World Agriculture Vol.3 No.1 (Summer 2012)

Front

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Inside Front

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Dear readers,

If you wish to receive regular Issues of this Journal please complete the strip and post it to: Circulation Department, Script Media, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS or fax it to the publishers on 01226 734478.

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For further information about World Agriculture please go to the following web address: www.world-agriculture.net Yours faithfully, David Frape

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editorial World Agriculture Editorial Board

Editorial Assistants Dr Philip Taylor BSc, MSc, PhD Ms Sofie Aldiss BSc Michael J.C. Crouch BSc MSc (Res) Rob Coleman BSc MSc

Published by Script Media, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS, UK

Patron Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG, KCVO Chairman Professor Sir Colin Spedding CBE, MSc, PhD, DSc, CBiol, Hon FSB, FRASE, FIHort, FRAgS, FRSA, Hon Assoc RCVS, Hon DSc Agriculturalist Deputy Chairman & Editor Dr David Frape BSc, PhD, PG Dip Agric, CBiol, FSB, FRCPath, RNutr Mammalian physiologist Email: David.L.Frape@btinternet.com Deputy Editor Robert Cook BSc, CBiol, FSB (UK) Plant pathologist and agronomist Assistant Editor Dr Ben Aldiss BSc, PhD, CBiol, MSB, FRES (UK) Ecologist, entomologist and educationalist Members of the Editorial Board Professor Pramod Kumar Aggarwal (India) B.Sc, M.Sc, Ph.D. (India), Ph.D. (Netherlands), FNAAS (India), FNASc (India) Crop ecologist Professor Phil Brookes (UK) BSc, PhD, DSc (UK) Soil microbial ecologist Professor Andrew Challinor (UK) BSc, PhD (UK) Agricultural meteorologist Professor J. Perry Gustafson (USA) BSc, MS, PhD (USA) Plant geneticist Professor Sir Brian Heap CBE (UK) BSc, MA, PhD, ScD, FSB, FRSC, FRAgS, FRS (UK) Animal physiologist Professor Paul Jarvis (UK) FRS, FRSE, FRSwedish Soc. Agric. & Forestry (UK) Silviculturalist Professor Brian Kerry (UK) MBE, BSc, PhD (UK) Soil microbial ecologist Professor Glen M. MacDonald (USA) BA, MSc, PhD (USA) Geographer Professor Sir John Marsh (UK) CBE, MA, PG Dip Ag Econ, CBiol, FSB, FRASE, FRAgS (UK) Agricultural economist Professor Ian McConnell (UK) BVMS, MRVS, MA, PhD, FRCPath, FRSE (UK) Animal immunologist Professor Denis J Murphy (UK) BA, DPhil (UK) Crop biotechnologist Dr Christie Peacock (UK) BSc, PhD, FRSA, FRAgS, Hon. DSc, FSB (UK) Tropical Agriculturalist Professor RH Richards (UK) C.B.E., M.A., Vet. M.B., Ph.D., C.Biol., F.S.B., F.R.S.M., M.R.C.V.S., F.R.Ag.S (UK) Aquaculturalist Professor John Snape (UK) BSc PhD (UK) Crop geneticist Professor Neil C. Turner (Australia) FTSE, FAIAST, FNAAS (India), BSc, PhD, DSc (Australia) Crop physiologist Dr Roger Turner (UK) BSc PhD, MBPR (UK) Agronomist Advisor to the board Dr John Bingham CBE, FRS, FRASE, ScD (UK) Crop geneticist WORLD AGRICULTURE 1

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contents

In this Issue ...

Editorials: Is there a problem?

5 Robert Cook

Developments in East Africa

6 Professor Sir Colin Spedding

The complexities of global fertilizer use

7-8 Professor Denis Murphy

Economics of agriculture

9-10 Professor Sir John Marsh Reply to Sir John Marsh Philip Bicknell

Scientific: Australia’s Water Reform, with especial reference to the Murray Darling Basin

11-18 Dr John C Radcliffe, AM

Cover image: Nevada desert sage brush and wheat at sunset.

Climate change and food security of India: adaptation 20-26 strategies for the irrigation sector Professor P.K.Aggarwal, Professor K. Palanisami, Dr M. Khanna and Dr K.R.Kakumanu The Advent of Nanotechnology in Smart Fertiliser 27-31 Dr Nilwala Kottegoda, Ms Imalka Munaweera, Mr Nadeesh Madusanka, Mr Dinaratne Sirisena, Dr Nimal Dissanayake, Professor Gehan A. J. Amaratunga and Professor Veranja Karunaratne

Economic & Social: Another Reform? Proposals for the post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy

32-37 Professor Alan Swinbank

Sustainable farming – stepping up to the challenge 38-44 Dr Andrea Graham, Tom Hind, Dr Philip Bicknell Dairying: a British project to develop a more sustainable future 45-49 Andy Richardson, Dr Jessica Cooke and Dr Richard Kirkland

Books and Report Reviews: Ed. Bourne & Collins Hook to Plate: the state of Marine Fisheries; a Commonwealth Perspective

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Letters to the Editor Publisher’s Disclaimer No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical standards, inclusion in this publication does not constitute a guarantee, or endorsement of the quality or value of such product by the Publisher, or of the claims made by the manufacturer.

Cocktail effects of pesticides, Response to a letter by Christopher Jones, WA Vol. 2, No. 2.Dr David Hughes 50

Instructions to contributors

51-52

Potential future articles

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World Agriculture: A peer-reviewed, scientific review journal directed towards opinion formers, decision makers, policy makers and farmers

objectives and functions of the Journal The Journal will publish articles giving clear, unbiased and factual accounts of development in, or affecting, world agriculture. Articles will interpret the influence of related subjects (including climate, forestry, fisheries and human population, economics, transmissible disease, ecology) on these developments. Fully referenced, and reviewed, articles by scientists, economists and technologists will be included with editorial comment. Furthermore, a section for “Opinion & Comment” allows skilled individuals with considerable experience to express views with a rational basis that are argued logically.

References to papers that have been subject to peer-review will not be mandatory for this section. From time to time the Editor will invite individuals to prepare articles on important subjects of topical and international concern for publication in the Journal.

Articles will be independently refereed. Each article must create interest in the reader, pose a challenge to conventional thought and create discussion. Each will: 1) Explain likely consequences of the directions that policy, or development, is taking. This will include interactive effects of climate change, population growth and distribution, economic and social factors, food supplies, transmissible disease evolution, oceanic changes and forest cover. Opinion, in the “Opinion & Comment” Section must be based on sound deductions and indicated as such. Thus, an important objective is to assist decision-makers and to influence policies and methods that ensure development is evidence-based and proceeds in a more “sustainable” way. Without a clear understanding of the economic causes of the different rates of agricultural development in developing and developed countries and of migration rates between continents rational policies may not be developed. Hence, the role of economics must be understood and contribute an important part in the discussion of all subjects.

2) Provide independent and objective guidance to encourage the adoption of technical innovations and new knowledge.

3) Discourage false short-sighted policies and loose terminology, e.g. “organic”, “genetically modified”, “basic”, “sustainable”, “progress” and encourage informed comment on policies of governments and NGOs. 4) Indicate the essential role of wild-life and climate, not only in the context of agricultural and forestry development, but by maintaining environmental balance, to ensure the sustenance and enjoyment of all.

5) Summarise specific issues and draw objective conclusions concerning the way agriculture should develop and respond in the location/region of each enterprise, to evolving factors that inevitably affect development.

6) Promote expertise, for advising on world agricultural development and related subjects.

7) Allow interested readers to comment by “Letters to the Editor” and by “Opinion & Comment” columns.

8) Provide book and report reviews of selected works of major significance.

9) To include a wide range of commercial advertisements and personal advertisements from advisors and consultant groups.

Near drought conditions challenge spring soybean crops. (Glycine max)

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editorials

Is there a problem?

Robert Cook

W

hen the leaders of the six core nations of the European Economic Community (EEC) established the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) they did so against a background of the periodic starvation of their peoples and the wish to avoid future military conflict in Europe. At that time, almost 60 years ago,the agriculture in Europe was far less intensive than today and yields were substantially lower. The industry operated on principles which today would be described as ‘Organic’, simply because the innovations of weed control, crop protection and fertiliser use were in their infancy and not available to the vast majority of farmers. Indeed, in 1946, the average yield of wheat in Britain was a little over 2 t/ha, the same as it had been in the 1800s. Today, yields have reached a plateau with the national average at about 8 t/ha.

The CAP was set up to encourage farmers to produce food, to support production and to ensure that the people of those six nations would not go hungry again. In the intervening years, as the EEC evolved into the European Union (EU),those essential principles have remained unchanged.

During this time yields of all commodities have increased, owing to plant breeding (which has increased wheat yields by about 3% each year since 1950 in Britain) whilst improvements to field drainage, nitrogen fertilizers and crop protection have been applied to all crops. The basic principles of the CAP were retained to control what was perceived to be the unacceptable high yields of dairy products and cereals when quotas and set aside were introduced, during the 1980s and 1990s, as mechanisms to restrict production.

There is little doubt that the CAP is primarily responsible for the well fed nature of the largely urban population of the EU. The plentiful supplies of food and improved economic well-

being have created a population which is not only increasingly remote from the basics of food production, but also nostalgic for what is perceived to be a lost rural idyll. At the same time there seems to be increasing antagonism to using any crop protection products to help improve yields. In the last 60 years the population of the EU area has also grown, with consequent demands on the ‘countryside’ for additional infrastructure, new towns and industry/business parks to provide homes and employment. A consequence of these pressures has been an increasing fragmentation of the rural environment. This has led to rising human pressures on the remaining open spaces. No doubt these pressures have helped accelerate the decline in habitat and wildlife, so obvious across much of Europe, for which farmers so often get the sole blame.

There is a further factor; as affluence has increased there is more leisure time, so more public access to, and consequent unrecognized pressure on, the ‘countryside’. Importantly, a benefit of the affluence and leisure is more appreciation of the need to preserve habitats and wildlife. The increasing numbers of people who support conservation charities provide a good illustration of the point. This is not restricted to Europe, for example, the numbers of native Indians visiting tiger reserves has increased substantially as the economy has developed in the last 15-20 years.

These important points carry a warning. The world faces a dire crisis of food needs in the next few decades.

As articles in this journal have shown, there is little more land we can bring into cultivation to produce the extra food we need. There is no doubt some food can come from improvements in distribution networks to reduce the post-harvest losses, estimated by FAO to be almost 40%.

The food and agriculture industries

recognize the need for a technical revolution so that more yield per unit area can be produced at lower cost, if the challenges ahead are to be met.

In recent years there has been a revolution in the understanding of molecular genetics. This has led to substantial improvements in medical diagnostics, treatments, drug development and forensic science.

Advanced biotechnology is well established as part of the medical scene. In agriculture, advances in biotechnology are exploited throughout the world, except in Europe, where production is restricted to a small number of crops in a small number of countries. There is an extraordinary irony, some may suggest hypocrisy, that in order to feed our farm animals we in Europe need to import soya and maize supplies which benefit from advanced biotechnology; but we will not let our farmers grow the crops themselves. It is fair to ask why there is the contrast in European attitudes, between widespread adoption of advanced technology in medicine, and a refusal to adopt the practice where food is concerned. If the farming industry is to meet our production needs in the next 25 years without increased resources and with a changing climate it can be argued we need to explore all the technologies at our disposal. Perhaps we need to reassess public attitudes to science and ethics and explore these issues in our schools as well as in open debate.

Maybe it is also time for plant scientists to affirm how similar the understanding of, and systems in, animals and plants are and how appropriate technologies may be able to help us improve crop yields and quality as they have helped in medicine.

We in World Agriculture recognize the challenges Man and his environment face. We welcome the debate and the need for decisions to be based on sound evidence rather than hearsay or uninformed opinion.

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editorials

Developments in East Africa Sir Colin Spedding

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ecently there have been two important developments in East Africa and both have involved Dr Christie Peacock, one of our Board members.

First, Farm Africa has set up Sidai Africa Ltd, with Christie as Chairman, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sidai (Massai for “Good”) Africa Ltd is Africa’s first livestock franchising social enterprise and has potential to become applicable in all developing

countries. The immediate objective is to establish, over the next four years, 150 centres in Kenya to provide affordable livestock services to livestock keepers in rural areas. Each centre will provide access to all the products, services and advice that they need to effectively protect and invest in their most valuable assets.

The importance of this development has been recognised by the award of a Global Fellowship to Christie by Ashoka, the world’s leading network of social entrepreneurs, described as

Glyricedia Sepium Species found in Sri Lanka (14). See page 30 for details.

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“extraordinary changemakers”. It has so far elected over 2,700 social entrepreneurs in 70 countries and Salim Mohamed, Ashoka’s Representative for East Africa, welcoming Christie Peacock’s innovative model, said, “We believe that this idea, in Christie’s hands, is really going to spread throughout East Africa.”

World Agriculture is delighted to congratulate Christie on her award and is pleased to help publicise these important developments.

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editorials

The complexities of global fertilizer use Denis Murphy

M

ost people, including many scientists, seem to believe that worldwide consumption of fertilizers is continually increasing in an unsustainable and environmentally damaging way. This view is particularly prevalent at the present time with farmers striving to increase crop yields to feed expanding world populations.

Because the availability of the key nutrients, nitrogen, phosphate and potassium (NPK), is often rate limiting for plant growth, it seems obvious that the steady increase in most crop yields that has taken place since the 1960s must involve a proportionate increase in NPK fertilizer use. This belief in a global crisis of ever-increasing fertilizer use is one of the key arguments used against modern intensive agriculture.

In reality, however, the true situation is much more complex and multifaceted than suggested by this rather simplistic viewpoint. According to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (1), fertilizer use varies greatly in different parts of the world but in regions with relatively mature intensive farming systems (e.g. Europe and USA) fertilizer consumption has levelled off or even decreased relative to crop yield over the past two decades. In contrast, in less agriculturally mature regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, fertilizer consumption is still only a tiny fraction of Western levels and urgently needs to be increased to provide food security to their rapidly expanding populations (2).

Historically speaking, farmers have used various organic and non-organic fertilizers since the dawn of agriculture over ten thousand years ago. Organic materials such as manure, seaweed, and guano are rich sources of NPK, while non-organic chemicals such as lime are often essential to enable crops to be grown on the acid soils that are found in many parts of the world.

Indeed the cultivation of soils in much of upland Europe depended (and still depends) on the liberal use of inorganic lime as a fertilizer. In terms of food production one of the greatest

advances of the modern era was the invention of methods for the inexpensive manufacture of inorganic NPK fertilizers. A second key advance was the breeding of crops able to respond to such fertilizers by increasing grain yield rather than simply making more inedible vegetative biomass such as stalks and leaves.

In particular, the development of semi-dwarf cereal cultivars, and their use with fertilizers as part of the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, enabled developing countries in Asia to triple or quadruple production of key staple crops such as rice and wheat. However, this involved a concomitant increase in fertilizer use and annual global consumption rose from 27 million tonnes in 1960 to over 144 million tonnes in the late 1980s (3). While this increased application of chemical fertilizers undoubtedly underpinned the production of cheaper and more plentiful food in regions that were hitherto at serious risk of famine, there have also been some downsides to fertilizer use. For example, in some developing countries even the relatively modest cost of fertilizers was beyond the reach of the poorest farmers who were therefore unable to participate fully in the yield gains of the Green Revolution. Ironically, in richer countries the same fertilizers were relatively cheap, which has sometimes led to their overuse causing runoff of surplus fertilizer and pollution of watercourses.

So why has global fertilizer consumption decreased in relation to crop yield in recent years? There are several factors involved. Firstly, much of the initial decline in fertilizer use in the 1990s was due to the collapse of the state farming system in the former Soviet Union that used fertilizers wastefully and inefficiently. This was followed in many regions by improved management of fertilizer application as part of an increasing consciousness that its excessive use could be environmentally damaging. For

example, many commercial farmers now use satellite imaging to direct fertilizer only to those parts of their land where it is most required. In recent years, these and other measures to reduce fertilizer use have been made even more necessary by the dramatic rise in prices, mainly due to higher energy and commodity prices.

In 2008-09, fertilizer prices more than doubled in many regions and although they subsequently decreased to some extent, prices are likely to keep rising in the foreseeable future.

Today, fertilizer use is in relative decline in those parts of the world where more intelligent management measures are used to apply it to cropland. However, there are a few regions, most notably China, where fertilizer overuse is still a major problem. In contrast, in much of subSaharan Africa fertilizer use remains far too low and is one of the main causes of food insecurity and environmental degradation in the region. For example, data from the China Agricultural University show that farmers in Northern China use about 588 kg/ha nitrate fertilizer in contrast to the 7 kg/ha used in the mineral deficient soils of West Africa (4). Part of the problem in China is the maintenance of low prices by government subsidy, which means that farmers tend to overuse their cheap fertilizers. The problem in Africa is exactly the opposite. Here, intelligent measures are urgently needed to promote fertilizer use, which, as shown above, is as little as one percent of the use in major agricultural areas of China.

The environmental consequences of fertilizer underuse in Africa were highlighted in an international report showing that between 2000 and 2005, forests were cut down at a rate of 4 million hectares per year, mainly due to the need for more cropland to sustain growing populations (5). If African farmers had access to modest amounts of fertilizer (much less than is consumed in developed countries) the resulting increased crop yields would

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editorials

An aerial view of circular pivot farming in the American southwest. have made it unnecessary to destroy these irreplaceable forests. Although fertilizer subsidies were introduced in Africa during the 1980s, these had limited impact often due to poor targeting or mismanagement and most programmes have now been suspended in the context of economic liberalization. However, the potential impact of carefully targeted support of fertilizer use was demonstrated by the actions of the government of Malawi who brought back limited subsidies (against the strong advice of most Western aid donors) after a series of

References 1. FAO (2011) Current world fertilizer trends and outlook to 2015, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, ftp://ftp.fao.org/ag/agp/docs/cwfto1 5.pdf 2. Hernandez MA and Torero M (2011) Fertilizer Market Situation, Market Structure, Consumption and Trade Patterns, and Pricing Behavior, IFPRI Discussion Paper 01058, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publi

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poor harvests in 2001-06. The effect was dramatic as maize yields more than doubled enabling this very poor landlocked country to move from chronic dependence on food aid to being a food exporter within a single year (6).

In conclusion, the world is very far from experiencing a runaway increase in fertilizer use. In many, but not all, regions fertilizer use is in relative decline thanks to improved management methods. However, the most important message is that agriculture in Africa urgently needs cations/ifpridp01058.pdf 3. Bumb BL and Baanante CA (1996) World trends in fertilizer use and projections to 2020, IPFRI Brief 38, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/file s/publications/vb38.pdf 4. Vitousek PM et al (2009) Nutrient Imbalances in Agricultural Development, Science 324, 15191520 5. Bationo A (2006) African soils, their productivity and profitability of

schemes to facilitate increased fertilizer use in targeted areas in order for crop yields to increase to global levels. Such measures should form an indispensable element of future strategies to promote food security in this rich and diverse continent, which will experience the most rapid population growth during the remainder of the 21st century.

Denis Murphy, Professor of Biotechnology, University of Glamorgan, UK and Biotechnology Advisor, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. fertilizer use, background paper for African Fertilizer Summit, Abuja, Nigeria, African soils, http://tropag.ei.columbia.edu/sitefile s/file/African%20soils%20Their%20p roductivity%20and%20profitability %20of%20fertilizer%20use.pdf 6. Wiggins S and Brooks (2010) The Use of Input Subsidies in Developing Countries, Global Forum on Agriculture, Policies for Agricultural Development, Poverty Reduction and Food Security, OECD, Paris, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/50/35/463 40359.pdf

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editorials

The economics of agriculture as viewed from the perspectives of the NFU, the UK, the EU and the world Sir John Marsh

E

very person is affected by how we use our natural resources. There are competing claims but none is more significant than the need to provide an adequate, reliable food supply.

This edition includes a substantial article from the viewpoint of the National Farmers Union of the UK. This paper will generate interest across the whole community of those who share a concern with the issues. We look forward to hearing their response.

The authors’ perception of the challenges and opportunities facing farmers includes a great deal of common ground among all those with an interest in the use of farm land.

