Climate Change and Australian Agriculture

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Climate Change and Australian Agriculture

The Issue

Despite the picture of scientific uncertainty promoted by the mass media, the overwhelming

majority of scientists are unequivocal in their belief in anthropogenic climate change, the danger it

represents, and the urgency of the situation. The public at large could almost be forgiven for

thinking it was 50-50 in the scientific community regarding whether climate change is happening,

but in reality 97.5% of practising climate scientists and every academy of science in the world

believes that anthropogenic climate change is real (National, 2011). Dr. Peter Gleick, co-founder

and director of the Pacific Institute and member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recently

summed up, before congress, why the scientific evidence on climate change should be trusted. He

testified that the scientific process is: "inherently adversarial - scientists build reputations and gainrecognition... for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better

explanation... But no one who argues against the science of climate change has ever provided an

alternative scientific theory that adequately satisfies the observable evidence or conforms to our

understanding of physics, chemistry, and climate dynamics" (Ross, 2011). The link between

anthropogenic climate change and observed environmental variations is also increasingly well

understood (Rosenzweig, 2008).

We need action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions dramatically and quickly to avoid

catastrophic climate change. It is a difficult proposal, but well within the capabilities of this

resilient, wealthy and productive nation (Flannery, 2005, Kane, 1992, Garnaut, 2008). Globally,

emission levels are spread unevenly in terms of population, with Australia ranked among the largest

per capita emitters (see Figure 1. in Appendix) and absolute highest per capita emitter among

OECD nations (Garnaut, 2008). There is no 'silver bullet' cure to GHG emissions but rather a

multiplicity of changes must be made.

An area which could contribute massively to mitigation of our GHG emissions is the agriculture

sector. In Australia this sector is responsible for up to 30% of our GHG emissions annually (see

Figure 2. of Appendix) and also uses over two thirds of our land mass and nearly 70% of surface

water (Hamblin, 2009). Despite using such a vast amount of water and land, and producing such

copious amounts of GHG's, agriculture only amounts to approximately 3-4% of our GDP

(Hamblin, 2009, CIA, 2011).

Like most of the wealthy Western world, Australian law and policy relating to the agriculture


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industry is out of touch with the realities of the sector. This dichotomy between modern theory and

archaic policy constitutes a massive obstacle to progress towards environmentally friendly farming

practises. Australia has a policy of using market-based forces and indirect incentives to produce an

efficient farming sector (Trade, n.d.) but, while this policy has helped achieve economic efficiency,

it has fostered many environmental and social problems (Hamblin, 2009).

This paper will discuss the complex relationships between agriculture and climate change: the

effects of climate change on food production and food security, the current GHG emissions from

agriculture and how agriculture could become a net negative emitter. The solutions to the climate

change related problems of the agricultural sector are complex, but, perhaps even more so than in

other sectors, significant GHG emission reductions could be achieved quickly and cheaply, with

significant economic benefits in the relatively short term.

Business-as-usual

Australia is regarded as being significantly more vulnerable to climate change than most OECD

nations (Gunasekera, 2007) as it is the driest inhabited continent, much of the native vegetation is

unsuitable for fodder, the climate is typified by regular floods and droughts, and we lack the deep,

fertile soil laid down by glaciers in Europe and America (Hanna, 2011).

The entire agriculture sector is intrinsically linked with climate and environmental conditions, and

much of the sector, especially in southern Australia, is already under significant threat because of

rising heat and protracted drying, with significantly worse predicted (Hanna, 2011, Hughes, 2003)

(see Figure 3. of Appendix). While there is much talk of 'carbon fertilisation', and resulting

increased food production, research proves that, without significant adaptation efforts, little to no

benefit will result from increased carbon dioxide due to increased temperature and changed rainfall

patterns. Even with adaptation, benefits will be uneven and become totally redundant with average

temperature rises of more than about 2 degrees (Howden, Soussana et al. 2007).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases scenarios based on accumulated

scientific evidence. Their 'A1FI scenario', released in 2007, was meant to represent a worst case

scenario under business-as-usual conditions, with high economic growth based on continued

burning of fossil fuels. Recent research across many fields suggests that the global climate is

tracking beyondthe worst case estimates predicted from this A1FI scenario (Hanna, 2011, Hanna

et al., 2011). Predictions for Australia include 5-8 degree temperature rises over southwest Western

Australia, South Australia and Victoria by 2100 (Perkins, 2009). Worst case scenario predictions


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can't keep up with the reality of rising temperatures, melting sea ice and widespread ecological

impacts (Steffen, 2009).

