Between 2001 and 2011, global emissions from crop and livestock production grew by 14%. Such land purchases and climate change impacts raise questions about food security in developing countries in particular. Nevertheless, there is still potential to further reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions linked to food production in the EU. “But until then, introducing regenerative practices of any kind to do that can help.”Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour.Watch the new series, starting Sunday, July 26 at 10:30 p.m. EasternCavigelli also noted that while the USDA has had standards for labeling organic products for more than 20 years and its creation was as much about market demand as anything.Additional Support Provided By:Support for NewsHour Provided BySubscribe to ‘Here's the Deal,’ our politics newsletter“In general, it’s accepted that you are going to have lower yields, but the price premium makes up for that on the economic side, from a farmer’s perspective,” said Cavigelli, who wasn’t involved in the Cranfield study. Agriculture both contributes to climate change and is affected by climate change. At IFOAM – Organics International, we advocate for the inclusion of organic agriculture in national governments’ policies on addressing not only climate change but also hunger and poverty. The links between industrial agriculture and climate change are twofold. We need to increase yields while reducing our dependence on agrochemicals, to reduce food waste, and to reduce our consumption of resource-intensive and greenhouse gas-intensive foods such as meat.Whether in Europe or the rest of the world, meeting the growing demand for food by using more land would have serious impacts on the environment and the climate. Photo by REUTERS/Heinz-Peter BaderSome scientists posit that as long as agriculture remains focused primarily on profit, organic farming will only have a minimal impact on environmental protection and reducing climate change.Courtney Vinopal is a general assignment reporter at the PBS NewsHour.For decades, the conventional wisdom surrounding organic farming has been that it produces crops that are healthier and better for the environment as a whole.Erin Callahan, director of the Climate Collaborative, based in Vermont — an organization that seeks to reverse the emissions pollution effects created by climate change in the natural food industry — recognizes that “the yield question is a big one” when it comes to mitigating the harmful environmental effects of agriculture, but warns against reducing the discussion to a matter of “organic versus conventional.”Forty percent less, it turns out.
Therefore, policy measures to tackle this highly complex problem of food and the environment should take into consideration agriculture’s impacts on the environment and its socio-economic importance for many communities.Given the central importance of food in our lives, a further reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture remains quite challenging. Conventional dairy production, for example, produces much more milk per cow. Farming will be most affected in the southern and south-eastern regions of the EU.Mitigation has the potential to reduce climate change impacts, and adaptation can reduce the damage of those impacts.
A complex and increasingly globalised system of production and delivery has developed over time to meet our need for food and for different flavours. A significant decline in livestock numbers, more efficient application of fertilisers, and better manure management reduced the EU’s emissions from agriculture by 24% between 1990 and 2012.It is clear that the world will need to produce more food and that key resources are limited. The EU needs to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture and adapt its food-production system to cope with climate change. Flowering and harvest dates for cereal crops are now happening several days earlier in the season. Methane is produced by livestock during digestion due to enteric fermentation and is released via belches. Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial is America’s longest running, side-by-side comparison of conventional and organic agriculture. It can also escape from stored manure and organic waste in landfills. The trial, running since 1981, has shown that a healthy organic agriculture system can actually reduce carbon dioxide and help slow climate change . There are also other concerns that go into consumer choices, such as animal welfare. The focus of the rural development policy on sustainability is clearly visible by the fact that at least 30 % of the budget of each rural development programme must be reserved for voluntary, targeted measures that are beneficial for the environment and climate change.Improved sustainability will be achieved by combined complementary effects of various instruments.On top of this, innovation as well as climate change and environment are crosscutting objectives within the EU's rural development policy, meaning that these three objectives should be integrated/reflected in Member States' strategies and instrument choice.Sectorial-level adaptation may include:Firstly, there is a simplified and more targeted cross-compliance mechanism, representing the basic layer of environmental requirements and obligations to be met in order to receive full CAP funding. Thirdly, building on these compulsory elements, rural development continues to play a pivotal role in achieving the environmental objectives of the CAP and combating climate change.