There are, of course, other priorities that may influence policy and will play a part in the development of agriculture. In this editorial several of the issues that might be further explored are briefly mentioned.

Food security issues are less about the production of food than about the factors that determine how it is distributed. The total amount of food currently produced would, if evenly spread; provide sufficient nutrition for everyone.

People starve because they cannot access food, because they cannot afford it or because they lack other entitlements within the family or through public social security. In some cases the poverty of public infrastructure, economic, physical and political, makes it impossible to move food from areas of surplus to places where people are hungry. Producing

more food in wealthy countries does not resolve these problems.

Farmers are in a relatively weak bargaining position compared with their major customers: food processors, multiple retailers and mass caterers. From the viewpoint of efficient resource use, and thus sustainable production, the efficiency of these businesses is critical, as it employs many more people than farming and contributes much more to GDP. Central to keeping their costs down has been their competition with each other. Part of that is inescapably pressure on their suppliers including farmers. The critical test is not just about efficiency on the farm but efficiency in the food system as a whole.

There is an agreed need for government to monitor competitiveness. Inhibiting monopolistic behaviour is fundamental to the health of the whole economy, but this is not a case for discrimination in favour of farmers or small businesses. Worryingly competition policy cannot be effectively pursued by a single nation.

Given the increasingly multinational nature of major industrial and financial enterprises there is a need that a common understanding of what is required should form part of negotiations about international trade as its importance in the economic life of the world grows.

The authors make a strong case for the support of research that can

increase the productivity of farms. The same case applies to the whole food chain.

This is more than a focus on transmission to UK businesses, it applies across the world food system, embracing large and small units and is fundamental to the development of better policy.

From the viewpoint of specific businesses such as farms, the application of research may be a two edged sword.

It can enhance the ability of competitors in other parts of the world to penetrate UK markets as well as enhance the capacity of some, but not all, farm businesses, to lower cost.

The development of research is fundamentally a public good; the management of the changes it enforces, make appropriate social and developmental policies a public responsibility.

As new technologies are applied, one of the common tendencies is for the size of unit to increase as that at which they may be most efficiently used. From a national viewpoint what is needed is sufficient flexibility in the structure of farm resources to allow prompt adaptation.

In practice the dominance of owner occupancy and the tax privileges accorded to farmers tend to impede such a process. Many farmers are finding ingenious ways of sharing resources and enterprises in ways that overcome such rigidity but the process still lags behind the

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editorials economic imperative.

Current proposals for CAP reform are a matter of concern for all Europeans. The authors identify some of the areas in which what is envisaged will make us all poorer.

The discrimination against large enterprises, the proposal to impose common detailed regulation on land use is rightly seen as inefficient.

On the other hand, and understandably, they want to continue to be paid for not doing damage to the environment - a case where regulation may be a more efficient use of public funds than subsidy.

This discussion is confused because of the conflicting impacts of specific proposals on EU member countries and profound differences in the valuation of the natural and social environment that co-exist within the Community.

The authors rightly stress the impact of volatility upon farm and other agricultural businesses. Wisely they look to the development of more accessible financial instruments through which farmers can share the risks that are inescapable in markets

‘The development of research is fundamentally a public good; the management of the changes it enforces, make appropriate social and developmental policies a public responsibility.’ where supply is variable and demand relatively inelastic.

This is an encouraging line of thought, it might be strengthened by a discussion of how past government policies, such as the CAP, intended to insulate domestic farmers from world markets have magnified price volatility there and frustrated the development of such instruments.

There is no cry likely to win more support among farmers than a call for fair treatment within the EU. They see how some member countries apply common rules in ways that are more beneficial to their own farmers.

However, the UK government looks at fairness not just in terms of parity with continental farmers but in terms of the distribution of costs and benefits across the whole UK economy.

At that level it manipulates the application of CAP rules in ways that minimise additional cost to the UK Budget and is concerned with economic development at the level of the whole UK economy and regional and rural development.

Its perspective on development is much broader than the CAP or the NFU's at the level of the whole UK Economy and at regional and rural development as areas of political concern that affects the whole rural economy, not just agriculture.

This article is greatly to be welcomed. It gives us a clear insight into the current concerns and understanding of the UK’s leading farming organisation.

At the same time it opens the debate for others to contribute in ways that can enrich the dialogue and enhance the development of policy here and in the EU.

Response to Editorial by John Marsh.

Professor Sir John Marsh may be correct in asserting that food security is currently an issue of inequitable distribution, reflecting a range of socio-economic and geographic pressures.

However, these are not easy to solve and it appears highly likely to us that a significant global production response will be required to meet the inevitable growth in demand for food.

Prof Marsh’s views on competition policy reflect an Anglo-centric view that has been sorely tested by the economic turmoil that has beset global financial markets.

Whilst one can subscribe to market economics, equally in order to ensure that both the private and public goods from agriculture can be delivered in the future, we believe firmly a reconfiguration of global supply chains will be necessary.

The economic contribution of food supply chains is utterly dependent on the production of primary raw materials from agriculture.

It is impossible to disassociate the economic benefits of food manufacturing from production especially in view of the high transport cost and perishability of many primary agricultural materials.

Philip Bicknell, Chief Economist ,NFU.

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scientific

Australia’s Water Reform, with especial reference to the Murray Darling Basin John C Radcliffe, AM, Chair, Water Forum, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering c/- Private Bag 2, Glen Osmond, South Australia 5064 john.radcliffe@csiro.au Summary Australia initiated a water reform process in 1994 with the agreement between the Commonwealth and States/Territories governments followed by the Intergovernmental Agreement on the National Water Initiative, in 2004.

The rights for water have been separated from land titles and are separately tradable instruments, so that both permanent water access and temporary water allocations can be traded. Water resource management has been separated from provision of water supply services. Water trading during the later stages of Australia’s “Millenium drought” (20022010) showed that trading had brought significant economic benefits. However, in developing a new Plan for the management of water within the Murray Darling Basin, the principal agricultural irrigation basin in Australia, it is proving difficult to identify an appropriate balance between water for irrigated agriculture and water for the environment while maintaining a base river flow. The sought objective is to ensure that the Basin’s rivers are maintained as “healthy working rivers”.

Keywords: Water resources, irrigation, climate change, water entitlement, water allocation, water trading, groundwater, wetlands.

Glossary base flow: the longer-term discharge derived from natural storages, often assumed to be groundwater discharge from shallow unconfined aquifers.

Basin States: Those states and territories of Australia within which parts of the Murray Darling Basin are located, viz New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory.

Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder: A statutory position responsible for the management of the Commonwealth Government’s portfolio of water assets (water entitlements) and the accumulated annual yield of water (allocations) against those entitlements.

Commonwealth of Australia: The Australian government, established by the federation of the six former Australian colonies from January 1, 1901 under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (Imp), an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The current six states and two territories have their own legislatures, the division of powers between the Australian government and the states and territories having been determined by the Australian constitution.

Council of Australian

Governments: A council comprising the Prime Minister as chair, the Premiers of the states, the Chief Ministers of the territories and one representative of the Australian Local Government Association. dryland: Agricultural lands on which crops and pastures are grown dependant on natural rainfall without recourse to irrigation.

National Water Commission: A statutory authority established under the National Water Commission Act 2004 (Cwlth) to advise CoAG and the Australian Government on national water issues and the progress of the National Water Initiative.

Prescription: A process introduced under legislation when the level of water use in an area indicates that regulatory control is needed to secure sustainable management and to support water dependent ecosystems.

Standing Council on Environment and Water: A council of Ministers established following the 2010 review of the ministerial council system. It considers matters of national significance on environment and water issues. The Standing Council on Environment and Water comprises Commonwealth, state, territory and the New Zealand environment and water ministers and the Australian

Local Government Association. It meets approximately six monthly, replacing the previous Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council and the Environment Protection and Heritage Council.

Water access entitlement: A perpetual, or ongoing, entitlement to exclusive access to a share of water from a specified consumptive pool, as defined in the relevant water plan accredited by the appropriate level of government. It constitutes a tradable property right.

Water allocation: The specific volume of water allocated to a water access entitlement in a given season, calculated from, and often expressed as, a percentage of the full water entitlement.

Water bore: a bore, well or excavation, usually constructed by a licensed bore or well driller, used for the purpose of inspection, interception, collection, storage or extraction of groundwater.

Water entitlement reliability: the frequency with which water allocated under a water access entitlement is able to be supplied in full.

(Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania each have a system for defining higher and lower reliability water products.)

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scientific Abbreviations ACCC Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; ACT Australian Capital Territory; AUD Australian dollars; BoM Bureau of Meteorology; CEWH Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder; CoAG Council of Australian Governments; CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation; DSEWPaC Commonwealth Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities; GL gigalitre (109 litres); IIO irrigation infrastructure operator; MDB Murray Darling Basin; MDB IGA Murray Darling Basin Intergovernmental Agreement; MDBA Murray Darling Basin Authority; MDBC Murray Darling Basin Commission; NSW New South Wales; NT Northern Territory; NWI Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative; SA South Australia; SCEW Standing Council on Environment and Water; WA Western Australia.

Introduction

A

ustralia is a geologically old, relatively flat, continent with extensive areas of desert and semi-desert. There is high rainfall variability within and between seasons and a high evaporation rate, with a risk of droughts and floods.

It presents a microcosm of global water governance issues as its states face the same jurisdictional difficulties as sovereign nations sharing water resources, because responsibility for water resources is a matter for state governments, not the Australian (Commonwealth) government.

Management of water resources was retained by the states at the time of establishing the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, under clause 100 of the constitution (1).

The distribution of rainfall is shown in Figure 1. The principal areas of precipitation are the eastern coast, where the majority of the population resides, and in the sub-tropical latitudes across sparsely settled northern Australia.

Rainfall is uneven.

On average, only 12% of rainfall runs off to collect in rivers: in five of Australia's 12 drainage divisions, runoff is less than 2%; in the two drainage divisions of tropical monsoonal divi-

sions of Timor Sea and Gulf of Carpentaria, run-off is greater than 20%. The remaining 88% of rainfall is accounted for by evaporation, water used by vegetation; and water held in storages including natural lakes, wetlands and groundwater aquifers (Figure 1) (2). The principal surface water basin used for irrigated agriculture is the Murray Darling Basin (MDB), shown in Figure 2. Approximately 6 % of its rainfall runs off and about 51% of that is used for consumptive purposes for industry, irrigation and stock and domestic use (4).

The Murray and Darling rivers and their tributaries have highly variable flows. Over the past 100 years, the Basin’s agricultural base has been transformed from a low intensity, volatile dry land to a more intensive, mixed irrigation and dryland system.

The Murray-Darling Basin generates 39% of Australia’s agricultural production by value and approximately 40% is irrigated (15% of national agricultural output). Production of agricultural commodities now represents 93.7% of land use across the Basin, 32% of businesses and 10.8% of national employment (Figure 2) (5). Australia’s highly variable rainfall makes it difficult to determine any specific local response to global warming, but there is evidence of the potential impact of possible climate change in recent rainfall trends. Figure 3 shows a decline in mean annual rainfall expressed in ten

Figure 1: Distribution of Average Annual Rainfall, Australia 1961-1990 (2)

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Figure 2: The Murray Darling Basin (CSIRO). year increments for the period 1970 to 2010 over much of eastern Australia and south-west Western Australia (6).

This decline in rainfall affected urban water catchments and household water consumption of all capital cities except Darwin, as well as affecting production agriculture (Figure 3).

The Southern Oscillation index, lead-

Figure 3: Trend in annual rainfall (millimetres per ten years) between 1970 and 2010 (5). ing to drought when in the El Nino phase and to floods in the La Nina phase, has attracted much attention.

From 2002 to 2009, southern Australia was subjected to the “Millenium drought”, while during the La Nina condition of 2011-12, high rainfall and floods were widely experienced in southern and eastern Australia. These events have focussed the minds of water policy makers. Irrigation water rights and water resource management have emerged as major policy issues for governments in the past twenty years.

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scientific The commencement of irrigation schemes Formal irrigation commenced on the River Murray, Australia’s principal river, at Renmark and Mildura in 1887, using technologies imported from California.

It was recognised within Australia from the late nineteenth century that water resources were limited and varied widely between seasons, so a policy of sharing available water proportionately has long been adopted (7).

Various irrigation schemes were established after World War I and World War II for the settlement of discharged ex-servicemen, who aspired to farming although inevitably as production efficiency has improved, these holdings became inadequate in size.

Some water resource management units, either for surface water or ground water, were prescribed and entitlements defined, though the potential for interconnection between surface and groundwater went largely unnoticed.

In many other areas, access to water was governed by traditional riparian rights. Dams were built in other locations by governments, usually on a basis of encouraging “nation building, closer settlement and economic development”, often as a result of electoral commitments rather than any direct benefit: cost appraisal.

Regulating the River Murray After the severe 1914-15 drought and following 13 years of negotiation, the Commonwealth, NSW, Victoria and South Australia developed the Murray Waters Agreement.

This led to the creation of the River

Murray Commission in 1915, to manage and regulate the volumes of water in the system. Plans were agreed to ensure reliable and economical river transport (almost immediately rendered redundant by advances in railways and motor transport) and to share the water.

The plans were to construct a major storage on the Upper Murray, to build Lake Victoria to control flows to South Australia, to construct 26 weirs and locks between Echuca and Blanchetown on the River Murray, (only locks 1-11, 15 and 26 were built), and to construct others on the Murrumbidgee or Darling rivers. The plans would also coordinate the construction of water storages and locks to regulate the rivers.

The states within the Murray Darling Basin took different approaches to irrigation water, depending upon water availability and seasonal conditions.

Two classes of water reliability have evolved in New South Wales and Victoria. A high-reliability entitlement may receive a 100% water allocation against its unit share during all but the most severe droughts. High-reliability entitlements are allocated water first, before any water is allocated to entitlements belonging to a lower reliability category. New South Wales has a small proportion of irrigation water with “higher reliability” which is more suitable for perennial plantings such as horticultural tree crops, grapes and perennial pastures for dairy and beef production and a large proportion of “lower reliability” irrigation water which is primarily used for growing annual crops (cereals, rice, and cotton).

Victoria has a greater proportion of high reliability water which has encouraged dairying in that state. All

Figure 4: Classes of water entitlements in the Basin States, expressed in GL (109 litres) at 100% allocation (8).

South Australia’s irrigation water is at the same level of reliability and is predominantly used for perennial crops.

Queensland irrigators operate on unregulated rivers and are permitted to capture water into their own holding tanks and dams according to rules that apply during periods of high flow.

The distribution of these arrangements is illustrated in figure 4. Water for essential human needs in the main cities and towns is provided by state or local government owned water agencies.

A restructured Murray Darling Basin Commission During the 1980s, it was recognised that water quality needed to be managed and its importance in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services was recognised.

Most states had established environment protection authorities. In the late 1980s, the management of the Murray Darling Basin was restructured by the establishment of a new Murray Darling Basin Commission whose responsibilities extended to encompass water, land and the environment. Ministers from all of these portfolio areas participated in a Ministerial Council chaired by the Commonwealth.

Strategies were developed for managing aspects of water quality in the Basin. A salinity strategy recognised the natural entry of saline groundwater into the river as well as salinity deriving from excessive irrigation which leached salts into the river.

Although a subsidy on phosphate use had been removed in 1973, there was increasing use of nitrogen fertilisers which led to non-point pollution and periodic algal blooms. A series of salt interception bores (wells) was established adjacent to the river in downstream South Australia and saline groundwater was pumped to sacrificial evaporation basins, partly to offset increasing upstream salinity.

In addition, by coordinating releases of water from various dams and reservoirs, a water quality standard of less than 800 electro-conductivity (EC) units expressed as μS/cm (microsiemens per centimetre) at Morgan, South Australia, was to be achieved 95% of the time. This integrated approach to salinity management has generally been successful.

At the same time, irrigators were being encouraged to adopt “improved irrigation practices”. Most irrigation had involved flood systems using siphons from irrigation channels.

Growers began to laser level the bays in which flood irrigation water was applied to ensure an even advance of

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scientific the irrigation front, and relatively even applications of water across the irrigation landscape. Return of excess irrigation water (“tail water”) became prohibited. Meanwhile, large overhead sprinklers, which rarely supplied water evenly, were being replaced by undertree microsprinklers or drip systems.

Sub-surface drippers were also introduced in some cropping systems such as for cotton, though their high installation cost, constraints on row spacing of subsequent crops and difficulties of maintenance, especially where chewed by mice, have limited their adoption.

The initiation and development of Water Reform policies The Council of Australian Governments (CoAG), agreed in 1992 to establish a National Competition Policy and commissioned an Independent Committee of Inquiry (9) which led to a programme of economic reforms.

In 1994, CoAG agreed to a range of water resource policy proposals to arrest widespread natural resource degradation occasioned, in part, by water use. A package of measures, known as the 1994 Water Reform Agenda (10), was adopted to address the economic, environmental and social implications of future water reform. States were to give priority to formally determining entitlements and allocations to water, including for the environment.

Among other major aspects were the principles of consumption-based pricing, full-cost recovery and desirably of the removal of cross-subsidies, to be achieved for rural water supplies by 2001; establishment of comprehensive systems of water entitlements and allocations, backed by separation of water property rights from land title and the clear specification of entitlements in terms of ownership, volume, reliability, transferability and, if appropriate, quality. Environmental requirements, wherever possible, would be determined on the best scientific information available to maintain the health and viability of river systems and groundwater basins.

In cases where river systems were perceived to be over-allocated for consumptive use, arrangements were to be instituted by 1998 to provide a better balance in water resource use, including appropriate water to restore the health of river systems.

The roles of water resource management, standard setting, regulatory enforcement and service provision were to be separated so that water delivery organisations would have a commercial focus.

Water policy issues were then addressed nationally through six-

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monthly meetings of the Ministers responsible for water resources from the six state governments and two territories, along with the responsible Australian (Commonwealth) government Minister who chaired the meetings of what is now called the Standing Council for Environment and Water (SCEW).

Policy papers and proposals are prepared for the Ministerial Council by a committee of officers, which earlier had included members from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, but that is now restricted to individuals from the respective water resources departments of the Commonwealth, states and territories.

Subordinate bodies and working parties are commissioned to address specific issues, for example the development of guideline documents within the National Water Quality Management Strategy that encompass topics such as the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, National Guidelines for Water Recycling – Managing Health and Environmental Risks, and Australian Guidelines for Water Recycling: Managing Health and Environmental Risks (Phase 2): Augmentation of Drinking Water Supplies (11).

The National Water Initiative (NWI) From 2004, the Commonwealth and all states and territories signed a 108 clause non-statutory Intergovernmental Agreement on the NWI. The agreement (12) encompasses implementation clauses on water enti-

tlements, water markets and trading, water pricing, management of environmental water, water accounting, urban water, community partnerships, and knowledge and skills. The National Water Commission was established in March 2005 to assist with the effective implementation of this Agreement, and has undertaken biennial assessments of progress.

The NWI confirmed the rights to surface and groundwater sources being separated from the ownership of land, each having a separate title. The water asset is defined as a water access entitlement, being a perpetual, or ongoing, entitlement to exclusive access to a share of water from a specified consumptive pool as defined in the relevant water plan, accredited by the appropriate government. (The entitlement share in the consumptive pool can be compared with an equity shareholding in a stock-exchange listed company.)

The entitlement may be expressed as a volume at 100% allocation. The consumptive pool is the amount of water resource that can be made available for consumptive use in a given water system (catchment and/or groundwater basin), while ensuring sustainable protection of the natural environment.

The water allocation is the specific volume of water allocated to a water access entitlement in a given season, defined according to rules established in the relevant water plan. The allocation reflects the seasonal availability of water in that year to be shared in proportion to holders’ entitlements within a catchment or groundwater management unit.

Table 1: Water entitlements issued by states, 2010 and the total entitlement volume expressed in gigalitres (GL, 109 litres) on issue in each state at 100% allocation (8)

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scientific This means that in a drought year, all owners of entitlements within a state or territory share the same proportionate reduction in water volume.

Irrigators may have some ability to carry over their allocation of water from one season to another if storage capacity is available.

In an irrigation system, a delivery share is a share of capacity in an irrigation supply channel, or a water course, and may limit the rate at which a water allocation can be accessed. A water use licence defines the purposes for which the water can be used.

