Chris Pollock is the former Research Director of the Institute of Grassland and Environment Research in Aberystwyth. He is currently an Honorary Professor in the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, whilst also Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of the First Minister of Wales (Welsh Assembly Government).

 

Chris graduated in botany from Cambridge University in 1968, has a PhD in microbiology from Birmingham and was awarded his DSc in 1993. He has published over a hundred papers and reviews on aspects of basic plant science and also has interests in the responses of agricultural crops to climate change.

Since 1993, Chris has become more involved in national issues relating to agriculture and land use. He was a member of the 2nd UK Climate Change Impacts Review Group set up by the DoE and chaired both the Plants and Microbial Sciences Committee and the Review Group on Sustainable Agriculture and Land Use for the BBSRC. He chaired the independent Scientific Steering Committee for the programme of farm-scale evaluations of GM crops and the Defra Research Priorities Group for Sustainable Farming and Food. He is currently Chair of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), of which he has been a member since June 1999 and the Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Science sub-panel for the University Research Assessment Exercise 2008. Chris is also a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies and of the Institute of Biology, a former winner of the British Grassland Society Award and was made a CBE for services to the environment in 2002.

OPTIONS FOR GREENHOUSE GAS MITIGATION IN UK FARMING

In my talk, I shall briefly review the issues surrounding climate change and the profile of greenhouse gas emissions within the land use sector in the UK. This sector is distinctive not because of its overall contribution to greenhouse gas emissions but because of the significance of methane and nitrous oxide as major components of agricultural emissions. These are much more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, are released in smaller quantities and are more difficult to measure accurately.

I shall then review the currently viable approaches to reducing emissions of these three gases, concentrating on the challenges and on the likely extent of reductions that could be achieved without adversely affecting economic viability. I will use this to produce a list of actions that I believe should be considered by farmers and land managers against the background of their individual enterprises.

I will take a few minutes to look a little further ahead at potential technologies that might provide additional options in the future, but will conclude that there is an irreducible minimum of emissions associated with land use that will occur in the production of the food required to support the current and future global population.

Finally, I will consider the implications of these options both for the industry as a whole and for policy makers and researchers.

Key Quotes

"10% of total distributed energy consumption could be saved at minimal cost. Potential GHG savings are in the range of 3-5%."

"It is important that the support structure for renewable energy in the UK is consistent with the needs of small producers."

"GHG emissions from UK agriculture can only be reduced by 10-15% with currently viable approaches."

"Many of the approaches that will generate these reductions are compatible with reductions in enterprise cost."

"There remains a risk of exporting production as a way of reducing GHG emissions locally."
Download Chris's full report here