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TETRAPARTITE 2008
Defra update
Bob Watson
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Current evidence spend
2008/09 R&D Budget - £132m
6.5
30.4
33.3
27.6
35
Climate Change
Animal Health & Welfare
Agri-Food
Natural Environment
Strategy & Evidence
Future evidence spend
A more strategic management of Defra’s evidence (R&D – currently very
weak in social sciences, monitoring, surveillance) that recognizes that
each of the key areas of interest to Defra are inter-connected, i.e.,
climate change, natural environment and food and farming:
• Enabling and fostering a more cohesive cross-Defra view of strategic
evidence issues – must be placed within a UK – LWEC and international
perspective
• Ensuring investment in evidence informs and supports delivery of Defra
strategy (policy formulation and implementation)
• Determining effective funding/ management processes and governance
Selected topics
• Agriculture and climate change
• Food chain programme
• Ecosystems approach
• Bluetongue
• Bovine TB
• Living With Environmental Change
• EU collaboration – ERA-NETs
• UK Collaborative on Development Science
• Foresight Programme: Tackling Obesities: Future Choices
• Food Security and Biofuels
Agriculture and climate change:
adaptation and mitigation
Adaptation
Need to reduce the vulnerability and increase
resilience to increased incidence of extreme events,
greater climate variability, hotter and drier summers
• Breed new varieties (temperature, drought, pest,
salinity tolerant traits)
• Water harvesting
• Agricultural practices, e.g., planting times
• Insulate animal housing
Mitigation
Need to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions from the agricultural sector,
especially methane and nitrous oxide
Future:
• Nitrification inhibitors
• Feed supplements
Now:
• Non exceedance of crop N requirements
• Appropriate timing/conditions for manure
application
• Increase livestock nutrient use efficiency
• Anaerobic digestion technology for
manures/slurries
Climate change impacts are now inevitable: adaptation is
about how we respond – the less mitigation, the more
adaptation is required
Global temperature change (relative to pre-industrial)
0°C
1°C
Food
2°C
3°C
4°C
5°C
Falling crop yields in many areas, particularly developing regions
Possible rising yields in some high
latitude regions
Small glaciers disappear –
water supplies threatened in
several areas
Water
Falling yields in many
developed regions
Significant decreases in water availability
in many areas, including Mediterranean
and Southern Africa
Sea level rise threatens
major cities
Ecosystems
Extensive Damage to
Coral Reefs
Rising number of species face extinction
Extreme Weather
Rising intensity of storms, forest fires, droughts, flooding and heat waves
Risk of Abrupt and Major
Irreversible Changes
Increasing risk of dangerous feedbacks and abrupt, large-scale
shifts in the climate system
The risk of serious irreversible impacts increases strongly as temperatures increase
Stern Review (2006)
Anticipated Increase in UK Summer Temperatures: By the 2040s, 2003 will be “normal”
- the climate is also expected to be much wetter in the winter and drier in the summer
2060s
Temperature anomaly (wrt 1961-90) °C
observations
HadCM3 Medium-High (SRES A2)
2040s
2003
Hadley Centre
Food Chain Programme – “Managing the environmental
sustainability of UK food consumption and production”
Reducing the global environmental impact of UK food
production/ consumption
• Measuring GHG emissions (embodied) from food
 British Standards Institute methodology
 Pre farm gate to manufacturing Distribution and retailing
Food preparation and consumption
• Local/regional vs imported foods
 Assessing environmental impact of national vs imported
 7 commodities
 GHGs and ecosystem services
 Influencing consumers re food purchasing and waste
 Minimize waste
Ecosystems approach
“To embed an ecosystems approach to conserving,
managing and enhancing the natural environment
across policy-making and delivery”
• Identifying opportunities for mainstreaming an ecosystems
approach
• Using case studies that demonstrate the benefits of taking
an ecosystems approach
• Developing ways of valuing ecosystem services
• Developing a robust evidence base
MA Framework
Human Well-being and
Poverty Reduction
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Basic material for a good life
Health
Good Social Relations
Human
Security
Freedom of choiceWell-being
and action
Indirect Drivers of Change
 Demographic
 Economic (globalization, trade,
market and policy framework)
 Sociopolitical (governance and
Indirect framework)
institutional
 Science
and Technology
Drivers
 Cultural and Religious
Direct Drivers of Change
Ecosystem
Services
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Changes in land use
Species
introduction or removal
Direct
Technology adaptation and use
Drivers
External
inputs (e.g., irrigation)
Resource consumption
Climate change
Natural physical and biological
drivers (e.g., volcanoes)
Consequences of Ecosystem Change for
Human Well-being
Bluetongue outbreak
• Wind plume of infected midges on 4-5
August 2007 into East Anglia
• UK declared BTV infected
22 September 2007
• 130 infected premises at 22 May 2008
Government response
Response
•
Contingency plans implemented
•
Communication on bluetongue and its
effects
•
Movement restrictions to control spread
•
Monitoring, scanning and targeted
Next steps
surveillance of bluetongue spread and
midge activity
•
Testing all imported ruminants for
•
Control by vaccination
bluetongue
•
Eradication?