Entitlements available in Australia, by state, are shown in Table 1 (8).

Although the Intergovernmental Agreement on the National Water Initiative defined the terms for “entitlement” and “allocation”, the current legislation within the states and territories still uses a variety of terms rather than the agreed NWI-compliant terminology. This can make trading across jurisdictional borders difficult to understand. The range of terms in use in 2011 is shown in Table 2.

Water Trading Water entitlements and allocations, as well as being held by water supply service providers and private owners (usually irrigators or industrial users), can also be provided to environmental managers. Since access to water has become a recognised property right and water is tradeable, governments have established titles registers for water rights and include on the water title any encumbrances, such as a mortgage, over the water resource.

The water titles recognised historical legal access to water and in essence, the original recipient of a title to an existing resource has generally received a “free good” which has acquired a capital value. This may be at the expense of the capital value of the owner’s land which no longer automatically commands access to water.

Where an irrigation infrastructure operator (IIO) holds a bulk water entitle-

Figure 5: Rice production (kilotonnes), rice prices (AUDollars per tonne) and water allocation prices (AUDollars per Megalitre), 2005-6 to 2010-11 (13). ment, the water market rules prohibit actions of an IIO that prevent, or unreasonably delay, irrigators from transforming all or part of their irrigation rights into separate statutory water access entitlements, allowing them to be traded outside the irrigation district if they wish to do so.

“Unallocated” water is vested in the State governments. Where there is unallocated water available, access may be granted by the state on a basis of competitive bids.

Owners of water have the option of selling or leasing some or all of their water allocation in any given season for “temporary transfer” to a buyer at a mutually negotiated price. Trading across state borders has been possible since 2006. Alternatively, the owner of the water can sell the entitlement outright (a “permanent transfer”), in which case his land no longer has access to irrigation water. Market experience during the drought suggested that the price of a “permanent” sale was roughly five to ten times that of a “temporary” sale of one season’s

Table 2: National Water Initiative – equivalent terminology, 30 June 2011 (13)

water. Water brokers facilitate water trades in a comparable manner to stock brokers facilitating trade in equities.

These arrangements have encouraged the transfer of water to its highest value uses. For example, during the drought, rice growers found it more profitable to sell their water allocation rather than grow a rice crop. This is illustrated in Figure 5.

It has been estimated that water trading in the southern Murray-Darling Basin added 220 million AUDollars to Australia's GDP in 2008-09; with net production benefits of AUD 79 million in New South Wales, AUD 16 million in South Australia and AUD 271 million in Victoria (13).

The extent of allocation trading that can occur is shown in Figure 6 for the Southern Murray Darling Basin in 2008-9, which was towards the end of the Millenium drought.

The prices of water entitlement (“permanent”) trading are much less volatile than water allocation (“temporary”) trading. This is to be expected, given the long-term nature of the investment that is made in an entitlement purchase.

The Australian Government has been active in the water market since 2008 through its purchases of entitlements for environmental purposes under the Restoring the Balance in the Murray–Darling Basin programme.

Across the entire MDB, the volume of trade registered as Commonwealth environmental water purchases increased from zero in 2007–08 to a cumulative total of 1 173 GL by November 2011.

The water markets outside the MDB remain relatively small, with a lower

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scientific expansion of commercial forestry plantations and increases in groundwater extraction.

The 18 regions are shown in Figure 7 and the impact of potential climate change in Figure 8. Although a high variability in the estimates was recognised, it was concluded that the greatest impacts of climate change arising from global warming were likely to be felt in the southern and south-western areas of the Basin.

The Basin Plan

Figure 6: Interzone water trading in the Southern Murray Darling Basin, 2008-9 (13) level of trading than those within the Basin. In some areas, there is not yet significant scarcity of water resources.

Rights to unallocated water may still be issued. In other areas, the level of irrigated agricultural development may not be sufficient to support a water market. There is less connectivity, both naturally and engineered, between water systems outside the MDB and market mechanisms such as registers, trading platforms, trade processing systems may not be extant.

Market information may be much less readily available. However, entitlement trading outside the MDB increased to 205 GL in 2010–11 from 131 GL in 2009–10. Increases in entitlement trading occurred in all states except Tasmania, although the increase in trading in Victoria was primarily a result of the inclusion of groundwater entitlement for the first time in 2010–11 (contributing about 27 GL to the Victorian total).

The second scenario was based on the climate of 1997 to 2006, to evaluate the consequences of a long-term continuation of the Millenium drought in south eastern Australia.

The third scenario considered climate change to 2030 using three global warming levels and 15 of the global climate models included in the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (16). The fourth scenario considered likely future development and the 2030 climate. Development included growth in farm dam capacity,

Various intergovernmental agreements have operated in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) since 1915. A new Murray Darling Basin Agreement was given full legal status by the Murray-Darling Basin Act 1993 (Cwth).

This agreement created new institutions to underpin its implementation, including the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC).

After the signing of the NWI, the MDB continued to experience significant stress from the combined impacts of over allocation of water, severe drought and what were perceived as the early impacts of climate change.

There was a marked decline in river health and it was considered necessary to take additional action to return the system to a sustainable footing. The Water Act 2007 (Cwth) was proclaimed to assist implementation of the NWI within the MDB.

The Potential Impact of Climate Change The Millenium drought focussed minds on the potential for climate change.

The then Prime Minister and Basin States Premiers commissioned CSIRO in 2008 to report on sustainable yields of surface and groundwater systems within the MDB. The report from the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project (15), summarised the assessments for 18 regions that comprise the Basin.

Project results were framed around four scenarios of climate and development defined by 111 years of daily climate data. The baseline scenario was the historical climate from mid-1895 to mid-2006 and the current level of water resource development.

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Figure 7: The 18 regions adopted for the Murray Sustainable Yields Study, based on the major tributaries of the MDB, reflecting existing river system models and surface water sharing plan areas (15).

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scientific back on the Proposed Basin Plan over a five month consultation. Over 12, 000 responses had been received by the close of the consultation period, though it must be observed that a high proportion were “campaign submissions” sent in as “form letters”.

It now remains for the Murray Darling Basin Authority to review its Plan before presentation to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities who must then seek approval in the Federal parliament.

Figure 8: The percentage changes in average surface water availability

by Murray Darling Basin region under the median 2030 climate model (15). consumptive purposes was 15 400 GL The Commonwealth gained addiper year, made up of 13 700 GL of surtional responsibilities for water reform face water and 1 700 GL of groundwafollowing the signing of the ter. Reductions of 3 000, 3 500 and 4 Intergovernmental Agreement on 000 GL per year were hypothesised.

Murray Darling Basin Reform (MDB However, the Guide was widely misinIGA) (17) in July 2008 by the terpreted as “The Plan”.

Commonwealth, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia Growers assumed they would comand the Australian Capital Territory pulsorily lose water (the plan actually (the Basin States). proposed the Commonwealth would buy water from willing sellers), and it The Commonwealth agreed to prowas argued that many communities vide assistance to undertake water would be ruined. Numerous meetings projects in the MDB, subject to the were held. While they were generally achievement of agreed outcomes, orderly, there was much press activity effectively subsidising infrastructure including that inducing a group of improvements which may also reduce farmers to burn copies of the Guide. water losses; albeit these subsidies Pre-consultation had been inadequate, dilute the intention of the full-cost the irrigators felt threatened, interprerecovery clauses of the earlier National tation of water reliability differences Water Initiative. was unclear, and there were differing Nevertheless, under the MDB IGA, interpretations of the Water Act 2007. the Commonwealth and the Basin Actual readership and comprehension States reaffirmed their commitment to of the Guide was probably not high. implementing the NWI. The Water Act Subsequently, the incoming 2007 (Cwlth) established two new Chairman of the MDBA visited widely statutory bodies, the Murray Darling around the Basin while the Authority Basin Authority (MDBA), which developed a draft Plan, which was replaced the MDBC and the released for consultation in November Commonwealth Environmental Water 2011. It does not take account of Holder (CEWH). The MDBA was given potential climate change. The formal responsibility for developing an Proposed Basin Plan has the appearenforceable Basin Plan (a high-level ance of a draft Bill for Parliament – a plan to ensure the water resources of daunting format not easily assimilated the MDB can be managed in an inte(19). However, it was accompanied by grated and sustainable way). a well presented Plain English The CEWH was given responsibility Summary of the proposed Basin Plan, for managing the Commonwealth's (20) which included explanatory notes. environmental water holdings, and It suggested an initial reduction in the protecting or restoring environmental “sustainable level of take” of surface assets in the MDB and in other areas waters to 10 873 GL/year, a reduction where environmental water is held. of 2 750 GL/year.

The Australian Competition and Specific reductions were suggested Consumer Commission (ACCC) was in individual catchments, with addigiven responsibilities relating to water tional non-specific reductions sought market and water charge rules. across all catchments to maintain base The MDBA released a Guide to the river flow, though how these figures proposed Basin Plan in October 2010 were determined was not clearly outwhich also took account of potential lined. A review of progress and impleclimate change. The Guide provided mentation mechanisms by 2015 was an overview to assist people to undersuggested, with achievement of implestand the basis of the proposed Basin mentation of the plan by 2019. A webPlan, and the rationale for the propossite was established to receive feedals. The then existing take of water for

Conclusions Central to the development of the Murray Darling Basin as the principal location of Australia’s irrigated agriculture has been the necessity for collaboration and compromise to recognise the needs of the states in the Basin, and the constitutional rights of those states to manage water resources.

As production intensity has increased and land development continued, the states identified the need to move from merely managing the volume of water in the basin to managing its quality, the impact of consumption on the environment, its biodiversity and on land use change. Management has moved from solely a water policy approach to a landscape management approach, albeit often driven by the competitive expectations of the states for water access. Policies have evolved over time.

The apolitical adoption of an agreed set of policy principles in the 1994 Water Reform Agenda and the 2004 Intergovernmental Agreement on the National Water Initiative, along with an audit mechanism through the establishment of the National Water Commission to undertake a biennial assessment of progress in implementing the agreements has provided an underpinning for future water management. However, the implementation of these principles at regional and landholder level has inevitably introduced a political component into the rate of adoption of the principles.

Since the NWI is non-statutory, it is not completely binding on the signatories, and progress can depend on the extent of “rewards and sanctions” that may be available, effectively amounting to encouragement by the Commonwealth through availability of grants. Sanctions had been available to ensure the introduction of water trading over state borders at the time of the first biennial assessment of progressing the commitments to the NWI, with payments to the states having being withheld until functional cross border trading mechanisms were in place. These sanction mechanisms are no longer available. Implementation of different aspects has varied between

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scientific the states/territories, and has fallen well behind the originally announced and ambitious timetable. As well as reviewing the general progress of implementing the NWI, the National Water Commission’s biennial assessments review progress by the individual states and territories (21).

The states have not been particularly appreciative of having to provide advice to the National Water Commission on progress they have been making. An example of differential progress was the obligation for legislative and administrative regimes to be amended to incorporate the elements of the entitlements and allocation framework in the Agreement by the end of 2006. Almost all jurisdictions brought in new legislation, but Western Australia continues to operate with an amended Rights in Water and Irrigation Act 1914 (WA). As of 2011, WA, in terms of NWI clause 26(ii), had not implemented NWI-compliant legislation to provide the statutory basis for water access entitlements (21).

The Commission has expressed its frustration that by 2010, the states had not made substantial progress in adjusting all over-allocated or overused water systems to sustainable levels of

extraction (21). Yet the agreement is still in place, and progress is still being made, but more slowly than anticipated in 2004.

As part of that timetable, the National Water Commission was due to close on 30 June 2012, but as a result of a review (22), it will continue for the life of the NWI. Nevertheless, the NWI principles have not become politicised. The primary benefits of these policies have been the clear definition of rights to water, the recognition of these rights as a capital asset that is separately tradable, and the ability to allow water to move to its highest value uses with economic benefits having been demonstrated.

The principle of sharing the impact of drought on water allocations among entitlement holders has been well established. It is notable that there is virtually no personal litigation industry in Australia dealing with water. The needs of the environment to maintain a base flow in rivers is increasingly being provided.

However, these policies are complex and when efforts have been made to adopt them within the competitive environment of the Basin States, their

implementation can become less than objective. Local self-interest has become a dominant component.

Political and journalistic opportunism has arisen. The states have threatened litigation against each other (but as of April 2012, had yet to implement any such intentions). The underlying implementation must be built on sound science and evidence.

The political realities in a democracy are that the stakeholders, whether water users or environmentalists, as well as the governments must accept the policy objectives, with the economic, social and environmental issues being considered together.

Australia has undertaken a pioneering water reform journey, its progress has been slower than was anticipated, yet there remains an expectation that it will ultimately be successful. The associated political difficulties can be overcome with good will and an understanding of the importance of sound research-based evidence.

The system being developed in the Murray Darling Basin could serve as a guide for other river basins where irrigation needs compete with people and the environment.

References

National Water Commission, Canberra http://nwc.gov.au/publications/topic/markets/water-markets-report-december-2010 (accessed 23 March 2012) (9) Hilmer, FD, Rayner, MR and Taperell, GQ (1993). National Competition Policy, (Australian Government : Canberra) 373pp. http://ncp.ncc.gov.au/docs/HilEx-001.pdf (accessed 18 March 2012) (10) CoAG (1994). Attachment A - Water Resource Policy, Council of Australian Governments' Communiqué, 25 February 1994, http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/1994-0225/docs/attachment_a.cfm (accessed 18 March 2012) (11) Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water Population and Communities (2011). National Water Quality Management Strategy. http://www.environment.gov.au/water/policyprograms/nwqms/#guidelines (accessed 23 March 2012) (12) CoAG (2004) Intergovernmental Agreement on the National Water Initiative http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2004-06-25/index.cfm#nwi (accessed 23 March 2012).

(13) NWC (2011) Australian water markets: trends and drivers 2007–08 to 2010–11.

National Water Commission:Canberra, 87pp, http://www.nwc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/ 0005/18986/NWC_6959-Trends-anddrivers.pdf (accessed 18 March 2012) (14) NWC (2010). The impacts of water trading in the southern Murray–Darling Basin: an economic, social and environmental assessment. National Water Commission, Canberra http://www.nwc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/ 0019/10783/681NWC_ImpactsofTrade_web.pdf (15) CSIRO (2008) Water availability in the Murray–Darling Basin: a report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Murray–Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project, CSIRO : Canberra. http://www.clw.csiro.au/publications/water-

forahealthycountry/mdbsy/pdf/WaterAvailabilit yInTheMDB-FinalReport.pdf (accessed 22 March 2012) (16) IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Basis. Contributions of Working Group 1 to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_asses sment_report_wg1_report_the_physical_science_basis.htm (accessed 25 April 2012) (17) CoAG (2008) Intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2008-0703/docs/Murray_Darling_IGA.pdf (accessed 23 March 2012) (18) MDBA (2010) Guide to the Murray Darling Basin Plan MDBA, Canberra http://download.mdba.gov.au/Guide_to_the_ Basin_Plan_Volume_1_web.pdf (accessed 25 March 2012) (19) MDBA (2011) The Proposed Basin Plan MDBA, Canberra http://download.mdba.gov.au/proposed/proposed_basin_plan.pdf (accessed 25 March 2012) (20) MDBA (2012) Plain English Summary of the proposed Basin Plan MDBA, Canberra. http://download.mdba.gov.au/proposed/plain _english_summary.pdf (accessed 25 March 2012) (21) NWC (2011). The National Water Initiative - securing Australia's water future: 2011 assessment National Water Commission, Canberra http://www.nwc.gov.au/reform/assessing/bien nial/the-national-water-initiative-securing-australias-water-future-2011-assessment (accessed 25 March 2012) (22) Rosalky, D (2012). COAG Review of the National Water Commission, (DSEWPaC, Canberra) http://www.environment.gov.au/water/australia/nwi/pubs/coag-review-national-watercommission.pdf (accessed 16 April 1012)

1) Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (Imp) constituting the Commonwealth of Australia, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/ (accessed March 23 2010) (2) National Land and Water Resources Audit (2000) Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000, NLWRA, Canberra http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/water/pubs/na tional/water_availability.html (accessed April 23 2012) (3) Bureau of Meteorology (2012) Average Annual Rainfall 1960-1990. http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/rainfall/index.jsp (accessed 23 March 2012) (4) National Land and Water Resources Audit (2002) Australia’s Natural Resources 19972002 and beyond, NLWRA, Canberra. http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/publications/fi nal-report/water.html (accessed 23 March 2012) (5) EBC, RMCG, Marsden Jacob Associates, EconSearch, Geoff McLeod, Tim Cummins, Guy Roth and David Cornish, (2011), Community impacts of the Guide to the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan- Executive Summary. Report to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, May 2011. http://www.mdba.gov.au/files/bp-kid/257EBC-Vol1-exec-summary.pdf (accessed 18 March 2011) (6) DSEWPaC (2011) State of Environment 2011 – 3. Climate http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2011/rep ort/atmosphere/2-1-current-state-climate.html (accessed 13 April 2012) (7) Haisman, B. (2005) Impacts of Water Rights Reform in Australia. In Water Rights Reform: Lessons for Institutional Design (Ed Burns, R., Ringler, C. and Meinzen-Dick, R) IPFRI, Washington, DC, USA (8) National Water Commission (2010) Australian Water Markets Report 2009–10 ,

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Climate change and food security of India: adaptation strategies for the irrigation sector P.K.Aggarwal, K. Palanisami1, M. Khanna2 and K.R.Kakumanu1 CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, International Water Management Institute, New Delhi campus-110012, India 1 International Water Management Institute, ICRISAT campus, Hyderabad 502324, India 2 Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-10012, India

Summary Creation of a large irrigation potential has been the cornerstone of India’s agricultural growth and past food security. It is estimated that the irrigation sector in the country will be affected considerably by climate change due to a projected increase in absolute rainfall, intensity of precipitation, glacial-melt and flood, as well as drought events. These changes are projected to modify the supply of both surface and groundwater in each region. Climate change is likely to increase the demand for groundwater to manage increasing intermittent periods of limited water availability.

Simulation studies on Indian river basins have shown that the availability of water in some parts of the country may decrease while there may be an enhanced intensity of floods in other parts of the country. Several adaptation strategies are available for the irrigation sector. These include increasing the availability of usable water by conserving water resources, increasing the recharge and use of industrial and sewage wastewater. Other options are improving the efficiencies for water use, management of groundwater, water transfers between basins, trans-boundary cooperation and the increased use of modern tools in water resource management, such as remote sensing and GIS, and real time weather forecasts. It is concluded that demand management options will have a higher adaptation payoff than supply options.

Key words: Climate change, irrigation, adaptation, India

Introduction The contribution of agriculture and its allied sectors to the Gross Domestic Product of India has decreased to 14.5% in 2010-11, compared with 43% in the 1970s.

However, it still plays a critical role in food production, employment and livelihood security for 58% of people.

After a period of stagnation between 1995 and 2005, agricultural production is now increasing; in 201112, food grain production was close to 250 M tons. It is estimated that the requirement for food grains will

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increase at a higher rate than the rising population and income (1).

Hence the pace of food production must be accelerated.

Climate change is projected to cause significant adverse impacts on the agriculture of tropical regions such India (2, 3).

Combined with increased competition for land, water and labour from non-agricultural sectors, climate change and an associated increase in climatic variability will result in considerable seasonal/annual fluctuations in food production. All agricultural commodities, even today,

are sensitive to climatic variability, such as droughts, floods, tropical cyclones, heavy precipitation events, hot extremes, and heat waves. All these are known to negatively impact agricultural production and farmers’ livelihoods.

There will be an overall reduction in the quantity of available water in the future.

This paper explores the potential impact of climate change on Indian agriculture from the perspective of water management and irrigation need within a diversifying and expanding economy.

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scientific Climate change in India Several studies have shown a warming trend in air temperature during the last few decades. An analysis (4) for the period 1901-2009 showed an increase of mean annual temperature of 0.56°C per 100 years. It also indicated that there was a much higher increase in the post-monsoon and winter season’s temperature (0.7°C to 0.77 °C/100 years) as compared to the monsoon (0.33 °C/100 years) and pre-monsoon season (0.64 °C/100 years). Annual rainfall over India does not show any clear trend of change; however, the winter season rainfall shows a decreasing trend, and the postmonsoon season shows an increasing trend. The frequency of extreme rainfall also increased over the Indian monsoon region during the southwest monsoon (4). This is accompanied by a decreasing trend in smaller rainfall events.