It is already understood that the pre-climate change El Nio Southern Oscillation phenomenon, is

responsible for between 15% and 35% of variability in global yields of wheat, oilseeds and coarse

grains (Howden et al., 2007). With expected climate change and population forecasts it is very

likely that the carrying capacity of the environment in terms of food production will soon be

exceeded (McMichael et al., 2007).

While agriculture only amounts to 3-4% of GDP it amounts to 40% of our export sector, meaning

that a collapse in food production due to climate change would quickly result in economic damage,

placing strain on food security, here and elsewhere (Athukorala, 2003). As a nation with harshenvironment, using agricultural practises unsuited to our climate, and given the warming and drying

trends already seen, it is safe to assume that even a situation of moderate climate change, without

significant adaptation, could easily result in near collapse of our food production and compromise

our food security.

For rural Australia the greatest impacts are likely to result from diminishing economic viability of

agricultural production (Hanna et al., 2011). Many Australian farmers are already in dire financial

straits because of warming and drying trends (Hanna et al., 2011, Hamblin, 2009). Ninety four

percent of Australian farms are still family-based, but the top 10% of farms are responsible for 90%

of value of production (see Figure 4. in Appendix). This impacts on the profitability of smaller scale

farmers as they compete against impossible-to-replicate economies of scale. In fact the average

farm debt in Australia is $400,000 (Hamblin, 2009). So in quite a short time, even slightly increased

environmental pressures from climate change would undoubtedly lead to massive numbers of farm

closures, which would in turn lead on to the collapse of many rural communities (Hamblin, 2009).

Mitigation

Historically human food production and consumption has gone through three main phases:

Hunter-gatherer much energy is expended to gather and catch wild food. While some

societies seem to have been able to obtain sufficient food without excessive exertion, this

was typically assisted by low population density and lack of competition.

The agricultural revolution - early farming and livestock domestication enabled increased

food production which in turn allowed for greater population density.

Second agricultural revolution (only in high income countries) changes include


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privatisation of shared land, synthetic fertilisers, mechanical farm equipment, genetic

engineering, intensive or factory farming techniques among other things. This ongoing stage

in human food production and consumption has become increasingly dependant on non-

renewable energy inputs, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.

(McMichael et al., 2007)

Agricultural advances have tended to evolve and be adopted unevenly, leading to ingrained

practises, law and policy which is not optimised for societal, cultural or environmental realities, to

the point where in some countries total energy input into food production now greatly exceeds food

energy yield (McMichael et al., 2007).

The largest GHG reducing change that could be made to Australian agriculture would be to abandonour national, cultural obsession with eating large quantities of meat. The land, water and energy

required to raise livestock for meat is truly horrifying, with livestock production accounting for

almost 80% of the agriculture sector's emissions (McMichael et al., 2007). Ruminant livestock is by

far the worst and to prevent increases in GHG emissions from agriculture due to population growth,

let alone reduce emissions, a reduction in at least red meat consumption, if not all animal products,

is necessary (McMichael et al., 2007). The current global average meat consumption is 100g per

person per day, with high consuming populations responsible for up to 10 times as much as low

consuming populations (McMichael et al., 2007) (See Figure 5. in Appendix) and most studies

place Australia within the top 4 or 5 countries in terms of per capita meat consumption (Howe,

2006, Norat, 2002, McAfee, 2010). In terms of GHG emissions per unit food-energy, meat and

animal products cannot compare to non-animal agriculture because of huge methane and nitrous

oxide emissions, as well as increased land clearing required because feeding a population on a diet

of animal protein requires an order of magnitude more farmland than does a diet of plant protein

(McMichael et al., 2007) (See Figure 6. in Appendix).

There is no legitimate argument against significant reductions in meat and animal product

consumption, as not only is the environmental damage of the meat industry well understood and

documented, but many scientific studies prove that vegetarian or vegan diets can be of significant

health benefit over diets high in meat and animal products (Norat, 2002, Rizzo et al., 2011, Jacobs

et al., 2009, Hebbelinck et al., 1999) (See Figure 7 in Appendix).

Despite the scientific simplicity of the plant protein versus animal protein argument, there is no

chance, for political and cultural reasons, of quickly changing, as a nation, to an entirely vegan diet.


