Transcript Growth in the Global Demand for Food

Agriculture’s Dual Challenge of Delivering
Food While Protecting the Environment
Tamsin Cooper
[email protected]
A Future for a Strong CAP – European Symposium
24 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:
© Mark Redman
– 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
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
Future Policy Objectives
Market Stability
A
FUTURE
CAP
Sustainability
Competitiveness
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