The IPCC has projected that the increase in global mean annual surface air temperature by the end of this century is likely to be in the range of 1.8 to 4.0°C (5). For South Asia, the projections are rises of 0.5 to 1.2°C in mean annual temperature by 2020, 0.88 to 3.16°C by 2050 and 1.56 to 5.44°C by the end of the century, depending on future development including rise in population. Overall, the temperature increases are likely to be much higher in the rabi (winter) season than in the kharif (monsoon) season. It is also likely that hot extremes, and heavy precipitation events will become more frequent.

Most climate models project an increase in the absolute amount of precipitation in future in all months except in the period between December-February, when it is likely to decrease. The increase may, however, be accompanied by heavier precipitation events and fewer rainy days leading to increased frequency of floods and droughts in the region.

Impact of climate change on agriculture Several studies have shown that unless we adapt there is a probability of a 10-40% loss in crop production in India by the end of the century owing to global warming, despite the beneficial aspects of increased atmospheric CO2 (2, 3). There is some evidence that changing climate has already impacted rice and apple yields (2, 3). Projections indicate the possibility of a loss of 4-5 million tons

of wheat for each 1oC temperature rise throughout the growing period (2).

Recent simulation analyses have indicated that rainfed maize, sorghum and rice yields are likely to be adversely affected by the increase in temperature, although increased rainfall and change in management practices can partly offset those losses (6, 7, 8). In general, most of these studies assume no new technology development, and no, or limited, adaptation by all stakeholders.

The projected increase in drought and flood events could result in greater instability in food production and threaten the livelihoods of farmers. This is well-illustrated by the fact that in the recent drought of 2002, 15 Mha of the rainy-season crop area and more than 10% of production was lost. Similar losses were noticed in the 2009 drought.

Increased production variability could perhaps be the most significant effect of climate change on Indian agriculture and food security. The nutritional quality of cereals and pulses may be moderately affected by the increase in temperatures which, in turn, will have consequences for nutritional security.

Small changes in temperature and humidity can affect the virulence of different pests and diseases, so that pest and disease interactions are also likely to change significantly with climate change. This will affect distribution and potential crop losses.

Changes in rainfall, temperature and wind-speed pattern may also influence the migratory behaviour of locusts and other insects.

Climate change and water resources Of the total precipitation of around 4000 km3 in the country, the availability from surface water and replenishable groundwater is estimated at 1869 km3. Owing to variations of topography, and an uneven distribution of rain over space and time, only about 1123 km3, including 690 km3 from surface water, and 433 km3 from groundwater resources can be put to beneficial use (9).

India has twenty river basins, as shown in Figure 1. The 12 major basins have a total catchment area of 2.53 Mkm2. The largest is the GangaBrahamputra-Meghna system, which has an area of about 1.1 Mkm2 (more than 43% of the total catchment area

of all the major rivers in the country).

The other major basins with catchment areas of more than 0.1 Mkm2 are those of the Indus, Mahanadi, Godavari and Krishna.

There are a further 46 medium river basins with catchment areas of between 2000 and 20 000 km2, totalling about 0.25 Mkm2.

Creation of a large irrigation potential has been the cornerstone of India’s agricultural growth and past food security. This will be affected considerably by climate change, as well as by future changes in the effectiveness of irrigation methods (10). Climate change scenarios impact on the hydrological cycle, which, in turn, is likely to result in (i) greater rainfall intensity; (ii) decrease in the number of rainy days; (iii) overall increase in precipitation; (iv) an initial increase in glacial melt and runoff, followed by a decrease; (v) increase in runoff and reduced ground water recharge and (vi) an increase in flood as well as drought events.

These changes will affect the supply of water from inflow from rivers, reservoirs, tanks, ponds and total replenishable groundwater resource.

The predicted increase in precipitation variability, which implies longer drought periods, would lead to an increase in irrigation requirements, even if total precipitation during the growing season remains the same.

Overall, therefore, irrigation demands could become even greater if rain-fed areas are not able to meet projected food needs. The IPCC (11), has projected a significant increase in runoff in many parts of the world, including India. As the increase will be largely in the wet season the extra water will not be available in the dry season, unless water storage infrastructure is increased greatly. The extra water in the wet season, on the other hand, may increase the frequency and duration of floods.

It has been observed by remote sensing that several monsoon influenced glaciers are retreating (12).

The increased melting and recession of glaciers associated with climate change could further alter the run-off (13). Any increase in glacier melt in the Himalayas is likely to affect the availability of irrigation water, especially in the Indo-Gangeticplain.

This will, in turn, have consequences on food production and food security.

Groundwater is crucial, even where

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Bean field.

Figure 1: River basin map of India (EFR: East flowing rivers, WFR: West flowing rivers)

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scientific crops are irrigated, to ensure stressfree periods in crop growth. Climate change is thus likely to increase the demand for groundwater to facilitate irrigation management. Lower groundwater tables and the resulting increase in the energy required to pump water will make irrigation more expensive. Peak irrigation demands are also predicted to rise owing to a predicted increase in periods of severe heat stress.

This will increase competition between agriculture and all water consumers, including urban industry.

A detailed simulation study on the impact of climate change on water resources in the Indian river systems (14) concluded that in future, the availability of water in some parts of the country may decrease while there may be enhanced intensity of floods in other areas.

The basins of the rivers Mahi (Gujarat), Pennar (Tamil Nadu), Sabarmati, Luni and Tapi will also face water shortage conditions (15). The basins of the Cauvery, Narmada and Krishna will experience seasonal or regular water-stressed conditions. The Godavari and Mahanadi rivers will not have water shortages but are predicted to face flooding.

Adaptation strategies in the agriculture sector In view of the projected adverse effects of climate change on food production, we need to analyze the options that could improve India’s ability to adapt. There is considerable traditional wisdom in the region that is valuable for adapting to climatic risks.

Sharing such experiences accumulated over centuries could be useful at the household, community and national level. The region has adapted to previous climatic stresses by resorting to mixed cropping, changing varieties and planting times, by diversifying sources of income for farmers, and maintaining buffer stocks of food for use in periods of scarcity.

These management strategies would help in the future but may not be sufficient in view of the increasing intensity of climatic risks and the need for more efficient food production.

Some of the possible adaptation options (16) which are relevant to current climatic risks, are described in Box 1.

1. Assisting farmers in coping with current climatic risks Improving collection and dissemination of weather information Establishing a regional early warning system of climatic risks Promoting insurance for climatic risk management 2. Intensifying food production systems Bridging yield gaps in crops Enhancing livestock productivity Enhancing fisheries 3. Improving land and water management Implementing strategies for more efficient water conservation and use Managing coastal ecosystems Increasing the dissemination of resource conserving technologies Exploiting the irrigation and nutrient supply potential of treated wastewaters 4. Enabling policies and regional cooperation Integrating adaptations in current policy considerations Providing incentives for resource conservation Securing finances and technologies for adaptation 5. Strengthening research for enhancing adaptive capacity Evolving ‘adverse climate tolerant’ genotypes Evaluating the biophysical and economic potential of various adaptation strategies Box 1: Key Adaptation Strategies for Indian Agriculture (Adapted from Reference 16) Adaptation strategies in the irrigation sector A reduction in irrigation water availability in the majority of states due to climate change or for socioeconomic reasons calls for an immediate response at all levels. There is a need to work on either increasing the availability of usable water and/or enhancing the fresh water productivity at all scales. The adaptations can be short-or long-term which can help in reduction of losses and avoidance of risks. Box 2 provides a summary of the various options available.

Increasing the availability of usable water This could be done by reducing wastage, increasing the water harvesting capacity, and increasing the

1. Increasing the availability of useable water Water harvesting and storage Increasing groundwater recharge Recycling waste water 2. Increasing the efficiency of water use Laser leveling of irrigated areas Micro-irrigation Adjusting crop agronomy 3. Groundwater management Managed aquifer recharge Rationing electrical power supply Integration of surface and groundwater resource 4. Water transfer between basins 5. Trans-boundary cooperation between different states 6. Use of Information and Communication Technology in water resource management Box 2: Key adaptation strategies in the irrigation sector. rate of storage recharge. The effect of a reduction in rainfall could be mitigated through better water harvesting, for example, through the creation of micro-storage facilities.

These would not only provide irrigation, but also could be constructed so as to recharge the groundwater particularly in the Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Lining of water transport systems is also necessary to reduce seepage losses.

The water demand patterns are likely to be affected by climate change so that integration of surface water and groundwater use needs to be developed.

There is a need to develop the ability to carry over water from one season to the next, as well as storage in the vadose zone (between soil surface and water table) above aquifers. Storage structures can be improved with sluice modification, sluice management, canal lining and rotational irrigation with bore well supplementation [8].

Agriculture must start vigorous evaluation of industrial and sewage waste-water usage, because fresh water supplies are limited and have competing uses. Such effluents, once properly treated, can also be a source of nutrients for crops. Water serves multiple uses and users, so effective inter-departmental coordination in the government is essential to develop a location specific framework of sustainable water management and

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Improving water usage efficiency Large areas are currently irrigated through surface irrigation systems. Out of an 85 Mha irrigated area, only about an area of 2Mha is irrigated with modern techniques such as drip and sprinkler methods. Proper laser levelling of farms could improve water application efficiencies by over 20%, including that of large scale irrigation layouts. Water use efficiency would also be improved by proper designing of farm layouts,greater realism in water pricing and irrigation methods such as micro-irrigation. Small changes in climate can often be better managed by altering dates of planting, spacing and input management. Alternate crops or cultivars more adapted to changed environment can further ease the pressure on irrigation systems. For example, in wheat, early planting or use later maturing cultivars may offset most of the losses associated with increased temperatures in South Asia.

Recent research has shown that crop yields from surface seeding or zerotillage of upland crops after rice gives similar yields to those from crops planted under conventional cultivation over a diverse set of soil conditions.

This reduces the cost of production, allows earlier planting and gives higher yields, resulting in reduced weed growth, reduced inputs and improved efficiency of water use. The systems of rice intensification, machine transplantation, alternate wetting and drying and maize water management

are useful for improving the overall rice production (Fig 2). These practices also help in the optimization of land and water resources (8).

Groundwater measures India’s groundwater hotspots, which have been over-exploited, are concentrated in arid and semi-arid areas of western and peninsular India, including states of Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu (17).

These states need an aggressive Managed Aquifer Recharge Programme to ensure natural recharge rates are closer to ground-water extraction rates so that these reservoirs become more sustainable. This underground water storage will also result in lower evaporation losses compared to surface water storage.

Rationing the electrical power supply system as adopted by the State of Gujarat in the Jyotigram scheme and enhanced education of stake-holders could also result in a more efficient use of groundwater. More efficient water utilization methods, such as microirrigation coupled with groundwater use, should lead to a reduction in the depletion rate of groundwater. In the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, micro-irrigation with higher application efficiencies as compared to surface irrigation has reduced water consumption and increased crop yields significantly where the average water saving under different crops ranged from 20 to 55% and the yield increase ranged from 10 to 23% (18). Combined management of surface and groundwater in Punjab

offers large opportunities for improving water productivity and for saving energy (17).

Water Transfers between Basins Water transfer between river basins hasthe potential to improve water availability in some of the southern states with water deficits. Given the magnitude and distribution of India's future water requirements, the interlinking of the rivers will be vital.

However, a major objective will be to transfer water from water-rich basins such as the Ganga, Brahmaputra, and Godavari to the water scarce central, western and southern regions (Penninsular link) (Figure 3). Three such projects: Ken-Betwa, Damanganga-Pinjal, and Par-TapiNarmada, have reached an advanced stage of planning. Studies show that transfer of water from the Godavari to the Krishna basin at Polavaram would also reduce the seasonal pressure on the proposed irrigation command area (19). The Supreme Court of India ordered the government to set up a special committee to implement river interlinking projects as a priority (20).

The Maharashtra and Gujarat state Governments recently signed an agreement to prepare project reports on the Damanganga–Pinjal and ParTapi-Narmada Link Projects that will benefit both States (21). These interbasin water transfer programmes should be given priority for evaluation and implementation in a participatory mode involving all the stakeholders.

The regulated market-based allocation could also be an alternate solution. Adequate incentives or compensation packages to the water surplus regions for sharing their surplus water should be determined and provided and possibly built into the cost of water. The national water policy should be constituted in such a way that there is scope for such an intervention by the states concerned.

Thus, both in the short and long term, demand management options appear to be more promising compared to supply management options.

Trans-boundary cooperation Figure 2: Predictions of future rice production under different future time scenarios and management options during Kharif season in Godavari Basin, Andhra Pradesh, India (8). System of rice intensification (SRI), machine transplantation (MT), alternate wetting and drying (AWD) and maize water management (MWM).

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Basin-wide management of water through trans-boundary institutions would help in the management of climate change. A major challenge in India is that several of the major rivers are shared between different states as

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Figure 3. Himalayan and peninsular component of the inter river linking project ( Source: 22). well as between neighbouring countries. This makes it difficult to devise basin-wide management strategies owing to challenges to politicians, planners, administrators and scientists.

The problem of trans-boundary conflicts may increase once the consequences of climate change on the spatial and temporal availability of water resources become apparent.

There is thus a priority to negotiate water sharing treaties to define water rights and dispute resolution mechanisms, and establish river water commissions to reduce trans-boundary disputes (23). Innovative approaches for sharing water resources between

up-stream and down-stream countries are also required.

The draft National Water Policy of the Government of India, 2012 states that international agreements with neighbouring countries are needed on a bilateral basis for exchange of hydrological data of international rivers on a near real time basis (24).

ICT in water resource management Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are now assisting in the dissemination of research information.

This need is increased by climate change. Spatial databases, GIS, remote sensing and water use and availability models have helped to utilise seasonal

weather forecasts for on-farm irrigation planning, for understanding and targeting water storage potential, and for developing climatically suitable land use systems.

Such systems can be used to understand and inform water users and managers not only about climate change, but also the potential impact on water resources, and strategies to improve water supplies.

Automation, computer controlled decision support systems, on demand irrigation through creation of pools in canals, and real time soil moisture data to decide irrigation amounts are some of the important means of improving efficiency.

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scientific Conclusions India has a large number of water resources including glaciers, rivers, ponds and lakes, precipitation and groundwater.

These have been utilized to create a large irrigation potential in the last 5 decades and have been the cornerstone of food security in the country.

To ensure future food security, India needs to pay attention to emerging scenarios of climate change because even today 70% of our arable land is prone to drought, 12% to floods, 8% to cyclones, and almost 30 million people are affected annually by water related stresses.

The probability of such events is projected to increase in future due to climate change. Investment in managing and stabilizing the existing irrigation potential offers more scope in managing the impending climate change scenarios than investment in creating new irrigation potential.

Demand management options will have a higher pay-off both in the short and long term. In the longer term, however, as the impact of climate change become more severe, there will be a need to employ some of the water movement strategies discussed

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in this article.

Hence, implementation of the interbasin water transfer projects which are already in the pipe-line should be given top priority.

At present, there are large yield gaps in most crops, which provide us with a unique opportunity for meeting future food demands, even in the face of increasing climatic risks.

A part of these yield gaps is due to inadequate spatio-temporal water availability. In the short-term, several options relating to technology transfer and adoption can help improve adaptive capacity.

Some of these interventions are the provision of weather services, insurance, and credit to farmers; community management of water, food and forage; and compensation to farmers for efficiency and conservation of resources. In the long-term, better adapted genotypes and agro-ecology compliant land use will also be needed.

This requires a scientifically sound assessment of spatial and temporal availability of surface and groundwater at different scales for current and future climate, and for their impact on agricultural production.

Inter-seasonal storage variability and its impact on crop production should

be examined in view of the projected variations in rainfall and temperature.

Hence, there is a need to make new investments in the water storage structures, to store the monsoon runoff as it is not equally distributed.

Water management technologies should be validated in the selected locations of the irrigation projects and based on the results before implementation.

It must, however, be noted that widespread poverty and problems with governance, and human capital limit agricultural growth today and can also continue to limit adaptation to climatic risks.

The early warning response system for droughts is a typical case.

Over the last two centuries, India has responded to droughts by developing and implementing several policies relating to scarcity/drought relief, drought management, water management, and knowledge management; yet it continues to lose significantly large amounts of its agricultural production to droughts.

While increasing the availability of water and crop productivity are crucial for enhancing our adaptive capacity, it is equally important to address socioeconomic and political constraints.

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21. Anon (2012). Maharashtra, Gujarat sign pact on linking of rivers, The Hindu, May 5th, 2012 22. Amarasinghe,U.A. and Sharma, B.R. 2008.

Proceedings of the Workshop on Analyses of Hydrological, Social and Ecological Issues of the NRLP. Strategic analyses of the National River Linking Project (NRLP) of India, Series 2. IWMI, New Delhi.

23. Giordano, M. A and Wolf, A.T. (2003).

Sharing waters: Post-Rio international water management. Natural Resources Forum, 27 ( 2):163 – 171 24. Government of India (2012). Draft National Water Policy (2012), Ministry of Water Resources, New Delhi.

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The Advent of Nanotechnology in Smart Fertiliser Nilwala Kottegoda1, Imalka Munaweera1, Nadeesh Madusanka1, Dinaratne Sirisena2, Nimal Dissanayake2, Gehan A. J. Amaratunga1,3 and Veranja Karunaratne1 .Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology Pvt (Ltd), Lot 14, Zone 1, Biyagama Export Processing Zone, Walgama, Malwana, Sri Lanka.

2 .Rice Research and Development Institute, Batalegoda, Sri Lanka.

3 .Dept. of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FA ,UK

1

Summary As the planet marches toward a 9 billion population by 2050, of the manifold sustainability issues that humanity will face, fertiliser usage in agriculture will be of critical importance. We must discover methods to produce more food with less fertiliser not only to reduce the cost but also to minimize environmental degradation. Of the elements essential for plant growth, N, P, and K, nitrogen fertilisers, specifically the most widely used is urea, are the most energy intensive to produce. Paradoxically, because of leaching and volatilization, nitrogen fertilisers damage the environment most. In the quest for sustainable fertilisers, nanotechnology has received recent attention. Nanotechnology strives to harness unique and useful properties manifest in matter at sizes less than 100 nm. Among several reports which attempt to herald nanosolutions to produce more efficacious fertiliser, the work on encapsulating urea coated hydroxyl apatite nanoparticles into the micro/nano porous cavities present in a wood matrix, Glyricidia sepium and montmorillonite clay appear to lead to effective slow and sustained release of plant nutrients in soil.

Keywords: Sustainable fertiliser, nanotechnology, plant nutrient encapsulation, slow and sustained release

Glossary

Slow and sustained release: Designed to slowly release a nutrient over an extended time period as and when required.

Encapsulation: Inclusion of one material within another material so that the included material is not apparent or accessible.

Hybrid nanostructures: Nano/Atomic or molecular level mixture of different materials with favourable interactions (chemical or physical) between their different constituents.

Introduction Background When the human species led a huntergather lifestyle for sustenance, it maintained about four million people globally in a highly egalitarian and a sustainable manner. Transition to an agricultural society around 5000 B.C., not only increased the world food production dramatically, but also gave rise to a surplus social order leading to food storage, new governing structures, armies and conflicts; the population increased at a leisurely rate for the next 5000 years until the ground conditions for its radical amplification were provided by the industrial revolution 200 years ago.

Modern industrial agriculture which began after the World War II, supported by the fossil fuel usage, facilitated chemical production of the macronutrients essential for plant growth, N, P, and K. This resulted in a spectacular increase of the global food

supply leading to a relative decrease in hunger, improvements in nutrition and the mental and physical comfort of 6 billion people. However, by 2050, the projected population of 9 billion on the planet will inevitably increase the land area (currently 38%) used for crop production along with doubling of global food demand, leading to a reduction in biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Increased use of fertiliser, and sometimes its wanton abuse, will pollute aquatic and terrestrial habitats and ground water. Therefore, it is obligatory that scientists look at more efficient fertiliser formulations which will be both cost efficient and environmentally friendly.