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Therefore government policy must begin to disincentivise livestock-based agriculture, while

creating incentives for land, currently used for livestock, to be converted to bio-fuel crops or

reforested. One way of doing this would be including methane and nitrous oxide emissions in a

carbon tax, thus increasing the cost of ruminant based agriculture, while simultaneously providing

financial incentives for farmers to turn to stewardship of large tracts of reforested land. Methane

and nitrous oxide emissions being taxed would also provide an incentive for emissions reductions

from all agriculture, with research showing that currently available mitigation technologies could

reduce emissions by up to 20% at relatively low costs (McMichael et al., 2007).

A number of nations have resisted international measures to reduce GHG emissions on the grounds

that they will be detrimental to economic growth. However, economist Nicholas Stern, and many

others, claim that, without swift and decisive response to the threat of dramatic climate change,sustained economic growth will be impossible in the medium to long term, due to environmental

catastrophe. Arguably steps taken to reduce emissions, and thus reduce potential climate change, are

actually pro-growth (McMichael et al., 2007)

Soil organic carbon sequestration (SOCS) refers to increasing carbon stored in organic matter in the

soil. This can be achieved through improved land usage and RMPs (recommended management

practices), and has the potential to offset global GHG emissions by between 0.4 and 1.2 gigaton

(Gt) of carbon per year, equivalent to approximately 5-15% of global emissions from fossil fuels

((Lal, 2004). SOCS has the potential not only to mitigate carbon emissions from other sources, up

to 1000kg of carbon per hectare per year in some areas, but can also dramatically increase yields

and be used in conjunction with other methods to revitalise degraded soils (Lal, 2004). Common,

easily implemented RMPs leading to SOCS are: mulch farming, conservation tillage, agroforestry,

diverse cropping system, cover crops and integrated nutrient management, including the use of

manure, compost, biosolids, improved grazing, and forest management (Lal, 2004). Simply

converting farm land from conventional till farming to no-till farming can reduce emissions by 30-

35kg of carbon per season (Follett, 2001). Australia has significant amounts of degraded arable

land, perfectly suited for SOCS through improved agricultural practises or land use change

(Hamblin, 2009, Flannery, 1997). Many studies of the potential for SOCS have been done and the

combined potential for increased yields with dramatically reduced carbon emissions is well

understood (Smith, 2000). The UN recently released a report suggesting that food production in

some areas could be as much as doubled within 10 years, while mitigating GHG emissions, through

the introduction of eco-farming practises (Leahy, 2011).


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A possible problem with SOCS is the estimation that sequestration of 1Gt of carbon in soil could

require up to 80 million tons (Mt) of Nitrogen, 20Mt of Phosphorus, and 15Mt of Potassium

(McMichael et al., 2007). This issue could be addressed through the use of crop residues which

contain all these nutrients. Three Gt of grain residue are produced globally each year and, if

recycled rather than removed for other uses, there would be a dramatic increase in soil quality and

sequestration of carbon (McMichael et al., 2007).

According to scientific studies, surplus arable land is the most important resource in agricultural

climate change mitigation (Smith, 2000). An important use of surplus arable land is for bio-fuel

crops. Bio-fuel crops have the potential to decrease food security if wealthy governments

incentivise bio-fuel crops in a way that makes them more economically attractive than food crops;

causing farmers to move away from food crops for financial reasons, regardless of global demandfor food (Boddiger, 2007). This problem, however could easily be avoided with proper management

of the agriculture sector. Increased yields from SOCS and RMPs combined with livestock

reductions would provide vast amounts of surplus arable land which could then be used for either

bio-fuel crops or reforestation.

Reforestation as a climate change mitigation tool is powerful in the short-medium term and also has

two-fold productivity as both a mitigation and adaptation strategy. As well as storing large amounts

of carbon in biomass, thus mitigating GHG emissions from other sources, increasing tracts of native

forest will increase biodiversity and resilience of plant and animal species (Pielke, 2002).

Bio-fuel crops, meanwhile, show the greatest potential for carbon mitigation of all land-use change

strategies, primarily because the mitigation is indefinite while other strategies, such as reforestation,

tend towards production of a new balanced system after about 50-100 years of carbon sequestration

(Smith, 2000).

Adaptation

There is no doubt that mitigation attempts will come substantially too late and too slowly to avoid

significant temperature rises and related climate change damage and, as such, adaptation will also

be necessary (Garnaut, 2008). Adaptation to climate change requires that we plan for worst case

scenario outcomes (Hanna, 2011), so, while we fight through mitigation attempts to reduce future

climate change, we must immediately adapt our agriculture industry so as to attempt to ensure that

it can be viable even should our mitigation efforts fail. This can be achieved by focussing on

development of more resilient agricultural systems (Howden et al., 2007), with special importance


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placed on practises more appropriate to the harsh Australian environment (Flannery, 2009).

