Brussels, 03/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - EU food production can be significantly increased to meet the growing demand “in a way that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and benefits the environment”, the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations of the EU (Copa) and the General Committee for Agricultural Cooperation in the EU (Cogeca) said on 27 October.
The agricultural organisations organised a workshop on the contribution of meat and dairy production to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Copa Vice-President Peter Kendall said: “Green house gas emissions from the whole of the agricultural sector, including livestock, have already been reduced by more than 20% between 1990 and 2008. We have seen today, that farmers and the other operators of the meat and milk production chain can further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are win-win situations. While EU agriculture gradually adapts to climate change, we can also improve resource use efficiency in agricultural production, store more carbon in vegetation and soils, and use bio-energy and other renewable energy technologies for self-supply and energy export from the farm by turning farm manures and residues into energy and fertiliser, thus helping to reduce emissions elsewhere in the economy”.
He stated that the EU will have to produce more food to help feed the world's 9 billion population by 2050. Kendall also said that a viable agriculture which focuses on the economic production role of farmers “would be the only one way to deliver sustainable environmental benefits and a carbon sequestration process efficiently”.
Pierre Chevalier, the chairman of the Copa-Cogeca working party on beef meat, said he was pleased that the issue of grassland acting as a carbon sink and livestock production based on grazing had been raised. “Grassland carbon sequestration reaches on average 500 kg of CO2 per year in Europe. There is merit in asking for a better recognition of the public benefits delivered by grazing-based systems in a number of EU regions,” he suggested. For example, pasture-based livestock systems can simultaneously deliver “carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection, water storage and prevention of fires, floods and soil erosion”. (L.C./transl.rt)