Review of Evidence and Present situation Current global fertiliser trends Mankind has reached a critical

juncture in the civilization where population versus resources are out of balance. In April 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment carried out by the United Nations indicated that “...the ability of ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted� (1).

Despite the lowering of the yield gap in developed nations by early adaptation of green revolution technologies, disregard of agricultural practices germane to the poor by governments and international agencies, the current global economic crisis, and high prices of food in the last several years have relegated close to a billion people, mostly in the developing world, to malnutrition.

In order to feed the increasing demand in a sustainable manner fertiliser supply and demand will play a critical role. Nitrogen supply and demand in 2007 and 2008 was high, because of strong nitrogen fertiliser demand in the South and East Asia and Latin America;

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Table 1. World nitrogen supply and demand balance, 2008-2012. during the same period nitrogen fertiliser use slowed down in North America, Western Europe and Oceania.

Urea is the farmers’ choice of nitrogen fertiliser. Global ammonia production is expected to increase from 150 million tonnes N in 2008 to 173 million tonnes N in 2012.

About 75% of this increase is projected to arise from new factories.

Regionally, China will account for about half of envisaged production expansion followed by West Asia, South Asia, and Africa (2).

Urea , CO(NH2)2, is manufactured by the reaction between ammonia and carbon dioxide where the main carbon feedstock is natural gas, followed by coal and naphtha. Global nitrogen supply was projected to grow at 3.8 % per year in the period 2008–2012, and demand at 2.6 % per year, thus making potential nitrogen balance as a percentage of global demand low (Table 1) (2).

Resolution Emergence of nanotechnology enabled by nanoparticles A nanometer being one billionth of a meter (10-9 m), nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study, design and manipulation of structures, devices, and phenomena on the length scale of less than 100 nanometers (10-7 m).

Nanoparticles, essential materials which drive much of nanotechnology, fall within the nanoscale.

This diminution of size gives rise to significant changes in their properties, both physical and chemical, compared to the materials in the bulk scale. In addition, the increase in surface area to volume ratio which results from the decrease in size also exposes a high number of surface atoms which leads to altered chemical reactivity compared to the bulk material.

“When you control atoms, you control just about everything,” said Richard Smalley (3), the 1996 Nobel

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Laureate, who discovered buckyballs (nanoparticle consisting of 60 carbon atoms) referring to the possibilities of nanotechnology.

The guiding vision of nanotechnology is atomic precision. In reality, nanotechnology is an enabling technology providing tools for the fabrication, manipulation and control of materials at the atomic level.

Nanotechnology, brings into collaboration ideas in chemistry, physics and biology mixed and blended with engineering and medicine.

A plethora of materials are amenable for conversion to the nanoscale, for example, silicates, metal oxides, magnetic materials, biopolymers such as chitosan, lyposomes, dendrimers and emulsions.

There is no shortage of methods, using both physics (arc-discharge, high-energy ball milling, laser pyrolysis, laser ablation) and chemistry (chemical vapour deposition, sonochemistry, solgel methods and co-precipitation) for the fabrication of nanoparticles (3).

Nanotechnology in fertiliser Nitrogen is the most important element for the production of food, biomass and fibre in agriculture. Ammonia is the key ingredient needed to synthesise nitrogen fertilisers such as urea and diammonium phosphate.

These became globally accessible after commercial synthesis of ammonia by the Haber-Bosch process in 1913 (4). Therefore, in terms of the economics of production, nitrogen fertilisers (such as urea) are the most energy intensive, and because of the large tonnage used (120 kg per hectare in rice) it is also the most expensive.

However, in comparison to what is applied to soil the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) by crops is very low, because between 50 and 70 % nitro-

gen applied is lost – due to leaching, volatalisation to ammonia and nitrogen oxide and long term incorporation into soil organic matter – from fertiliser greater than 100 nm in size.

Scientists have recently begun to look at this intractable problem through the lense of nanotechnology (5).

That it has taken several decades for this paradigm shift in thinking may be the result of lack of research funding and a low level of innovation in the area of fertiliser.

Perhaps, this view is mirrored by the number of patents using nanotechnology in fertiliser development (slightly more than 100 patents and patents applications from 1998 to 2008) compared to the pharmaceutical domain which is thronged with over 6000 patents and patent applications during the same period (5).

Nanotechnology has attracted the attention of scientists because of its potential to increase the efficiency of nitrogen use and contribute to sustainable agriculture.

Several recent reports have looked at nanotechnology in agriculture particularly in the areas of precision farming, nanosensors and food packaging (6).

However, there has been a paucity of discussion on fertilisers. Importantly, plant roots and leaves have nano- and micropores. Nanomaterials with small dimensions and large surface areas could therefore increase the interaction with plant surfaces leading to improved uptake of nutrients.

Recent reports of carbon nanotubes penetrating tomato seeds (7) and zinc oxide nanoparticles entering the root tissues of ryegrass (8) have shown the opportunity of using modes of delivery utilizing the nanoporous spheres of plant surfaces.

A nanofertiliser can deliver nutrients to crops in one of three modes: “nutrient can be encapsulated inside nanomaterials such as nanotubes or nanoporous material, coated with a protective polymer film, or delivered as particles or emulsions of nanoscale dimensions” (5).

At the end, the high surface area to volume ratio will be a boon to nanofertilisers improving on the performance of even the highly touted polymercoated conventional slow release fertilisers which have remained innovatively static during the past decade.

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scientific Emerging nanostrategies Applications of nanotechnology would enable fertilisers to become highly desirable for harmonized discharge of nitrogen, making it available to the plant when it is needed.

This vision, based on currently available research is undoubtedly futuristic.

However, in the interim, if the nanofertiliser can release the nutrient ondemand, in a slow and sustained manner, preferably coinciding with soil irrigation, premature leaching and conversion to unutilizable gaseous matter could be minimized.

The following examples give reasons to be optimistic that future nutrient delivery systems in agriculture would find ways to reduce fertiliser usage: (a) The inorganic Zn–Al-layered double hydroxide (LDH) was used as a matrix, to intercalate, ·-naphthaleneacetate (NAA), a plant growth regulator by self-assembly. The release of NAA initially obeyed a burst pattern followed by a more sustained release thereafter. This release behaviour was pH dependent. The mechanism of release has been interpreted on the basis of the ion-exchange process between the NAA anion intercalated between the layers of the LDH and nitrate or hydroxyl anions in the aqueous solution (9). (b) Cochleate delivery systems are stable phospholipid-cation precipitates comprising naturally occurring materials, such as, phosphatidylserine and calcium with alternating layers of phospholipid and multivalent cations existing as stacked sheets, or continuous, solid, lipid bilayer sheets rolled up in a spiral configuration. Water soluble plant nutrients containing primary nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and secondary plant nutrients calcium, boron, magnesium, zinc, chlorine, have been intercalated and stabilized in these layered structures to be used in foliar applications (10). (c) Pore-expanded MCM-41 (PEMCM-41) silica exhibits a unique combination of high specific surface area (ca. 1000 m2/g), pore size (up to 25 nm) and pore volume (up to 3.5 cm3/g). As such, this material is highly suitable for the adsorption of large biomolecules. The current study focused primarily on the application of PEMCM-41 material as suitable host for urease (nickel-based large metalloenzyme) in controlled hydrolysis of urea.

Urease adsorbed on PE-MCM-41, regu-

lar MCM-41 and silica gel (SGA) were used as catalysts for urea hydrolysis reaction. Adsorption studies of urease on these materials from aqueous solution at pH 7.2 revealed that the adsorption capacity of PE-MCM-41 (102 mg/g) is significantly higher than that of MCM-41 (56 mg/g) and SGA (21 mg/g). The equilibrium adsorption data were well fitted using the Langmuir–Freundlich model.

Furthermore, the kinetic study revealed that the uptake of urease follows the pseudo-first order kinetics. The in vitro urea hydrolysis reaction on pristine urease and different urease-loaded catalysts showed that the rate of hydrolysis reaction is significantly slower on U/PEMCM-41 compared to that of bulk urease and urease on MCM-41 and SGA. This technique could be an alternative means to the use of urease inhibitors to control the ammonia release from urea fertiliser (11). (d) Chitosan nanoparticles prepared by polymerization of methacrylic acid have been investigated for the possibility of incorporation of NPK macronutrient compounds. Attempts have been made to synthesise and characterise the chitosan nanoparticles containing plant nutrient composites, but no evidence has been reported for the slow and sustained release behaviour of the composite thus resulting (12). (e) A liquid composition for promoting plant growth, which contains titanium dioxide nanoparticles has been reported. Titanium dioxide nanoparticles displayed a particle size which could be readily absorbed by plants through the roots or leaf surface. The nano TiO2 dispersion contains adjuvants necessary for plant growth and a surfactant to maintain the dispersion stability. The composition allows crop yield to be increased by increasing the photosynthetic efficiency of plants, and permits increasing the bactericidal activity of plants against plant pathogens. Furthermore, the composition permits improving the problem of environmental contamination caused by the excessive use of fertiliser as soil applications (13). (f) Hybrid nanostructures based on hydroxy apatite nanoparticles (HA) with a particle diameter ranging from 25 nm to 75 nm and a wood chip with micro/nano prorus cavities were used to encapsulate the highly soluble urea molecules which are the major nitrogen source in many of the fertiliser systems, leading to green sustained release fertiliser systems for agricultural

applications. The rich surface chemistry of HA nanoparticles enables the establishment of strong van Der Walls/hydrogen bonding with the polar groups of urea molecules thus hindering the reactivity of the carbonyl and the amine groups. The high surface area of the rod shape nanoparticles significantly improves the surface encapsulation capacity of urea molecules onto the HA nanoparticles.

Urea-modified HA nanoparticle dispersions were encapsulated into micro/nano porous cavities of the young stem of, Glyricidia sepium (Jacg.)

Kunth Walp., under pressure. Glyricedia sepium is an easily propagating readily available medium sized plant (commonly referred to as Mata Raton, Glyricidia or Weta Mara) which finds applications as live fencing, fodder, shade, firewood, green manure and as a biomass for energy production, (Fig.1, The size of the vascular canals can range from 1mm down to 30μm, whereas the cell cavities of the plant stem vary in submicron sizes up to about 10μm. There are intercellular spaces whose dimensions are below 100 nm).

Its young stem contains a large volume of (~ 60% of the total volume) empty cavities. These cavities are defined by cellular polymers such as cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin which contains functional groups that are capable of forming favourable interactions with urea modified HA nanoparticles. It was hypothesized that once this nanofertiliser composition contained in a superabsorbent biopolymeric matrix is incorporated into a soil system, it will absorb moisture, thus initiating slow and sustained release of nitrogen into the soil as a result of diffusion and microbial degradation.

Nitrogen leaching studies conducted in our laboratory using soil columns (pH 5.2) displayed slow and sustained release kinetics compared to that observed for a conventional urea system (Fig. 3) (14).

Pot trials conducted at the Rice Research and Development Institute, Sri Lanka, using paddy as the model crop indicated an increase of 25-30% in the crop yields with up to 25% reduction in the quantity of urea used (15). Significantly, one basal treatment of the nanofertiliser was sufficient to meet the nitrogen demand of the plant during the total life span, compared with three bi-weekly applications in addition to the basal treatment when the conventional urea system

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scientific (recommended by the Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka) was used (Figs 2 & 4). A similar study was carried out by encapsulation of the urea modified HA nanoparticles into a second nanomater sized thick layered clay material, particularly into montmorollinite (MMT). The purpose of this was to protect further any free functional groups of urea in the HA nanoparticle matrix against decomposition by photochemical, thermal, enzymatic, and other catalytic activities of soils compared to free urea molecules on the surface of soil particles in conventional formulations.

It is hypothised that when the hybrid composite is in contact with soil water, it adsorbs water so urea molecules are slowly transferred into the soil solution by diffusion while the rate of release is highly pH dependent (15).

Conclusions It is imperative that solutions to critical issues such as cost and environmental degradation related to fertilizer manufacture and usage be found soon. It appears that there is a perfect fit between nanotechnology and plant nutrient delivery at the particle and plant nano-porous domain interphase.

The evidence indicates that nanotechnology has brought about a novel template to produce sustainable fertiliser delivery systems. These approaches, particularly the urea coated hydroxyl apatite nanoparticle, encapsulated within slow releasing matrices have the capacity to multiply into many futuristic sustainable fertiliser solutions.

Fig1: Scanning electron microscopic images of a cross section of a young stem showing empty cavities (14). The cross sections are a combination of different pore structures of Glyricedia Sepium.

Photograph by Muditha S. Yapa.

Fig 2: Field trails for nanofertiliser at the Rice Research and Development Institute, Sri Lanka.

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Figure 3: Cumulative nitrogen % leached out in soil (pH 5.2) (a) urea, (b) urea modified HA nanoparticle - MMT system and (c) urea modified HA nanoparticle – Glyricedia sepium system.

Figure 4: Total crop yields observed for nanofertiliser systems compared to Department of Agriculture recommendations.

(NO-F – No fertiliser, DOA – urea with Department of Agriculture (DOA) recommended quantity, T1 – 75% of the nanofertiliser compared to DOA recommendation, T2 – nanofertiliser same quantity as DOA recommendation, T3 125% of the nanofertiliser compared to DOA recommendation).

References 1. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). United Nations, New York.

2. Current world fertiliser trends and outlook to 2011/12. (2008). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.

3. Mansoori, G.A. (ed.) (2005) Principles of Nanotechnology, Molecular-Based Study of Condensed Matter in Small Systems, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA, ISBN: 978 981 256 154 1.

4. Smil, V., (2011) Nitrogen cycle and world food production. World Agriculture, 2, 9 – 13.

5. De Rosa, M. C., Monreal, C., Schnitzer, M., Walsh, R., Sultan, Y., (2010) Nanotechnology in fertilisers.

Nature Nanotechnology, 5, 91.

6. Sekhon, B. S., (2010) Food nanotechnology – an overview.

Nanotechnology, Science and Applications, 3, 1 -15.

7. Khodakovskaya, M., Dervishi, E., Mahmood, M., Xu, Y., Li, Z., Watanabe, F., Biris, A. S., (2009) Carbon nanotubes are able to penetrate plant seed coat and dramatically affect seed germination and plant growth. ACS Nano, 3, 3221–3227.

8. Lin, D. H. and Xing, B. S. (2008) Root uptake and phytotoxicity of ZnO nanoparticles. , Environmental Science and Technology, 42 (15), 5580-5585.

9. Hussein, M. Z., Zainal, Z., Yahaya A. H., Foo, D. W. V., (2002) Controlled release of a plant growth regulator, ·-naphthaleneacetate from the lamella of Zn–Al-layered double hydroxide nanocomposite. Journal of Controlled Release, 82, 417 – 427.

10. Yavitz, E. Q. (2009) Plant protection and growth stimulation by nanoscalar particle folial delivery. US patent 006014645.

11. Husain, K. Z., Monreal, C. M., Sayari, A., (2008) Adsorption of ure-

ase on PE-MCM-41 and its catalytic effect on hydrolysis of urea. Colloids Surface B Biointerfaces, 62 (1), 4250.

12. Wu, L., Liu, M., (2008) Preparation and properties of chitosan –coated NPK compound fertiliser with controlled-release and water retention. Carbohydrate Polymers, 72, 240 – 247.

13. Choi, K., Lee, S., Choi, H., (2002) Liquid composition for promoting plant growth, which includes. Patent application US 2005/0079977 A1.

14. Kottegoda, N., Munaweera, I., Madusanka, N., Karunaratne, V., (2011) A green slow release fertiliser composition based on urea modified hydroxyapatite nanoparticles encapsulated wood. Current Science, 101 (3), 73 -78.

15. Kottegoda, N., Munaweera, I., Madusanka, N., Karunaratne, V., Unpublished work.

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Another reform? Proposals for the post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy Alan Swinbank School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Whiteknights Road, Reading RG6 6AR, UK. A.Swinbank@reading.ac.uk Summary Following two decades of policy change, in 2011 the European Commission tabled proposals for a new ‘reform’ of the CAP. A major component of the reform would be a revamping of the existing system of direct payments to farmers. For example, 30% of the spend would be dependent on farmers respecting new greening criteria; and payments would be restricted to active farmers and subject to a payment cap. These proposals will be debated by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament throughout 2012, and possibly 2013, before final decisions are reached. What aspects, if any, of the proposals will prove acceptable is yet to be discerned. Although tabled as part of a financial package, the proposals do not appear to be driven by financial exigency: indeed they seek to maintain the expenditure status quo. Nor do they appear to be driven by international pressures: if anything, they backtrack on previous attempts to bring the CAP into conformity with a post-Doha WTO Agreement on Agriculture. Instead they seek to establish a new partnership between society and ‘farmers, who keep rural areas alive, who are in contact with the ecosystems and who produce the food we eat’ (Ciolo? 2011), in an attempt to justify continuing support.

Key words: agriculture, CAP, Doha, EU, reform, WTO

Glossary Agreement on Agriculture: one of the trade agreements negotiated during the Uruguay Round (see below) and now administered by the WTO. It imposes three sets of disciplines on farm policies, relating to market access, export competition and domestic support (WTO 1994; Daugbjerg & Swinbank 2009). Domestic support is further differentiation between the so-called amber, blue and green boxes (see below).

Amber, Blue and Green Boxes: The provisions of the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture relating to domestic farm support are complex, but the basic idea is that all domestic farm support has to be allocated to one of three categories.

Expenditure on programmes that have no, or very little, impact on production, and consequently on trade, are said to be decoupled and fit within the socalled green box. This includes direct payments to farmers that are not linked to current input use, prices, or production. There are no expenditure limits on green box support. All other support for farmers (apart from that allotted to an intermediate category, the blue box) falls by default into the amber box. Amber box support is subject to agreed limits (for the EU this is shown as the ‘Amber Box Allowance’ in Figure 1). The proposal on the table in the Doha Round is for a 70% cut in

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the EU’s Amber Box allowance. The blue box houses expenditure on partially decoupled support, such as area payments based on a fixed area and yield, and headage payments payable on a fixed number of livestock.

Currently there are no limits on blue box expenditure, but there would be if the Doha Round were to be concluded.

Blue box: see Amber, Blue and Green Boxes.

Decoupling: breaking the link between support to farmers and their production decisions (inputs used, quantities produced).

Doha Round: a multilateral trade negotiation under the auspices of the WTO, launched in 2001 but as yet unfinished.

European Union: Today’s EU of 27 Member States has evolved from the initial European Economic Community (EEC), of six, established in the 1950s. A succession of treaty changes have enlarged its scope and changed its decision-making procedures to allow for increased use of qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers, and a growing role for the European Parliament. Seventeen of the 27 have a common currency: the euro.

Throughout the EEC/EU’s history the CAP, the budget, and monetary union have been the focus of sharp disagreements between the Member States. In December 2011 the Eurozone countries, and some other Member

States, in response to concerns about the future of the euro, embarked on a programme of negotiations that might lead to closer macroeconomic coordination of their economies. The EU has three core institutions that jointly determine policies: the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament. The Heads of State or of Government operate as a ‘super’ council – the European Council – to provide overall guidance.

Green Box: see Amber, Blue and Green Boxes.

Greening the CAP: making European agriculture more environmentally friendly.

Pillars 1 and 2 of the CAP: Pillar 1 refers to a series of CAP policy measures that support market prices and farm incomes. Pillar 2 refers to measures undertaken under the Rural Development Regulation.

Treaty of Lisbon: the latest EU Treaty, which came into force in December 2009, has considerably enhanced the European Parliament’s role in CAP decision-making.

Uruguay Round: a multilateral trade negotiation under the auspices of GATT, which lasted from 1986 to 1994 and led to the creation of a new trade regime under which the WTO administers a number of trade agreements, including the Agreement on Agriculture (see above) and a reenacted GATT.