•
Research and disease response
needs will continue
Research and diagnosis of Bluetongue
Defra research projects
Diagnostic laboratory for BTV
Research focus:
• Epidemiology of bluetongue
- Including predictive modelling of BTV, vaccination studies
• Midge characteristics and spread of the vectors
• Molecular characterisation of the BTV genome
- Diagnostic methods and molecular epidemiology studies
• Questions on the role of “global warming”
- Further incursions and potential for establishment in high latitudes
- Incursion of other vector-borne disease
Bovine TB
• Bovine TB is a serious issue in several parts of UK
• Issue is how to deal with the spread – scientific, economic and social
issues
• Animal movement
• Cull Badgers
• Vaccination
• Injectable badger vaccine – 2010 – very costly
• Oral badger vaccine - 2014
• Injectable cattle vaccine – 2015, but would require a DIVA test and change in EU
policy
• Culling can reduce the incidence of bovine TB, but issues of scale
• Greater than 300 sq kms, 80% coverage, longer than 4 years, soft or hard
boundaries
Living With Environmental Change
Multi-Government Department – Multi-Research Council
£1 billion over 10 years
Six objectives
• Climate Change
• Ecosystems and Human Well-Being
• Development (Water and Food)
• Plant, Animal and Human Health)
• Infrastructure and Transportation
• Behaviour and Ideals
EU Collaboration: ERA-Nets
“Developing and strengthening the coordination of public research
programmes carried out at national or at regional level”
Defra participation in FP6 ERA-Nets includes:
• BiodivERsA – €20m joint research call to tackle biodiversity
decline in Europe
• EUPHRESCO - €1m joint calls on plant health research
FP7 ERA-Net
• EMIDA – New EU network to coordinate research on
emerging and major infectious diseases of livestock
UK Collaborative on Development Science
“Funders and scientists working together to
make a difference to the lives of the World’s
poorest people”
Three key areas of work already underway:
• Improving relevance of climate change research to
developing countries by mapping and characterising all
UK initiatives
• Foresight and horizon scanning to highlight developing
country S&T needs
• Reviewing UK research capacity to facilitate effective
collaboration with developing countries
UK Foresight Programme
“Tackling Obesities: Future Choices”
Why a project on obesity?
1994-96
1997-99
2000-02
Female
Data shown
for England
and
Scotland
Male
Source: IOTF
Policy implications
Key messages
• Most adults in the UK are already overweight. Modern living insures
every generation is heavier than the last – “Passive Obesity”
• By 2050 60% of men and 50% of women could be clinically obese.
Without action, the costs of overweight and obesity will rise to £49.9
billion p.a.
• The obesity epidemic cannot be prevented by individual action alone and
demands a societal approach
• Tackling obesity requires far greater change than anything tried so far,
and at multiple levels; personal, family, community and population
• Preventing obesity is a societal challenge, similar to climate change. It
requires partnership between government, science, business, and civil
society
The government response to the threat of
obesity
• Revised obesity target to reflect a broader ambition to achieve and
maintain a healthy weight
• Established dedicated Obesity Unit within government reporting to a
cross-departmental Ministerial Group and Cabinet Committee
• Obesity Unit supported by external Expert Advisory Group, Obesity
Observatory and a Delivery Group
• Plans to establish a National Partnership with stakeholders
• Cross-government obesity strategy - Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives
informed by the Foresight report
Policy options
(i) Foresight ‘promising’ areas
(ii) New Obesity Strategy
•
Investment in early life
interventions
•
Children: health, weight and
growth
•
Controlling the availability of and
exposure to obesogenic foodand
drink
•
Promoting healthier food choices
•
Building physical activity into our
lives
•
Increased walkability/ cyclability of
the built environment
•
Creating incentives for better
health
•
Increasing responsibility of
organisations for health of
employees
•
Personalised advice and support
•
Targeting health interventions for
those at high risk
Future Foresight Studies
• Land Use
• Food and Farming (UK and Global)
• Migration
The issue of water will be central to food and farming and migration
Food Security
Drivers of the recent increase in food prices
•
Increased demand from rapidly developing countries, e.g.,
China
•
Poor harvests due to variable weather - possibly related to
human-induced climate change
•
Increased use of biofuels, especially maize in the US
•
High energy prices, hence fertilizer prices
•
Export bans from some large exporting countries
•
Speculation on the commodity markets
Key question is whether this is a blip or a harbinger
of the future
Biofuels
• Two major sources of biofuels
• Bioethanol from sugar and maize
• Biodiesel from palm oil, soy and rapeseed
• Rarely economic - normally heavily subsidized
• Serious questions regarding environmental
sustainability
• Greenhouse gas emissions - direct and indirect emissions
• Loss of biodiversity, soil and water degradation
• Serious Questions regarding social sustainability
• Food price increases
• Involuntary displacement of small-scale farmers by large-scale plantations