The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published its report on land use change on 23 January 2020, with a series of measures intended to drive the changes needed to meet the UK’s net zero ambitions by 2050.

Given the currently fragmented nature of policies influencing how we use land, from agriculture policy itself (Defra) through to trade (DfT), food (DoH) and bioenergy (BEIS), one of the key asks is for a coherent and integrated land use policy, but which prioritises carbon above all else. Prioritising the multiple competing demands on land highlights the major challenges that exist if a zero carbon land use policy is going to be achievable.

The report commendably suggests that the level of land use change required (including releasing 22 per cent of agricultural land to climate mitigation) can be achieved without impacting on current levels of food self-sufficiency.

The report talks about the need for the remaining UK agricultural land to become more productive, but without increasing the intensity of land use. There is little detail in the report on what exactly low carbon farming practices look like, nor how their adoption will be encouraged or enforced.

The availability of precision plant breeding is often cited as a key element of achieving this level of productivity improvement, but there remains a major regulatory hurdle. It is very unclear how the UK could match Dutch or Danish levels of productivity without the huge levels of environmental manipulation (in greenhouses and land drainage) seen in those countries.

The big question the CCC report doesn’t grapple with is exactly how the UK will ensure that trade policy will protect against risks of carbon leakage from trade in agricultural products. This is a critical issue that was also overlooked in the recently reintroduced Agriculture Bill. Interestingly, the EU is considering a ‘Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism’, to tax high carbon imports and protect EU businesses facing carbon taxes from the need to off-shore production. A similar system could be an idea for the UK.  

Tree planting remains the main route through which net zero ambitions are to be delivered – the emphasis on public and private money supporting this, and the endorsement of a future woodland carbon guarantee auction system, is commendable. However, these ambitions remain spurious given the current barriers to tree planting and also a lack of concern for the end use of carbon-accredited timber.

Requirements for the inclusion of timber in construction materials are essential. If the integrated land use policy needed to kick-start tree planting is created, as well as the scaling up of the domestic timber industry, exciting times could be ahead for forestry in the UK.

Acknowledging that agroforestry, biomass and even just better hedgerow management could form critical elements of net zero land use policy should make carbon storage much more accessible to a broader range of farmers.  

Finally, the CCC report recommends a 20 per cent reduction in red meat and dairy consumption, but without tackling the resource intensity of white protein production.

The report presents the calculations needed to ensure that this reduction comes from UK land and does not impact on the import/export trade balance. The lack of clarity over the UK’s trade position make this seem optimistic at best, but as supply chains are independently accounting for their carbon impact, the focus on healthy eating and waste reduction could come quite quickly.

While undoubtedly vegetables have historically suffered from a lack of marketing budget, the rapid growth in highly processed plant-based food may not be the optimal solution to the healthy eating challenge.

In conclusion, it is clear that farmers will need support and investment to switch to meeting new supply chain opportunities and carbon targets. While we know agricultural policy budgets are guaranteed to the end of the current parliament, it is not known what level of funding will be available after that. If the government wants to achieve its ambition, long-term structural investment is needed.

Too much focus in the CCC report is on farmers being part of the problem, whereas many have great ambition and opportunity to be part of the solution.

Further information

Read more: Land use: Policies for a Net Zero UK