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economic & social Abbreviations CAP Common Agricultural Policy; EEC European Economic Community, now the EU; EU European Union; GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Mercosur Mercado Común del Sur; MFF Multiannual Financial Framework; OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; SPS Single Payment Scheme; UK United Kingdom; WTO World Trade Organization Introduction Two Decades of CAP ‘Reforms’ From the early-1960s until 1992 the fundamental framework of the CAP went largely unchanged, with the introduction of milk quotas in 1984 perhaps the most significant exception. Following those ‘thirty years of immobility’ (Garzon 2006), the last twenty years have brought a succession of changes (Cunha with Swinbank 2011) that mean that the CAP’s policy mechanisms – if not its objectives – at the beginning of the 2010s are different from those of the early 1990s. In 1991, launching what was later to be dubbed the MacSharry Reform, the European Commission said of the CAP—‘created at a time when Europe was in deficit for most food products’—that its system of market-price support had led ‘to a costly build up of stocks’; to the EU ‘having to export more and more on to a stagnant world market’ which ‘goes some way towards explaining the tensions between the [EU] and its trading partners’; and that it encouraged ‘intensification of production techniques’ which ‘if unchecked, leads to negative results. … nature is abused, water is polluted, and the land impoverished’ (Commission of the European Communities 1991).

T

hose three themes—the CAP’s cost; pressure from the EU’s trading partners; and a growing concern about agriculture, land use and the environment—have been cited by a number of scholars to explain the pressures that have been brought to bear on policy-makers, and the subsequent sequence of CAP ‘reforms’ (Daugbjerg & Swinbank 2011).

In brief, that sequence has been as follows.

The 1992 ‘reforms’, named after the then EU farm commissioner Ray MacSharry, reduced the support (intervention) prices for cereals and beef, whilst compensating farmers for the implied revenue loss through area and headage payments, based on the area of eligible crops grown and the number of beef animals and sheep kept. This, far from coincidently, came at a time when the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) of multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of GATT was stalled.

The changes allowed the Round to be concluded, and the creation of a new trade regime administered by the WTO. Although the reform increased the taxpayer cost of the CAP (by shouldering support that consumers had borne through higher prices), the budget cost of the post-1992 CAP was more predictable and, because of limits on the number of hectares and animals that would be supported, less prone to rampant growth.

The CAP’s barely-developed structural component was slightly strengthened: Garzon (2006) suggesting that the ‘main innovation was the introduction of agrienvironmental measures at EU level.’

Previously some Member States had developed such schemes. Now all were required to do so.

The Agenda 2000 package (agreed in Berlin in March 1999) deepened the reforms of the cereals and beef regimes, and introduced the so-called Pillar 2 of the CAP (Rural Development) by repackaging existing measures for structural change, environment protection, and predominantly farm-based rural development, but without the level of funding that the then farm Commissioner, Franz Fischler, had sought (Serger 2001). His second attempt at reform, in 2003, was both more ambitious and successful.

The 1992 reform had started the process of decoupling (breaking the link between production and support) as advocated by the EU’s trading partners in GATT and the OECD. In particular it broke the link with yields, although crops still had to be sown, and animals kept, for payments to be made. The Fischler reforms went further by replacing the area and headage payments, and some others, by the Single Payment Scheme (SPS).

The basic design of the SPS, although there were some important exceptions, was that of an annual payment to farmers, linked to land holdings but otherwise decoupled from production, and subject to some environmental conditions (known as ‘cross compliance’) (Swinbank & Daugbjerg 2006). Decoupling of support for milk producers also began, although quotas remained an important part of the dairy regime.

The Fischler reform was settled at a potentially important stage in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. As with the MacSharry

reform during the Uruguay Round, the links between the two processes were important (Daugbjerg & Swinbank, 2009), but an agreement in the WTO was, and remains, illusive.

Under Fischler’s successor, Marian Fischer Boel, the decoupling agenda was extended to most other CAP products, including sugar, so that by the early 2010s the bulk of EU budget expenditure on the CAP was spent on direct payments. Thus the European Commission’s initial draft budget for 2012 allocated ?40.7 billion for direct payments, €3.1 billion for market price support and other intervention, and €12.7 billion to Pillar 2 (Rural Development). (Appropriations for payments in Budget headings 05.03, 05.02 and 05.04 respectively (European Commission 2011a)). The relative decline in the importance of the ‘old’ CAP of market price support brought about by two decades of policy change has been accentuated by more buoyant world commodity prices. The EU’s high import taxes on farm and food products remain, however, and will only be reduced following a Doha settlement.

Moreover, when world dairy prices plunged in 2009, intervention buying and export subsidies were reactivated, but then again removed when world prices recovered. Apart from private storage of olive oil (Agra Facts 2011b) the ‘old’ CAP market price support mechanisms are currently (January 2012) in abeyance, although still on the statute books.

Reflecting these structural changes in the budget spend on the CAP, the EU’s annual declarations of domestic farm support to the WTO, as can be seen in Figure 1, show a clear movement away from trade-distorting amber box

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Years Fig. 1. The EU’s Domestic Support Declarations to the WTO (ecu/? million) Source: EU’s declarations in the WTO’s document series G/AG/N/EEC/ Comment: Throughout the period shown amber box support has been declining and is well below the WTO limit (shown as the Amber Box Allowance). Blue box expenditure on partially coupled support such as area and headage payments has also been declining with expenditure on the SPS shifted to the een box. The latest declaration (for 2007/08) was made in January 2011. See Swinbank (2011b). support (subject to WTO limits) to the so called green box, which includes policies with only a minimal impact on trade and which is consequently not subject to WTO spending limits. This shifting of support between boxes has been viewed with suspicion by some of the EU’s trading partners, particularly those harbouring the view that the ‘colour’ of the support is less important than its overall size.

Why 2013?

The EU has had a rolling programme of financial planning since the 1980s.

Although an annual budget is determined, this is in the context of a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) that specifies annual budget ceilings. At the time of writing we are approaching the end of the 20072013 MFF, and accordingly in June 2011 the European Commission presented its proposal for the 20142020 MFF. The proposed budget limits for the CAP were then incorporated into its subsequent proposals for the post-2013 CAP (European Commission 2011b and 2011c; Matthews 2011).

Following ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force in December 2009, the European Parliament has an increased role in CAP decision-making (Greer & Hind 2011). Consequently prolonged discussions between the Member States (in the Council of Ministers, and perhaps in the European Council) and between the institutions (Parliament,

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Council and Commission), are expected. It is possible these will extend through the next four Presidencies of the Council of Ministers (Denmark, followed by Cyprus in 2012; Ireland, followed by Lithuania in 2013) to a last minute decision in late 2013.

Not only have the decision-making procedure s changed since the last CAP reform, but the EU is now embroiled in a severe financial crisis in which the very survival of the euro seems threatened, with one Member State (the UK) distancing itself from the December 2011 decisions taken by the rest. (The British Prime Minister’s opening comment to the House of Commons was that he had gone to the European Council ‘with one objective: to protect Britain’s national interest’ (Cameron 2011)). Quite how this will affect discussions on the 2014-2020 MFF, including the touchy issue of the British rebate (more below), and on the post-2013 CAP, remains to be seen.

As explained by the European Commission in a leaked, and unadopted, draft document: ‘The UK correction was introduced when more than 70% of the EU budget was spent on agricultural market measures. At the time, the United Kingdom was one of the least prosperous Member States. ... Today the UK is one of the most prosperous Member States and the share of ... agricultural expenditure in the EU

budget has decreased significantly’ (European Commission 2009).

Although some other Member States also benefit from special rules, the British rebate, worth several billion euros a year, is by far the most important. It was first negotiated at the Fontainebleau meeting of the European Council in 1984, and has been renewed, more-or-less intact, in subsequent MFFs. It will be, presumably, a major element in the UK’s negotiating objectives for the 2014-2020 MFF. In 2005, when the Member States were negotiating the 2007-2013 MFF, it was suggested that the UK would be willing to surrender part of its rebate if France were to agree to CAP reform (Begg and Heinemann 2006). In the end there was stalemate, but the UK did believe that it had been agreed that the Commission would ‘undertake a full, wide-ranging review covering all aspects of EU spending, including the Common Agricultural Policy, and of resources, including the United Kingdom rebate, and … report in 2008/09.’ (European Parliament, Council and Commission 2006).

Despite a major consultation exercise implemented by the European Commission, and the leaking of the document referred to above, nothing emerged from this process until 2010.

The Proposal There are perhaps three key features of the European Commission’s proposals for the post-2013 CAP that should be emphasised.

First, despite the complexity (indeed opacity) of the documentation, this is not a proposal for radical reform. It has nothing comparable to the decoupling of the MacSharry (area and headage payments) or Fischler (the SPS) reforms.

Second, budget expenditure on the CAP, and its allocation to direct payments, market price support, and rural development, is set to remain more-or-less unchanged through to 2020 in current (money) terms, although this implies a reduction in real terms and as a percentage of the EU budget spend.

Third, there would be new environmental constraints put upon 30% of expenditure under the SPS’s successor scheme.

Milk and sugar quotas will end. The Rural Development Regulation (Pillar 2 of the CAP) would be revised, but no additional funding would be made available. Moreover, as yet, how Pillar 2 funding will be distributed among

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economic & social the Member States remains unclear.

It is perhaps surprising that the European Commission is proposing no change in either Pillar 1 (income and market price support) or Pillar 2 (rural development) funding from that achieved in the last year of the 20072013 MFF, despite widespread belief that funding should switch from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2, and rival bids for scarce government funds. It would appear that it is seen to be too political to challenge the status quo. Whether there is a Plan B remains to be seen. If finance ministers impose a tight financial settlement on the CAP, will it be rural development (Pillar 2) that bears the brunt of the cuts, as happened in the two preceding MFFs (2000-2006, and 2007-2013), or Pillar 1 (i.e. direct payments)?

Direct Payments It is proposed that the existing SPS (and its parallel arrangements in the Member States that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007) be replaced by a new, legally distinct, regime in 2014; but one that clearly displays its origins. As explained earlier, the 1992 reforms introduced area and headage payments to compensate farmers for the implied loss in revenue stemming from reductions in support prices. A decade later it seemed both inappropriate and politically problematic to continue with this terminology. How could compensation still be justified in the old Member States; or for that matter in the ten new states that were about to enter the EU and had not experienced the 1992 reform? Consequently, in 2003, the SPS was referred to as ‘an income support for farmers’; even though it was never clearly explained why farmers collectively needed ‘income support’, or how the actual distribution of payments between farmers or countries could be justified (Swinbank, 2011a).

Within Member States payments are highly skewed, reflecting past production rather than any objective measure of current need for income support. In Italy, a rather extreme case, 42.4% of claimants, for example, received €500 or less, accounting for 3.4% of monies paid out, whereas at the other end of the scale a mere 0.8% of claimants claimed €50k or more and scooped 28.9% of the cash, as can be seen in Table 1.

One particular complaint has been that the new Member States (and some old ones, such as Portugal) had been allocated a rather low budget for

direct payments. Even after their phased introduction they amounted to about €100 per hectare in Latvia, for example, compared to well over €400 in The Netherlands (European Commission 2011d). Consequently the European Commission has proposed some narrowing of the gap whilst keeping the overall €27 spend within budget.

Increased equity within Member States is to be achieved by insisting on a move to regionalised payments (with a common payment per hectare for all farmers within the region), compared to the historic model that some Member States had continued to apply. Under the latter per hectare payments could differ between neighbouring farmers, depending on their past production patterns.

Although the explanatory memorandum to the proposed Regulation does mention the need for income support, the draft Regulation itself does not. Article 1 establishes ‘a basic payment for farmers’, which it calls ‘the basic payment scheme’, together with a payment for farmers observing agricultural practises beneficial for the climate and the environment (European Commission 2011c).

Farm businesses already in receipt of direct payments will be allocated

entitlements under the basic payment scheme; with 30% of a Member State’s budgetary allocation for direct payments earmarked for the greening component. This, nominally, leaves 70% of the funds for the basic payment scheme, but there are other calls on this money (for young farmers and disadvantaged regions for example), and more scope for coupling support to specific crops than is the case under the current regime.

The greening component will be paid in addition to the basic payment (although whether the basic payment is payable without compliance with the greening component was unclear in the original English text). The basic payment, after allowing for the cost of employed labour, would be subject to ‘progressive reduction and capping’.

Payments in excess of €150k per annum would be subject to ‘progressive reduction’; in effect an escalating tax rate reaching 100% at €300k, imposing a cap of €235k on a farm business’ basic payment receipt (European Commission 2011c).

Greening, Active Farmers, and the WTO’s Green Box The greening payment for non-organic arable farmers would be

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economic & social dependent upon them planting three different arable crops, none of which could occupy less than 5% or more than 70% of their arable area; maintaining existing permanent grassland; and keeping at least 7% of their eligible hectares as an ecological focus area, such as ‘land left fallow, terraces, landscape features, buffer strips and afforested areas’ (European Commission 2011c). These constraints on production make it very difficult to justify the claim that these would be green box payments. They appear to infringe paragraph 6(b) of Annex 2 of the Agreement on Agriculture (WTO 1994) that insists that ‘decoupled income support’ and ‘direct payments to producers’ (paragraph 5) should ‘not be related to, or based on, the type or volume of production … undertaken by the producer in any year after the base period’; and 6(d) which insists that payments ‘shall not be related to, or based on, the factors of production employed in any year after the base period’ (which is a problem too for the existing SPS, as both involve an annual claim based on the land at a farmer’s disposal). Nor could the greening payment be readily justified as ‘payments under environmental programmes’ (paragraph 12 of the green box) as these are to be ‘limited to the extra costs or loss of income involved in complying with the government programme’; and there is no such provision.

The attempt to restrict the basic payment to active farmers is also problematic. As the European Commission’s explanatory memorandum explains: ‘the definition of active farmer further enhances targeting on farmers genuinely engaged in agricultural activities, and thus legitimizes support’. The EU is trying to ensure that entities such as aerodromes or golf courses, that happen to have some agricultural land attached to their business, do not qualify for CAP support. Article 9 of the draft Regulation is carefully crafted so that it excludes certain groups (e.g. when ‘the annual amount of direct payments is less than 5% of the total receipts they obtained from nonagricultural activities in the most

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recent fiscal year’, which would probably exclude quite legitimate farming activities such as university farms), rather than specifying what businesses have to do to be considered active farmers. As the European Commission’s Impact Assessment (2011d) concedes: ‘Many of the criteria that could be used to define who is an “active farmer” could be problematic from a WTO point of view … in particular they cannot imply an obligation to produce.’

Whether or not the proposed scheme of direct payments, with its greening component and restriction to active farmers, or for that matter the existing SPS, is green box compatible is, for the moment, of only esoteric importance, for if not green then these are either amber or blue box payments. As shown by Figure 1, the existing amber box support falls well short of WTO allowances, and these contested payments could be rehoused there, or in the blue box for which there is no current constraint.

Thus, for the moment, the EU is unlikely to be challenged in the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body. If, however, the Doha Round were to be concluded, with a 70% cut in the EU’s amber box allowance, and new constraints on the blue box, then the green box compatibility of the post2013 CAP’s direct payments would become of critical importance. If the green box classification of these direct payments were to be disallowed by the WTO, this would mean that a key component of the post-2013 CAP directly contravenes the EU’s international commitments.

Implications for World Agriculture The proposals for the post-2013 CAP are unlikely to have a major impact on world trade in farm products, and hence upon world agriculture. The greening of direct payments, and the 7% ecological focus areas, might lead to a slight decrease in EU farm output.

The removal of quotas on milk and sugar production in 2015 will probably lead to a slight increase in output of these products. In the case of milk, quotas were a binding constraint in 2010/11 in only five

Member States, which between them accounted for 13.4% of milk quota allocated (Agra Facts 2011a). It is in these countries, and in The Netherlands in particular, that increases in output might be expected. Under the sugar regime, over-quota sugar cannot automatically be sold onto the domestic market, despite the shortages that were appearing in 2011. Thus over-quota sugar was being exported from the EU (within the quantitative constraints set out in WTO obligations), whilst a tendering procedure was in place for ‘exceptional imports’ into the EU (Agra Facts 2011c). Removal of the quota constraint would allow a more rational movement of product: whether it would also result in increased output is a more open question, although Matthews (2011) concludes that it ‘could result in a substantial increase in production’.

Other developments, post-2013, are more likely to impact world agriculture than the current CAP reform. A successful conclusion of the Doha Round for example would open-up the EU’s market for those products still afforded high protection, such as dairy, sugar and beef. Similarly, an extension of its web of free-trade areas (permissible under WTO rules) would allow improved access for selected suppliers to the EU’s market. The most significant of these negotiations is that with the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur), which comprises Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with other South American economies as Associates. Brazil, in particular, has aspirations to sell its sugar, bioethanol, and beef, into the European market. A study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (Burrell et al. 2011) to assess the likely impact of a free-trade area with Mercosur suggests ‘that the economic losses and the adjustment pressures arising from a bilateral trade agreement between the EU and the countries of Mercosur would, as far as the EU is concerned, fall very heavily on the agricultural sector’. Offsetting these losses for European agriculture will be gains for EU consumers, and for those overseas farmers that obtain more access to the EU market.

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economic & social Conclusion In his address to the European Parliament, launching the Commission’s proposals for the post2013 CAP, the present Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dacian Ciolo (2011), said that a ‘new balance has to be established through a genuine partnership between society as a whole, which offers the financial resources through a public policy, and farmers, who keep rural areas alive, who are in contact with the ecosystems and who produce the food we eat.’

Although the proposals form part of the 2014-2020 MFF there is no indication that they are motivated by budgetary concerns, despite the Sovereign Debt crisis afflicting most EU Member States. Expenditure on both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 would continue unchanged (although falling in real terms) through to 2020. There would be some shifting of Pillar 1, and probably Pillar 2, support between Member States. This is not the

References

Agra Facts, (2011a). 2010/11 superlevy bill ?55.5m, with Ire, Bel & D approaching the penalty line. 81-11. 19 October 2011.

Agra Facts, (2011b). Nearly 10 000t of Spanish olive oil granted PSA. 84-11. 28 October.

Agra Facts, (2011c). Green light for moves to address sugar supply concerns. 92-11. 25 November.

Begg, I Heinemann, F (2006). New Budget, Old Dilemmas. Briefing Note. London, Centre for European Reform.

Burrell, A, Ferrari, E, Gonzalez Mellado, A, Himics, M, Michalek, J, Shrestha, S, Van Doorslaer, B (2011). Potential EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement: Impact Assessment, Volume 1: Main results. Seville, Joint Research Centre–Institute for Prospective Technological Studies.

Cameron, D (2011). Hansard. House of Commons, 12 December, column 519. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/c m201011/cmhansrd/cm111212/debtext/11 1212-0001.htm (accessed 12 January 2012) Ciolo?, D (2011). A new partnership between Europe and its farmers. Speech presenting the legislative proposals on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to the European Parliament, 12 October.

SPEECH/11/653. Brussels, CEC. Commission of the European Communities (1991). The Development and Future of the CAP. Reflections Paper of the Commission.

COM(91)100. Brussels: CEC. Commission of the European Communities (2009). A Reform Agenda for a Global Europe [Reforming the Budget, Changing Europe]. The 2008/2009 EU Budget Review Draft 06-10-2009. Unofficial leaked text, at: http://www.people.ie/eu/eutax.pdf (last accessed 15 December 2011).

Cunha, A, Swinbank, A (2011). An Inside View of the CAP Reform Process: Explaining the MacSharry, Agenda 2000, and Fischler Reforms. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Daugbjerg, C, Swinbank, A (2009). Ideas, Institutions and Trade: The WTO and the

hallmark of a real reform, but rather of business as usual; a preference for the status quo. Whether this aspect of the proposal will survive the challenges of what is likely to be a fractious debate over the 2014-2020 MFF remains to be seen.

The Doha Round, launched in 2001, is not quite dead, although immediate prospects for its resurrection are limited. WTO Ministers, at their 8th Ministerial Meeting in December 2011, acknowledged that ‘the negotiations are at an impasse’, but once again they ‘committed to work actively, in a transparent and inclusive manner, towards a successful multilateral conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda in accordance with its mandate’ (WTO 2011). Both the MacSharry and Fischler reforms were, in my view, strongly influenced by the on-going Uruguay and Doha Round negotiations (Daugbjerg and Swinbank 2009 and 2011). The Fischler and subsequent reforms, together with the buoyancy of world markets, left the CAP compatible with Curious Role of EU Farm Policy in Trade Liberalization. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Daugbjerg, C, Swinbank, A (2011).

