It won’t have escaped anybody’s notice that this has been a year of extremes – in terms of both our climate and our politics!
The latest edition of Farm Business covers both, as the Brexit negotiations approach the crunch and a new report shines the spotlight once again on climate change and agriculture’s role in mitigating it.
On page 6, the key implications for agriculture are examined, from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report, which carried a stark warnings about how far the world has fallen behind in efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
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There is, of course, concern for farming in there, both in the predicted impact of global warming on food security and the messages around the need for the industry needs to cut its emissions. But alongside the calls for people to eat less meat and changes in how we farm, there is an important acknowledgement in there that increasing productivity can make a positive contribution. Contributor Richard Wright argues, farming needs to be seen as part of the solution, not the problem.
Defra Secretary Michael Gove’s key messages from the Conservative Party Conference is also analysed. Ultimately it was what he didn’t say about import standards that carried the most significance for UK farming.
With all of the above in mind, it is apt that, Yorkshire farmer and AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds chair Paul Temple discusses how farms should go about managing change in these volatile times. It’s all in the detail, he says.
An award winning business for which the word ‘diversification’ does not do justice is examined in great detail.