Presentation of Michael Hamell from the European Commission at Food, Fertilizers and Natural...
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Transcript of Presentation of Michael Hamell from the European Commission at Food, Fertilizers and Natural...
The great global challenges
Climate Change
Biodiversity loss
Energy supply
Natural resources depletion
Feeding 9 billion people
Successfully addressing them is essential to a stable world. Solving one without the others, solves none.
Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe
Key Messages:
Huge increase in resource use in 20th century. Business as usual will bring rapid depletion and scarcity.
We need 4-10 fold increase in RE by 2050 which implies all resources are sustainably managed.
Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe
Steps: developing approaches to transform the economy in areas such as:
Consumption and production
Waste
Ecosystem services
Of major interest here:
Green paper on phosphorus in 2012
Communication on land use in 2014
Why is phosphorus a policy issue?
P is limited and P demand rises continuously globally.
P is easily lost throughout the production, use and waste chains.
P supplies are essential to long term food production. They are concentrated in a few regions.
In the long term, we will need to use P sources which may contain greater amounts of cadmium and eventually even uranium.
Current P supplies
P from the earth’s crust to human consumption
Cadmium levels in phosphate rock including the relative size of the reserve
Why act now?
Major education process to be undertaken
Opportunity cost of inaction - sooner we start, the more gradual action can be
Need to insert some of the solutions into the cycle of intellectual reflections and infrastructure planning - expensive otherwise
Why act now?
Synergies with resource efficiency agenda in particular
Innovation benefit to EU biotech companies – enzymes in feed and fertilizer for example
Experience on biodiversity decline and climate change shows knowledge itself is not enough to change behaviour. We must start early.
What could be done (examples)
Improve efficiency of extraction processes and use of by-products
Traditional agricultural efficiency techniques – catch crops, avoiding soil erosion etc –
And new ones, manure processing and transfer
Innovative techniques – microbial inoculation, phytase, etc
Sewage sludge, biowaste? Getting more recycling and opening up the possibilities for the organic fertilizer market
Food chain, food waste, food choices...
What could be done in a perfect world
Work on green paper to date
Several studies
P use in EU agriculture 2005
Sustainability of P resources 2010
Manure Processing activities in Europe (end 2011 publication)
NPK study (JRC, completion in early 2012)
Expert seminar spring 2011
Some results
Resources and reserves bigger then previously thought
Some regions including EU very import dependent
Considerable inefficiencies in P use
Manure processing gaining in importance
Work on green paper to date
Opportunities for efficiencies?
Agriculture
Industry
Areas for reflection
Animal production concentration
Pathways to P loss: erosion, run off leaching from saturated soil
Do our production/consumption patterns contribute to “problems”
What recycling possibilities/what barriers?
Next steps
A green paper opens discussion
We hope to publish GP in spring/summer 2012
Reaction of all stakeholders as well as EU institutions will guide future work
We invite you to contribute