Agriculture’s Dual Challenge of Delivering Food While Protecting the Environment

Tamsin Coopertcooper@ieep.eu

A Future for a Strong CAP – European Symposium24 March 2010

The Challenge for Agriculture

FOOD

CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION

ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC GOODS

Agriculture and Land Management Programme

Growth in the Global Demand for Food

• The world population is expected to grow from 6 - 9 billion by 2050, leading to increased global demand for food crops and livestock products. Demand is likely to remain relatively stable in the EU.

• Changing dietary requirements and consumption patterns together with expanded bioenergy production are a powerful driver of further agricultural expansion and/or intensification.

• Estimates suggest that world food production will need to double over the period to 2050.

• Implications for future levels of production in the EU – managing farm structural change, integrating environmental delivery in more productive systems, preventing land abandonment, exploiting opportunities offered by new technologies etc, adapting to impacts of climate change.

Agriculture and Land Management Programme

The Scale of Public Demand for the Environment

• Widespread concern amongst the EU public for environmental issues. These values are deep-rooted and form a fundamental part of the ‘European identity’.

• Evidence base – attitudinal surveys, indirect indicators, studies to capture individual preferences: – 64% of sample from across the EU-27 indicate that protecting the

environment is very important to them personally (Eurobarometer survey, 2009).

– Contingent Valuation studies conducted across the EU to assess scale of individual preference for agricultural landscapes and landscape elements, farmland biodiversity, sustainable water use, soil protection etc.

– Indirect indicators of demand – e.g. nature conservation movement in the UK has 5 million members; 46 million visitors to National Parks, with an annual spend of £2220 million (2006).

Agriculture and Land Management Programme

The Scale of the Environmental Challenge

• Pan-EU indicators and state of the environment assessments measure the quality of environmental media and agriculture’s impact.

• Widespread evidence of deterioration in environmental state over time, although some improvements in air quality, regional improvements in soil quality and reductions in GHG emissions.

• The scale of this challenge is likely to be exacerbated by climate change.

• The losses to global welfare from the loss of biodiversity from terrestrial ecosystems are estimated to be approximately:– €50 billion per year - just under 1% of global GDP – €14 trillion or 7% of estimated global GDP by 2050 if current rates of

biodiversity loss continue to occur. Agriculture and Land Management Programme

Agriculture has a central role in responding to the environmental challenge

• The degree and range of environmental public goods provided varies according to farming systems and practices, and is influenced by locational factors, farm structures etc.

• The most beneficial farming systems for environmental public goods are:– Extensive livestock and mixed systems– More traditional permanent crops– Organic systems

• Potential for highly productive farming systems to adopt environmentally beneficial production methods / practices driven in part by new technologies.

Agriculture and Land Management Programme

© Mark Redman

Estimated Costs of Meeting Environmental Demand

• Biodiversity: halting the loss and restoring biodiversity

- Natura 2000: €6 bn/annum- High Nature Value farming

outside NATURA areas: €1.8 bn (?)

- + HNV forestry: €?• Soil: ensure high level of soil protection and its

sustainable use: €6.4 bn/annum• Water: achieving the good status of waters by

2015 (WFD objectives): €10 bn (from RD) – the overall figure: €30 bn/annum).

• Total EAFRD budget (2007-13): €88bn + 5bn Health Check + recovery package. Agriculture and Land Management Programme

Sustainability

Future Policy Objectives

International

Acceptability

Farm Incomes

Market Stability Competitiveness

Public Good

Provision

A FUTURE

CAP

Rural Development

Public Goods: legitimate rationale for public support

"European agriculture must address the demands of the market and the expectations of society concerning public goods, the environment and climate change".

Mr Dacian Ciolos on the occasion of his first official visit to Spain

“The European public is increasingly concerned about how we spend the European budget and also about the environment in general; and in particular they also worry about the impact of agriculture on the environment… Eurobarometer results show that 1 in 3 Europeans think that promoting respect for environment should be one of the priorities of EU agriculture policy. What does this mean? It means that the CAP needs to be able to provide environmental public goods and services. We need to put forward the proposals to make this happen and let CAP deliver them to the European public. This means digging deep into the substance of the CAP – we need much more than just green window dressing”.

Janez Potocnik, 16 March 2010

Agriculture and Land Management Programme

Policy Implications

• Supporting farmers in the provision of public goods is a legitimate long-term goal of agricultural policy given the scale of public demand and of the environmental challenge.

• Implications for a future SPS and rural development policy.

• There is a particular need to target support at and to ensure the maintenance of extensive livestock and other High Nature Value farming systems.

• Supporting the delivery of public goods will lead to significant redistributive effects, creating a new pattern of winners and losers, between Member States and across farming systems.

• Clear message needed about the scale of budgetary resources to meet this dual challenge.

Agriculture and Land Management Programme