effective, it is imperative that key messages regarding the nature and challenges of climate change and the opportunities for adaptation and mitigation are communicated to the agricultural industry. Achieving this is likely to require a mix of different methods but there are clearly roles to be played by government and its agencies, by advisory services, by educational and research groups, and by industry bodies. A dynamic and ongoing approach to this work is necessary, including monitoring of the extent of success in getting the messages across.
70. First, consistent and key messages must be agreed and methods for communicating them to different target audiences identified. This should be informed by professional communication experts, but is likely to focus on raising awareness of the general challenges and opportunities presented by climate change as well as the specifics of particular adaptation or mitigation options. The DEFRA funded Farming Futures approach ( www.farmingfutures.org.uk), the NFUS Business Guide Factsheets and the SAC Climate Change website provide good examples of what can be achieved.
71. Second, established communication channels - such as codes of practice, newsletters, trade-shows and seminars - should be exploited as communication mechanisms for general information. This includes ensuring that guidance relating to land use (for example protecting water quality) offers advice consistent with climate change objectives, whether released through government and its agencies or through stakeholder bodies.
72. Third, more focussed, bespoke, interactive, facilitated, communication approaches require to be adopted. A number of recommendations that have been put forward for adaptation and mitigation of climate change will require not only communication and advice using conventional approaches but also a more interactive approach. Such an approach needs to engage farmers in determining solutions that are relevant to their operations and for which they take responsibility and ownership. The approach should be developed within the context of Rural Development Contracts and Leader initiatives to enable facilitation and build regional capacity and expertise in developing a local climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy. Such a strategy could focus particularly on local needs, for example at river catchment level, to develop flood mitigation and pollution protection strategies, and in other circumstances collective and collaborative approaches to woodland regeneration and establishment. The approach needs to be linked to other options such as demonstration and monitor farms, web based 'carbon calculators' and practitioner champions.
Conclusions
73. Drawing on a range of evidence, this report summarises the ACCSG's findings regarding the implications of climate change for Scottish agriculture and offers a number of recommendations for further action. Responsibility for taking these forward rests jointly with the Scottish Government and its agencies, but also the industry and other stakeholder bodies. It is their responsibility to collectively rise to the challenge.
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