Explaining the ‘Health Check’ of the Common Agricultural Policy: budgetary politics, globalisation and paradigm change revisited. Policy Studies, 32 (2), 127-41.

European Commission (2011a). Draft General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2012 Volume 3 Section III Commission. Brussels, EC. European Commission (2011b). A Budget for Europe 2020. COM(2011)500. Brussels, EC. European Commission (2011c). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing rules for direct payments to farmers under support schemes within the framework of the common agricultural policy.

COM(2011)625/3. Brussels: EC. (one of a set of texts).

European Commission (2011d) Impact Assessment. Common Agricultural Policy towards 2020. Commission Staff Working Paper. SEC(2011)1153. Brussels: Brussels.

European Commission (2011e). Indicative Figures on the Distribution of Aid, by SizeClass of Aid, Received in the Context of Direct Aid Paid to the Producers According to Council Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 and Council Regulation (EC) No 73/2009 (Financial Year 2009. http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/fin/directaid /2009/annex1_en.pdf (last accessed 5 January 2012).

European Parliament, Council and Commission (2006). Declaration on the Review of the Financial Framework attached to the Inter-institutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and sound financial management.

Official Journal of the European Union.

C139. 14 June.

Garzon, I (2006). Reforming the Common Agricultural Policy: History of a Paradigm

a post-Doha Agreement on Agriculture, provided the EU’s recent declarations of amber and green box support can be robustly defended in any WTO challenge (Swinbank 2011b). By contrast, WTO pressures do not seem to have been a key determinant for Mr. Ciolo. Indeed, the proposals on greening the CAP, on active farmers, and to allow some recoupling of support, would appear to backtrack on the success of his predecessors in acceding to the liberalising agenda of the WTO. The key to the package is the attempt to justify to European society, ‘which offers the financial resources’, continued support to farmers, ‘who keep rural areas alive, who are in contact with the ecosystems and who produce the food we eat’.

Whether this strategy will survive the debates of the MFF, and convince finance ministers and taxpayers of the cost-effectiveness of the measures proposed (not something addressed in this paper) remains to be seen.

Change. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Greer, A, Hind, T (2011). The Lisbon Treaty, agricultural decision-making and the reform of the CAP: a preliminary analysis of the nature and impact of ‘co-decision’. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society, University of Warwick, 18-20 April.

Mathews, A (2011). Post-2013 EU Common Agricultural Policy, Trade and Development: A Review of Legislative Proposals. ICTSD Programme on Agricultural Trade and Sustainable Development, Issue Paper No.39. Geneva, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.

Serger, S S (2001). Negotiating CAP Reform in the European Union–Agenda 2000.

Report 2001: 4. Lund: Swedish Institute for Food and Agricultural Economics.

Swinbank, A (2011a). Some Misconceptions about Requirements for the Post-2013 CAP’ In House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, The Common Agricultural Policy after 2013. Volume II. Fifth Report of Session 2010-11. HC 671-II. London: The Stationery Office, pp. 152-7.

Swinbank, A (2011b). Fruit and vegetables, and the role they have played in determining the EU’s Aggregate Measurement of Support. The Estey Centre Journal of International Law and Trade Policy, 12 (2), 54-73.

Swinbank, A, Daugbjerg C (2006). The 2003 CAP Reform: Accommodating WTO Pressures. Comparative European Politics, 4 (1), 47-64.

World Trade Organization (1994). WTO legal texts. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e /legal_e.htm (last accessed 12 January 2012).

World Trade Organization (2011).

Chairman’s Concluding Statement.

Ministerial Conference Eighth Session Geneva, 15-17 December 2011.

WT/MIN(11)/11. Geneva, WTO.

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Sustainable farming – stepping up to the challenge Andrea Graham1, Tom Hind2, Philip Bicknell3 National Farmers’ Union, Agriculture House, Stoneleigh Park, Stoneleigh, Warwickshire

Summary As a consequence of extensive debate the challenges of achieving global food security are well understood. It is now vital that policy makers identify the specific solutions needed to ensure farmers and growers in all parts of the world, including the UK, can respond through the sustainable intensification of agriculture.

There are three essential ingredients. First, a better structured and more coherent science framework is required that takes basic research, translates this to applied science and that has the means to deliver this onto farms in the UK. In a climate of fiscal restraint, there may be a need to rebalance public funding towards applied research and to seek out more public/private partnerships. It is important that the farming industry specifies its priorities in terms of research that is needed over the next 5-10 years.

Secondly, there is a need to recognise and address systemic failures in the food supply chains through a combination of regulatory mechanisms to remove abusive practices and introduce a change in buying behaviour towards long-term alignment. This will create a climate in which investment and sustainable intensification can be fostered.

Thirdly, we need to ensure that agricultural policies such as the CAP stimulate rather than inhibit sustainable intensification.

Industry and farmers must cooperate, but government retains an important role. This is not merely as an arbiter, but in guiding strategy particularly for public funded research. Here most importantly we need to move beyond talking about sorting out a “broken pipeline” to actually fixing it.

Introduction The challenges of global food security are becoming clichéd in an increasingly rhetorical debate amongst academics, policy makers and governments.

The challenges including lifting agricultural productivity, reducing environmental impacts, addressing poverty and facilitating access are well understood. What is considerably less clear is how these challenges should be addressed, by whom, how, where and at what cost.

1. NFU Chief Science and Regulatory Affairs Adviser.

2. NFU Director of Corporate Affairs.

3. NFU Chief Economist.

There is a desperate need to move beyond the narrative laid out most notably in the Foresight report of 2011 (Global Food and Farming Futures) (1) and start mapping out the key actions that must be taken in the next decade, if not sooner.

We believe that the focus on 2050 as a defining moment for global food security has allowed some commentators and NGOs to suggest that we can put off the big decisions. Some argue that agricultural productivity will increase as farmers and scientists respond to market demands.

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Others believe simply cutting waste and changing global diets will provide the answers without a need to increase production. In our view neither position is tenable.

Making the case for sustainable intensification Agricultural land and other key factors of production, especially water, are either expensive to produce or finite.

What is more, farm output must be generated from already depleted and vital natural resources which must be preserved. The demographic changes we face not only affect demand for food but also put pressure on energy, natural resources and water.

The term sustainable intensification was first formally coined by the Royal Society in its October 2009 report (2) to encapsulate the most important single response to the global challenges of food security, environmental protection and climate change.

Yet the term is contentious and can suffer from a lack of clarity in its execution. We tend to see things quite simply: producing more, impacting less.

Sustainable intensification is not a new concept or philosophical ideal;

indeed it is something that many farmers have already been making great advances towards.

They have maintained or moderately increased production over the last four decades without increasing the overall volume of inputs. As an example, the volume of nitrogen fertiliser used on farms in the UK has fallen by 36% since the mid-1980s (Figure 1).

It is important to understand what sustainable intensification means for farming in the future. UK agriculture is a dynamic industry that has constantly evolved to adapt to changing circumstances in markets, policy, technology, techniques and labour.

Sustainable intensification is already being adopted by many farm businesses, for example, the use of precision farming technology for yield mapping using GPS and advances in agricultural engineering are increasingly common place on many farms.

More livestock and dairy farms are using computer software to optimise fertiliser use on grassland and tailor nutritional requirements for cattle.

Significant advances have been made in breeding genetics in the pig and poultry sectors.

In many cases, sustainable intensification is about quite subtle changes to optimise inputs both spatially and

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Figure 1: UK nitrogen fertiliser use and output volumes 1984-2010. Source: Defra Agriculture in the UK 2010 (chart 13.4 & table 10.1) temporally (whether they be pesticides, herbicides or nutrients) that, scaled up, make a significant difference to the productivity of farm businesses over time.

Collectively it means less waste, better crop performance, lower costs and better outcomes for the environment.

Recent studies in Australia have shown that simply using the controlled traffic farming systems to minimise soil compaction can result in improvements in wheat yield of up to 15% (3).

There is still enormous scope to exploit this technology further in areas such as crops sensing for disease and quality, real-time monitoring of animal health and welfare as well as the controlled management of farm vehicle operations (4).

The role of UK agriculture Few people doubt that achieving food security requires significant increases in agricultural production.

However, some commentators and NGOs (indeed some government officials) dispute the belief that production must also rise in the UK.

In 2009, the House of Commons EFRA Select Committee (5) argued that the UK has a ‘moral duty’ to increase food production, not only to address concerns about declining self-sufficiency at home, but also to play a part in the global response to growing demand.

The UK will never be a major global agricultural exporter. However, its geographical position, good trade links and manufacturing capability should enable it to respond to what will be an inevitable growth in demand from international markets for food.

weather events, place greater stresses on production in certain parts of the world, and exaggerate the annual variations in global supply.

Some of the world’s major exporting regions may suffer the effects of salination and heat stress (Figure 2). It will also cause shifts in the ranges of pests and diseases, as has already occurred with bluetongue and Schmallenberg viruses in Europe.

By contrast, the impact of climate change in the UK may be relatively more benign.

Whilst no-one can dispute the fact that developing countries must deliver the lion’s share of an increase in production, few believe that they will be in a position to completely satisfy growing demand sustainably. The developed world must also play its part.

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change Report (6) talks of the “safe operating space” as defined by climate change within which global food production must exist. There will be a greater onus on those parts of the world that can produce more to do so, including the UK.

Global supply will be impacted by climate change. Recent years have already seen weather events impact on the global output of key agricultural commodities and contribute to volatile prices.

Changing diets, reducing waste and reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions will only take us so far.

Agriculture must also produce yield improvements and increased efficiencies to keep within the “safe operating space” and innovation will have a key role.

A 2% rise in average global temperatures will generate further extreme

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Figure 2: Projected changes in agricultural production in 2080 owing to climate change: Source: Cline.

2007. Projections assume a uniform 15% increase in yields from the fertilization effect of rising CO2 in the atmosphere on some plant species.

Three vital needs In an attempt to move beyond the rhetoric and clichés, we believe that it is incumbent on farmers’ organisations to start identifying what really is needed in the next 5-10 years to ensure that the sector can address the challenges. .

In perhaps its simplest encapsulation (and leaving aside some significant policy and regulatory hurdles that lie ahead), we see three basic requirements that will enable UK farmers to achieve sustainable intensification.

1. A better structured science framework.

The results of scientific and, technological work and their subsequent commercialisation are absolutely crucial to ensuring that future demands for food, fuel and fibre can be met from a limited land area.

Lately, discussion of agricultural science has focussed on the highly politicised issue of genetically modified crops (GMs). For the avoidance of doubt, let us be clear – we believe that the farming industry will need a full range of techniques and approaches, including GM to meet the challenges.

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However, no single technology, tool or farming system will solve all the problems and feed the world.

Just as we must move beyond clichés, we must also move beyond the polarising rhetoric that dominates debate on GM. Achieving tangible advances requires a science framework that addresses four things: a. Basic research that challenges the boundaries of conventional wisdom. b. Investment in the research that farmers can then apply to their businesses. c. Knowledge transfer and extension networks that secure take-up of the best available technologies and techniques and also effective feedback to the research sector. d. Empowerment of the agricultural industry to take forward and apply this new knowledge and innovation through skills and training, particularly in the areas of business and entrepreneurial expertise.

The UK has traditionally been a world leader in agricultural research & development (R&D), but it is essential that this reputation is continued and furthered over the coming years.

It is also important to see the role of UK R&D in the wider global context.

Many UK R&D centres have great traditions as global experts on issues such as climate change and animal health. The knowledge from these institutions benefits not just UK farmers and growers, but can be applied globally to assist in securing food supplies.

The “early discovery stage” of R&D, often referred to as basic science, remains strong in the UK. We have recently seen significant strategic investment from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to help in meeting challenges such as sustainably feeding the growing world population and finding alternatives to dwindling fossil fuels.

These projects, such as current work to develop the next generation sequencing techniques which will enable the provision of fine mapping to the level required as a knowledge base for the plant breeding programmes of the future (7). These projects may seem a long way from the day to day practicalities of farming, but they are a vital stage in the R&D process.

However, the general trend in the UK and worldwide since the 1980s has been for a substantial cut in publiclyfunded agricultural science. This has been particularly noticeable in the near

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economic & social market applied sciences and in the translation/demonstration of research applications, which are critical steps in taking ideas through to commercialisation.

This has been frequently referred to as the fracture in the “discovery pipeline”, an issue noted in numerous reports including the (see: All Party Parliamentary Group on Science & Technology in Agriculture report of 2010 (8) and the NFU’s own Why Science Matters for Farming report of 2008 (9)).

More emphasis needs to be placed on taking the results of basic research and turning it into actual products, technologies and practices that can be applied by farmers and growers on a commercial scale.

This includes more independent applied research to ensure we retain the key skills. Many smaller research groups provide this vital function of applying fundamental knowledge to practical application, yet rarely benefit from core funds to help underpin their skills, facilities and services.

In the current financial environment, spending, even on such vital areas of research, is significantly constrained.

So there is a need for a re-balancing of public funds and for Government to urgently explore ways this area can be supported through new funding models. These may well be a hybrid of public and private core funds.

There is also a need for Government to take a role in supporting research where there is market failure. An example is the development of plant protection products for minor crops, such as common field vegetables.

Following the EU review of available products there are notable gaps in the armoury of those available for use in some minor crops in the UK. The high costs, and long run-in times for the development of new products, combined with a relatively small crop, reduce the commercial attractiveness for private sector investment. To put this into context, a briefing from the Fruit and Vegetables Task Force (10) on the approvals process for plant protection products stated that the registration process of new products can take on average about 5 years and cost between £200,000 and £2 million for biological products, with estimates from agri-chemical companies suggesting even greater costs and timescales in the region of 10-15 years for chemical pesticides.

There is no Government funding for

research into minor uses of herbicides and the UK spends less than any other European country in this area. This means that in the UK the cost of finding solutions to pest and disease control for small area crops is already largely borne by growers through industry levy bodies.

As funds for research are relatively scarce, the agricultural industry needs to be better at articulating what its priorities are so that we see research effort and resource focussed in areas where substantial advancements could be collectively achieved and move away from the disjointed and scattergun approach that currently prevails.

Rather than perpetual 3-year shortterm projects that currently prevail there is also a need for long-term programmes which require a long-term strategy led by Government, but in cooperation with industry and science against which these long-term programmes can be aligned.

There have been various reports (8) in recent years from which research priorities with reoccurring themes can be identified. The list is not in any way meant to be exhaustive, but it highlights some of the key areas where collaborative research focus and translation effort could yield worthwhile results (Table 1).

The structure of agriculture can also provide a barrier to the uptake and commercialisation of research.

As presented in our evidence to the recent Science & Technology Select Committee inquiry (12), discounting the very smallest farms, 96% of England’s agricultural output is generated by about 56,000 farm businesses.

These cover many different sectors with a variety of issues and commercial opportunities.

This fragmentation presents a significant challenge for intermediaries to ‘take’ commercialisation to the farm gate. This is compounded by the fact that despite an instinctive drive to innovate and experiment, many small farming businesses are often time and resource poor giving them little opportunity to explore commercial application of new R&D technology.

The Technology Growth Report: How to Unlock Sustainable Growth in the UK (13) attempts to identify common challenges and solutions across similarly diverse industries and there may be lessons to be learnt from this to drive further action (14).

Getting more from existing knowl-

edge to improve management, be it understanding soils, optimising water use, improving rotations, or modifying feeding regimes is vital.

Yet, one of the greatest challenges for the agriculture industry is securing the application of knowledge and best practice and strengthening both the science-push and the market-pull for research. At the moment, knowledge exchange is essentially market driven; many of the best farming businesses are taking advantage of a wide range of consultants, including agronomists and nutritionists, to perfect business techniques.

There is significant opportunity to determine how public/private partnership could work better in this vital area by aligning the delivery of publicly funded research with the advisers who are presently visiting farms. Moreover, the challenges that a purely demand led approach creates, in terms of lack of acceptance and inadequate provision of advice concerning environmental sustainability.

These are key points which have already been identified in the House of Lords European Union Committees report (“Innovation in EU Agriculture”) (15).

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has a pivotal role here as one of the key players in the provision of knowledge transfer directed at helping agriculture and horticulture be more competitive, profitable and environmentally sustainable.

The development of a better partnership between industry sectors, existing industry initiatives and research providers will lead to an improved relevance of research.

2. A better structured science framework.

There is a growing recognition in the business community and at least in parts of government that a complete laissez-faire approach to market economics will not deliver sustainable economic growth.

This does not mean abandoning market principles, but it does mean accepting that markets are imperfect, subject to volatility, distortion and abuse.

Financial instability, supply constraints, low stock levels and extreme weather events have all combined to make volatility more pronounced since 2007. More significantly, farmers’ exposure to volatility has grown owing

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economic & social Table 1: Priority areas for collaborative agricultural research and translation Key research priorities

The opportunities and challenges

Closing the yield gap

British varieties can yield 15 to 16 t/ha in New Zealand as opposed to 10-12 t/ha in the UK so the genetic capacity is there indicating gains could be made agronomically by improving current sub-optimal management. Additional gains may be achieved for example through breeding programmes to improve the efficiency of photosynthetic pathways using the same amount of sunlight or by increasing nutrient use efficiency. Pre-breeding research needs to include all major crop species.

Future climatic stresses

Plant breeding for improvements in water uptake (e.g. root structure) and water conservation (e.g. leaf structure and behaviour during stressed conditions to minimise evaporation rate) to cope with the more extreme rainfall patterns in the future.

Optimising inputs through precision farming technology and advances in agricultural engineering

All areas of agriculture and horticulture continue to benefit from advances in agricultural engineering, such as spray nozzle development which improves product targeting and reduces spray drift. GPS technology for mapping and predictive modelling/smart plants/precision techniques. Optimising the spatial and temporal placement of products (both nutrients and plant protection products) has the potential to make more efficient use of costly inputs. A reduction in energy use, soil damage and labour costs through new controlled traffic systems for farm machinery.

Continued improvements to animal feed and nutrition

Maximising outputs but minimising environmental impact of livestock systems such as reducing methane emissions: by continued advances in breeding techniques and improving livestock nutrition, by improving the quality of supplementary feeding and of grassland leys and by precision techniques in dietary management and monitoring.

Better detection and avoidance of animal disease

Animal diseases have damaged the livestock sector over the last two decades.

Some recent research has identified a short window where Foot and Mouth Disease can be detected before it becomes infectious and so spread rampantly.

Mastitis reduces dairy cow welfare and milk quality, costing the UK dairy industry around ÂŁ200 million per year. Further investment into the causes and pathways of infection and selection for resistance to mastitis and development of vaccines could help reduce occurrence. Remote sensing technology may also contribute to better animal monitoring for health and welfare.

Better detection and avoidance of plant disease

Recent development in plant breeding such as the blight (Phytophthora infestans) resistant potatoes and aphid repelling wheat may contribute to a reduction in the need for using plant protection products Agricultural engineering and remote sensing technologies may help with the modelling of outbreaks of crops pests and diseases and aid early detection and control.

Fixing nitrogen

Incorporating nitrogen-fixing capability into non-leguminous plants is a theoretical possibility, and experiments have brought this a step closer by providing a better understanding of underlying mechanisms (11)

Optimising the nutritional benefits and quality attributes of food

Increasing tonnes/ha or energy/ha has been a goal – but maximising nutritional value/ha of food is also a necessary goal. This could include breeding programmes to introduce human health benefits such as additional nutrients or improving the post-harvest processing characteristics and shelf life contributing to reducing waste in the food chain.

Intercropping to enhance pest and disease control

There are lessons to be learnt from the organic sector when it comes to managing pests and predators and making ecosystems work in our favour.

Improvements in our understanding of the relationships between soil, pests and diseases gained through organic systems have a contribution to make to complement new technology.

Explore cross over between sectors

For example, novel opportunities to use the waste from one sector as a valuable input for another.

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economic & scoial to globalisation and reductions in price and market support through successive reforms of the CAP. Can volatility be mitigated? Yes it can. Many arable farmers have taken advantage of financial instruments to hedge currency, output prices (through futures and options) and to some extent inputs.