Mitigation efforts will also tie in with adaptation as changes to farming practises improve soil

quality and increase yields.

When Australia was settled by Europeans they imported their agricultural practises with them,

practises that had evolved and were suited to an entirely different environment, a wet and fertile

one, but often not suited to harsh Australian conditions (Flannery, 1997, Diamond, 2005). In many

cases these agricultural practises, because they were not designed for use in an environment of high

salinity, low rainfall, high temperatures and thin topsoil, have resulted in serious degradation of the

already fragile Australian environment (Flannery, 1997). On a global scale there is immense

diversity within the agricultural sector because of the range of environmental and climatic variables,

as well as cultural and economic factors. This diversity allows for a wide range of adaptationpossibilities (Howden et al., 2007). Some adaptation options include: altering timing and location of

agricultural activities, altering varieties/species inputs, altering fertiliser rates, altering amounts and

timing of irrigation and other water management, wider use of technology to harvest water,

conserve soil moisture, and use and transport water more effectively (Howden et al., 2007). If

implemented thoroughly these adaptation measures have substantial potential to offset negative

climate change impacts and to take advantage of positive ones (Howden et al., 2007).

Implementation of some or all of the above mentioned measures is likely to significantly improve

the ability of our agriculture sector to adjust to moderate climate change, with 'damage avoidance'

of 1-3 degrees. However, scientific research is showing us that climate change resulting in average

temperature rises greater than 2 degrees will severely limit the effectiveness of any and all

adaptation attempts, as will decreased, rather than increased rainfall (Howden et al., 2007).

Conclusion

Climate change represents a global issue with complex, far reaching and dangerous repercussions.

Turning climate science into action is notoriously difficult because it is a problem of slow change

and difficult to quantify damage. Our environmental systems are all intrinsically linked, and we rely

on them for our very survival. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in our agriculture sector

where, without dramatic change, continuation of unsustainable farming practises, and misuse of

purchasing power by the population at large will contribute to increased climate change which will

in turn reduce our capacity to produce food. Through combined mitigation and adaptation efforts it

is possible that our agriculture sector can become a net negative GHG emitter, and increase food

production, while providing opportunities for agricultural investment and economic benefits to


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those who take early action (Howden et al., 2007). Comprehensive combined mitigation and

adaptation strategies will require legal and policy changes to provide incentives, economic and

otherwise, for change in the agricultural sector. Where climate change strategies may encourage

major changes in land use there will be requirement for governmental assistance to support

relocation of both people and industries, and the creation of new jobs (Howden et al., 2007) but

significantly less so than under business-as-usual models with inevitable rural community collapse

(Hanna et al., 2011, Hamblin, 2009).

We are the progeny of people who hunted and gathered, whose lives were brief and whose greatest

threat was a man with a stick. When terrorists attack, we respond with crushing force and firm

resolve, just as our ancestors would have. Global warming is a deadly threat precisely because it

fails to trip the brain's alarm, leaving us soundly asleep in a burning bed (Gilbert, 2006). As such anotoriously tricky subject we must approach it pro-actively, scientists must learn to become better at

quantifying and communicating their research, while policy and decision makers must accept that

fuzzy knowledge is better than no knowledge (Howden, Soussana et al. 2007) and that

inconclusiveness on the specifics of the climate disaster does not give reason for inaction (Howden

et al., 2007).

Climate change is a problem which requires massive social and political, structural change; a

difficult requirement in contemporary society. That such change is possible though is demonstrated

by historical precedent. At the beginning of World War II out entire economy was reshaped almost

overnight to cater for the requirements of going to war. The ramifications of unmitigated climate

change, as understood by the scientific community, are at least as terrifying as a world war and so,

with political will (and perhaps an intensive public climate science education program) the

necessary policy can be implemented and through combined mitigation and adaptation strategies we

can begin to tackle what is undoubtedly the most pressing issue of this century.


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Appendix

Figure 1. (UNEP/GRID-Arendal, 2005)


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Figure 2. (Garnaut 2008)

(Garnaut, 2008)Figure 3. (Garnaut 2008)

Figure 4. (Hamblin, 2009)


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Figure 5. (Hamblin, 2009)

Figure 6. (McMichael et al., 2007)


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Figure 7. (Norat 2002)(Hamblin, 2009, McMichael et al., 2007)


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