PDF file: Annual Report 2002/2003 - Scottish Crop Research Institute

Director’s Report
cheap food-stuffs and profitability higher up the food
chain, as well as protecting more natural habitats from
the spread of widespread, lower-efficiency agriculture;
(i) agriculture can be the user of finite resources, and
the user and creator of energy, the creator and user of
greenhouse gases and hazardous chemicals, and be the
basis of human well-being as well as act under some
circumstances as the source of human health problems;
and finally (j) agriculture acts as the lungs, kidneys
and guts of urban mankind, and is favoured as a
dumping ground for wastes and the treatment of
wastes, but Defra estimated that in 2000, agricultural
waste accounted for 20% of all UK wastes. Closely
tied to environmental impacts is the issue of public
perception, and ‘concern’, however expressed or
aggravated. Perhaps the most crucial environmental
issue of immediacy is both large-scale and incessant
developer-led building on greenfield sites, although
GM crops, intensive livestock rearing, the felling of
trees and hedgerows, and the use of agricultural chemicals
in farming figured most prominently in the
Defra analysis of concerns about environmental issues
in 2001.
Various UN bodies, the OECD, UN and many governments
in both MDCs and LDCs are attempting to
create widely accepted sustainability and environmental
indicators and targets, as an adjunct to measure
and where necessary lessen environmental impacts of
agriculture. Bird populations are of special interest in
the UK, with the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology being particularly
politically influential. On the basis of their
distribution throughout rural and semi-rural as well as
urban habitats, and the fact that birds have a close
proximity to the top of the non-human food chain,
wild-bird populations are given a noteworthy degree
of prominence in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan,
with targets to reverse the decline in populations and
to increase range and habitats, all easier said than done
given the complex nature of population changes, food
availability interactions with the environment, and
predator-prey-parasite-disease relations. My preference
would be to assess non-sustainability factors and
indicators in agriculture, with due allowance for
regional habitat variations.
Quantification of the environmental impacts of agriculture
is bedevilled by subjective economic valuations and
incomplete data sets. According to the Environment
Agency (Agriculture and Natural Resources: Benefits,
Costs and Potential Solutions. May 2002), agriculture
contributes 95% to soil erosion overall. Changes in
agricultural land use with associated cultivation practices
are blamed for increased rainwater run-off which
contributes to flooding – usually of houses built on
flood plains as a result of wholly inadequate regional
drainage and domestic-housing policies.
Direct and indirect energy consumption in agriculture
for 2001, but not including the manufacture and distribution
of food, was reckoned on ‘as supplied to
agriculture’ basis to be 183.1 PetaJoules (PJ) compared
with 240.3 PJ in 1985. The 2001 figure represented
only 0.3% of overall UK energy consumption.
Energy was used directly for heating and motive
power, and this amounted to 48.9 PetaJoules, with
the bulk accounted for by petroleum and electricity
(24.4PJ and 16.5PJ, respectively). Indirect energy
inputs were estimated at 134.2 PJ in 2001, representing
fertiliser manufacture (94.6 PJ), animal feeds
(20.7 PJ), tractor purchases (10.3 PJ), and pesticide
manufacture (8.6 PJ). The long-term trend of indirect
energy usage since 1985 has been one of decline,
with a questionable presumption by Government that
adoption of organic production methods will further
depress energy consumption.
Renewables In contrast to consuming energy, agriculture
can contribute substantially to the generation
of renewable energy. Renewable energy sources in the
UK, comprising biofuels, hydro, solar, and wind,
accounted for 3.1 million tonnes of oil equivalent in
2001, according to the DTI. Of this, about 2.4 million
tonnes was used to generate electricity, and the
remainder to generate heat for other purposes. In
order to stimulate the development of renewable energy
sources, the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation Renewable
Orders were introduced, requiring the regional electricity
companies to buy specified amounts of electricity
from specified non-fossil-fuel sources, to reach
10% of UK electricity generation by 2010. Such
sources are exempt from the Climate Change Levy,
and are also promoted by capital grants, R&D programmes,
regional planning, and a range of targets.
In 2001, 85.6% of renewable energy sources were biofuels
and wastes (landfill gas 27%), waste combustion
21.5%, wood combustion 15.1%, other biofuels
11.8%, sewage gas 5.4%, straw combustion (4.8%),
hydro was 11.3%, wind and wave 2.7% and geothermal
and active solar heating 0.4%. Security of supply
in an era of massive energy importation and the winding
down of the nuclear industry, leading potentially
to social and economic instability (rather akin to, but
less drastic than unstable food supplies), began to concern
observers of the energy industry.
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