It would make sense to create a climate in which these tools become more widely available to farmers in all sectors. This indicates that liquidity in commodities exchanges should be maintained. While there may be a case for regulation of agricultural commodities trading, it is important that demonization of financial ‘speculation’ avoids stifling the development of financial instruments in sectors such as dairy products.

Following two Competition Commission enquiries there has been some acceptance that the nature of the grocery market in the UK is imbalanced. Abuse of market power by major grocery retailers risks undermining long-term consumer choice by stifling innovation amongst farmers and manufacturers.

The UK Government has now tabled legislation that will introduce an Adjudicator to police the existing legally binding Groceries Supply Code of Practice that should be a major step forward in addressing abuse of power and thus create a more stable, predictable climate in which farmers can invest.

Further steps are necessary to prevent other food businesses from abusing market power. The best example is the dairy sector where milk processors use exploitative terms and conditions in milk contracts to adjust prices on a whim with no certainty or predictability. Regulation can play a role in subtly rebalancing market power in a way that shares risk more equitably.

Ultimately, the food industry must move from a culture of short-term exploitation to one of long-term partnership. In recent years several major retailers have taken steps to forge stronger relationships with British farmers through development groups, longer-term contracts and even specific pricing models.

These approaches come in response to consumer demand for local food, as well as a desire to drive the environmental sustainability agenda through the supply chain. In future, it would appear to be increasingly in the interests of major retailers and food service

companies to secure supplies close to home to help manage the risk that volatility and insecure supply may pose to their businesses.

The challenge is to move away from the short-term imperatives that tend to drive business performance. Whilst there has been recent political pressure from all sides for business to avoid a short-term attitude there is little visible sign that the performance of retail buyers is measured by anything other than quarterly profit and loss.

A culture change across business and the shareholders that invest in major companies will be essential to create a climate in which farmers can invest for the long-term.

3. The Common Agricultural Policy A discussion of the most fitting regulatory and policy framework to foster sustainable intensification is not possible in this review. However, a fuller assessment requires a comment on the reform of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy.

While market forces are increasingly shaping the direction of UK agriculture, the CAP will continue to wield significant influence on the wellbeing of the sector; and this must lead to a fair treatment for UK farmers. While the future of the Eurozone may be shrouded, commitment to the CAP and supporting farm incomes across Europe remains strong.

Progressive reform, moving farmers away from dependency on direct income support is desirable, but this must be achieved evenly across the EU, not through an experiment on UK farmers.

The risk is that the direction chosen by the European Commission may entrench support rather than help farmers to become more competitive.

Some elements of the Commission’s proposals run the risk of undermining the competitiveness of parts of European farming, by obliging farmers to set-aside productive land or to grow three crops where two would be agronomically and economically better.

The tendency in the UK is to see the CAP as a necessary evil (or just plain evil in the eyes of Treasury economists). Yet the CAP can be a powerful and positive policy instrument in achieving two specific objectives: fostering investment and delivering ecosystem services.

The CAP plays an important role in

facilitating on-farm investment in physical and human capital. It does this not only through rural development programmes but also through direct payments that provide a degree of income stability and a hedge against volatility, as well as a means of leveraging commercial lending from banks.

It is also right that the policy should foster sustainable production.

Incentivising and encouraging the right management techniques in the right locations through targeted measures is a better approach than blanket measures that may not secure the desired outcomes.

One particular opportunity and challenge for the CAP in terms of driving innovation will be to make the most effective use of Rural Development Programme funds, and how they interact with the results of research generated under the proposed new EU Research and Innovation Framework funding stream for 2014-2020, Horizon 2020. £4.5billion has been specifically ringfenced for food and agriculture R&D. This doubles the funding allocated for the previous seven year programme and it is critical that farmers benefit from this investment. The new European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability will have a network function to link related actions of Rural Development Programmes and the research funded under Horizon 2020.

In particular the EIP aims to catalyse coordination and foster sustainability and to link with the growth and sustainability objectives under Europe 2020.

It is hoped that the European Innovation Partnerships (EIP) will help in bridging the gap between scientific research and the implementation of research results by farmers and agribusiness.

The Commission’s ambition is for the two instruments (i.e. Horizon 2020 and the Rural Development Programme activities funded under CAP) to work in tandem. This will not be easy given the very different systems of governance of these two funding steams. There are potentially very positive opportunities for industry to progress the uptake of research on farm. However, involvement of farmers in the research process from the start and a significant improvement on the bureaucratic system of previous EU Framework Programmes, will be crucial to the success of the new concept.

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economic & social Conclusion Agriculture and the food chain are unlike industries which can run and refine prototypes endlessly. James Dyson famously had 5127 failed prototypes before producing the bagless vacuum cleaner (16). The very nature of agriculture means that it is influenced by the natural environment over which we have little control and this will impact on the uptake and success of research and development.

It is often said that there is no quick fix to the food production challenge.

We need to identify and initiate the necessary agricultural research immediately to allow for the time needed to do the basic research, develop and apply ideas and ensure uptake by the industry. The UK Cross-Government Food Research and Innovation Strategy quoted extended lag periods of 15 – 25 years between research expenditures and adoption at farm level (17). Breeding programmes for some fruit crops can take even longer.

The year 2050 seems outside the lifespan of most of the practitioners in agricultural policy. Perhaps this is why the current debate appears to be going around in circles? Yet by 2025, there will be an additional billion people on the planet including an extra 500 million in Africa (18).

A long-term, strategic view on scientific research is needed now so we are well-placed to meet the future challenges to agriculture. Recognition of the challenges ahead has prompted science-based initiatives and groupings. It is undoubtedly positive that scientific research is considered to be of increased importance but these approaches must be coherent and compatible. There is an inherent risk that this serves to perpetuate the talk-

References

1. “Future of Food and Farming”- Foresight report of 2011 http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/projects/published-projects/global-food-and-farmingfutures/reports-and-publications 2. http://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2009/reaping-benefits/ 3. Tullberg, G, Yule, D F and McGarry D. (2003) ‘On track’ to sustainable farming systems in Australia. 16th Triennial Conference – ISTRO, Brisbane 4. Agricultural Engineering: a key discipline for agriculture to deliver global food security - A status report developed by IAgrE, (to be published 15 June 2012) 5. Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: Securing food supplies up to 2050: the challenges faced by the UK (2009) http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/c ommittees-archive/environment-food-and-ruralaffairs/efra-food-policy/ 6. Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change report – http://ccafs.cgiar.org/commission/reports 7. http://www.biomedcentral.com/14712229/12/14

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ing but leads to hesitation when it comes to action. In short, we need to put the strategy back into UK agricultural science so that research programmes can be aligned.

Much of UK Cross-Government Food Research and Innovation Strategy (17) strategy recognises the importance of strengthening existing initiatives and promoting a more collaborative and strategic approach to ensure long-term sustainability of national research capacity.

However, it fails to address some of the fundamental challenges, such as how to facilitate better collaboration between the public and private sectors, reduce bureaucracy, long timescales and rebuild research capacity in critical areas. The industry needs to articulate better to Government what it needs. This is why the NFU is supporting an initiative funded by the Technology Strategy Board to pull together sector-based reviews and provide a concise, coherent and integrated assessment of the R&D needs of the land-based industry up to 2030.

It would be naïve to believe there won’t be conflicts, not just in the compromises and trade-offs that may exist between environmental and production ambitions, but also between individual farming sectors. That is why the Government has a pivotal role to help facilitate developing and driving this strategy. The Government’s Natural Environment White Paper (19) has taken the first steps by announcing its intention to bring farming and environmental stakeholders together to identify how an increase in production can be achieved at the same time as improving the environment.

The resulting Green Food Project (20) is due to report in July 2012. It is

hoped that this will start to identify not only the clear advantages and tensions that exist in achieving these two aims, but also, what actions must be taken by industry and policy makers to secure sustainable intensification of UK agriculture.

Increasing food production will be a challenge for farmers across the world.

A critical part will be for industry and government to prepare the public for the actions that must be taken to achieve sustainable intensification and the consequences of inaction.

The UK’s key public funders of foodrelated research are working together under the Global Food Security programme (21) to meet the challenge of providing the world’s growing population with a sustainable, secure supply of nutritious food from less land and using fewer inputs.

Part of the programme includes public engagement on topics of high interest such as production/economics of farming; use of agrochemicals and new technologies; competing definitions of sustainability; equity and other ethical issues around access to food; the role of consumer choice, and the need for healthy diets and safety of food supplies. It is clear that engagement and dialogue will be essential for building trust and confidence in the science within the programme.

It is important to raise awareness of the contribution farmers make to the economy, the environment and to the security and quality of the nation’s food. Above all, we must ensure that it is a step that faces us and not a leap.

We need to make continual progress, put the necessary building blocks in place and face it with the support of our suppliers, customers and policy-makers.

8. All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture Report “Support for agricultural R&D is essential to deliver sustainable increases in UK food production” (2010) David Leaver. http://www.appgagscience.org.uk/linkedfiles/APPGSTA%20%20David%20Leaver%20report%20Nov%20201 0.pdf 9. Why Farming Matters for Farming, NFU (2008) www.whyfarmingmatters.co.uk/Past.../WhyScience-Matters-report/ 10. Briefing from the Fruit and Vegetables Task Force – Approvals process for plant protection products http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/policy/partnership/fvtf/documents/briefing-fvapprovals.pdf 11. Legume pectate lyase required for root infection by rhizobia, Downie et al, PNAS January 10, 2012 vol. 109 no. 2 633-638 Science & Technology Select Committee inquiry on “Bridging the "Valley of Death": improving the commercialisation of research”. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cm sctech/writev/valley/valley69.htm 13. Technology Growth Report: How to unlock sustainable growth in the UK http://www.paconsulting.com/our-thinking/uk-technology-growth-

report/ 14. http://www.paconsulting.com/ourthinking/uk-technology-growth-report/ 15. House of Lords European Union Committees report - “Innovation in EU Agriculture” http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld2010 12/ldselect/ldeucom/171/171.pdf 16. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/inpraise-of-failure/all/1 17. UK Cross-Government Food Research and Innovation Strategy (2010) http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/goscience/docs/c/cr oss-government-food-research-strategy 18. Global Food and Farming Futures (2011) http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/foresight/docs/foodand-farming/11-546-future-of-food-and-farmingreport.pdf 19. The Natural Environment White Paper – “The Natural Choice” (2011) http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/natural/whi tepaper/ 20. Defra Green Food Project (2012) http://engage.defra.gov.uk/green-food/ 21. Global Food Security Strategic Plan 20112016 http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/gfsstrategic-plan.pdf

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economic & social

Dairying: a British project to develop a more sustainable future Andy Richardson, Dr Jessica Cooke and Dr Richard Kirkland Volac House, Orwell, Royston, Herts SG8 5QX Summary The dairy industry provides food products that promote health and well-being. This industry helps to sustain rural communities and plays a vital role in land stewardship. One of its key challenges is to expand production to meet demand from the growing world population and increasingly affluent societies. To meet those goals, global research is focusing on the major production components – genetics, management and nutrition. Their biggest challenge is to develop new technologies which will simultaneously minimise environmental impact and equally, prove to be economic.

Keywords: dairy, productivity, sustainability, genetics, management, nutrition, environment

Glossary Freemartin: An infertile female mammal which has masculinized behaviour and non-functioning ovaries.

Nulliparous: A female who has never given birth to a viable, or live, infant.

Chemostatic mechanism: Blood levels

The dairy sector’s challenge

G

lobal demand for dairy products is forecast to increase, particularly in the developing world, where total consumption of milk is estimated to increase by 3.3% per year to 2020 (1). Furthermore, the trend is likely to continue as the global population is forecast to expand by nearly 30% to nine billion by 2050, which will pose substantial challenges to our ability to produce sufficient food in a resource-constrained world.

These challenges include minimising the environmental impacts of climate policy and climate change on agricultural production and of that production on climate. Moreover, there is the need to overcome the economic difficulties of changing demands from civil society and from retailers.

Recently, there has been increasing recognition of these challenges and the need to act on them. There is considerable on-going work aimed at identifying the current level of impact

of specific metabolites rise, sending a signal that causes the animal's appetite to be depressed.

Cholecystokinin: A peptide hormone of the gastrointestinal system responsible for stimulating the digestion of fat and protein.

Enteric fermentation: A digestive

process by which carbohydrates are broken down by microorganisms into simple molecules for absorption into the bloodstream of an animal.

Sustainability: A sustainable dairy industry is one that is vibrant and enables people, environment and business to thrive.

of the dairy industry and how this might be improved. In response, the Global Dairy Agenda for Action on Climate Change was launched in September 2009. Similarly, the Dairy Supply Chain Forum took the lead in the UK livestock sector by launching the Milk Roadmap in 2008, an evolving document which aims to reduce the environmental impact of the dairy industry.

However, what is noticeable about the majority of industry led initiatives to date, is that they tend to focus on single issues, particularly environmental ones, rather than the broader issue of the viability of the industry. Emphasis has been placed on compliance and incremental improvement, rather than making a forward looking assessment of the industry as a whole.

This led us to work with the dairy industry and key stakeholders and establish Dairy 2020, a unique initiative within Europe, which takes a holistic approach to improving sustainability. Currently, there is no sense of a coherent future vision for the industry which is then often forced

into a reactive position on critical issues. There is a real need for the dairy industry to articulate why it is such an important industry in the UK and what positive impacts a thriving, industry could have on the country’s economy, health and landscape.

The ultimate aim is for the Dairy 2020 project and our industry to be able to answer the question: “What does a sustainable dairy industry look like, and what contribution can it make to maintaining the ecosystem?”

The project has brought stakeholders in the dairy sector together to form a common understanding of what has to happen for it to be a successful industry in the future. A final report has been published in spring 2012 which aims to create a strong sense of momentum and focus and develop tangible short, medium and long-term collaborative actions. The report includes recognition that we need to minimise the environmental impact of dairying, focus on stewarding nature and improving animal welfare.

One of the most immediate challenges is that the EU milk quota regime ends in 2015. Introduced in

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economic & social mortality at parturition offers the possibility of future genetic selection, of both bulls and breeding animals, against this adverse and wasteful trait.

Management 1984, these quotas aimed to bring stability to the sector by putting an effective limit on annual milk production. Some EU states are actively gearing up for massive expansion by 2020. For example, The Republic of Ireland is planning to increase total production by 50% or 2.5bn litres, while UK production could rise from the current 13.3bn litres to 15bn litres per year (2).

The UK dairy sector must meet this production challenge, against a backdrop of legislation which continues to reinforce the necessity to measurably reduce the environmental impact of all food production systems with improvements to animal welfare.

The potential to increase production efficiency is clearly demonstrated by progress in the world’s leading dairy industries, with dramatic improvements in productivity during previous decades (Table 1).

These data highlight the improvements achieved in the US dairy industry since World War II, where a 61% increase in milk production has been achieved with a 64% lower dairy cow population. This has contributed towards a dramatic increase in the efficiency of energy use - only 33% of energy consumed is used to maintain cows at present levels of production, compared with 69% for cows in 1944. Furthermore, producing a given volume of milk today requires only 10% of the land area required in 1944, while the carbon footprint per unit of milk produced is only 37% of that 63 years earlier.

Similar strides have been achieved in the UK dairy industry, with the forecast for the next decade being for continued improvements in yield per cow to reach a total milk supply of 15bn litres from a similarly-sized national dairy herd to that of today (Table 2). This can best be achieved through improvements in the major production components – genetics,

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management and nutrition.

Genetics Innovations currently in progress are changing the way that geneticists undertake breed improvement, although improvements through genetics are likely to take longer than are those by either management or nutrition.

Genetic indices – many countries are now including more health and fertility traits in bull selection indices in an attempt to redress the problem of poor survival (5). The UK has introduced both a fertility index and a lifespan index based on daughter performance (6). Levels of herd fertility are more quickly influenced by management changes than breeding, but improvements through breeding are permanent and cumulative from one generation to the next.

Genomic selection (GS) - the most dramatic recent changes have come from GS which is significantly speeding up the rate of progress in global dairy cattle breeding. GS uses a very large number of DNA markers – currently in the range of 50,000 to 800,000 for most species - that have been derived from the reference cattle genome sequence (7).

In dairy cattle, GS allows prediction of the genetic merit of young animals - long before bulls will have daughter records available - from statistical associations of these DNA markers with trait measurements on past generations, referred to as the ‘training’ data. This technology is now being widely applied and has reduced generation intervals in dairy cattle from over five years to under two, thereby increasing the annual rate of progress by about 60%.

GS technology is advancing so rapidly that within the foreseeable future it should be possible to sequence the entire genome of selected individual animals. For example, the determination of which genotypes may be associated with calf

UK dairying has predominantly focused on adult cow management while the importance of the herd’s youngstock has tended to be ignored, a trend reflected in recent findings that almost 20% of all heifer calves born fail to calve for the first time (8).

Table 3 identifies these losses and the factors responsible.

The adoption of some of the following basic management procedures together with the implementation of the latest advances in technology can play an important role in helping farmers to reduce these losses.

Sexed semen – technological advances in processing and storing sexed semen, since its introduction in 1997, have resulted in claims that sexed semen now produces similar conception rates to conventional semen. Sexed semen could provide one method to help tackle the large wastage of calves around birth by delivering easier calving of female calves as well as reducing the large number of undesirable pure dairy bred male calves.

Colostrum – colostrum is essential for calves, providing nutrition (high levels of fat and lactose) and immunity (antibodies), but quality can vary considerably. Colostrometers – hydrometers that measure the specific gravity of colostrum – provide farmers with a rapid indication of its quality prior to feeding new born calves.

Weigh scales – measuring and monitoring growth rates are seldom practiced on dairy farms, however technological advances in portable weigh platforms have made recording live weight a feasible reality for every farmer. The latest models combine simplicity with accuracy and convenience, and enable farmers to ensure calves achieve the industryrecommended growth rates of 0.7kg per day for heifers from birth to calving.

Linear trait classification scores – many of these measurements for cattle conformation (for example body, legs and feet, udder, teats) have medium to high genetic correlations with longevity and have been incorporated into breeding indexes (10, 11), however classification normally takes place during first lactation. Frame classification scores in the first

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economic & social lactation have been shown to be strongly related to several size measurements of heifers when juveniles – consequently measurements of skeletal size, for example height and crown-rump length, at birth could assist in selecting the best heifers for breeding (9).

Heat detection - failure to detect heat (oestrous) is a major problem among today’s higher producing cows.

Monitors are constantly evolving and their accuracy improving, for example detecting 3D movement via neck or ankle collars, and allowing wireless data downloads with a range of up to 150 m are now available.

Mastitis – a common condition in dairy herds, mastitis results in significant production and economic losses and is a major reason for culling cows. Early detection is vital and technology has been developing to facilitate early identification based on increased milk conductivity due to changes in cation-anion balance arising from the mastitic infection.

Similarly, work is continuing to develop a vaccine against the major mastitis-causing organisms such as Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.

Lameness scoring – lameness is a major factor contributing to early culling. Cow lameness has multifactorial causes, including poorlydesigned housing and nutritionallyimbalanced rations. Initiatives such as the DairyCo Healthy Feet Programme target identification of specific problems causing lameness.

Introducing longevity ‘type’ traits into breeding plans will contribute to reducing the incidence and extent of lameness on farms. In addition, some manufacturers have developed automatic lameness detectors which identify anomalies in cow walk patterns as an early indicator of the condition which enable treatment in a more prophylactic manner.

Nutrition Rationing animals accurately to meet

required targets is essential to ensure the industry remains both viable and efficient. Considerable research effort has been directed at developing feeding systems to improve the feeding of modern animal types.

Youngstock - Nutrition of youngstock is less advanced in the UK than for adult dairy cows. Genetic selection has produced animals that grow progressively faster – so we need to feed calves in a way to maximise continually their growth rate potential and achieve the targeted two year age at first calving. Traditional UK standard practice has been to feed milk at 10% of the calf’s bodyweight to produce a healthy animal, however this restricts growth rate at the time of highest potential feed conversion efficiency in its life.

Colostrum management is a vital basic and we are continually urging producers to implement the ‘4Q’s’, or golden rules, when it comes to feeding – quality, quantity, quickly and quietly.

Technological advances in both milk replacers and feeding equipment make it possible to grow today’s modern dairy heifer at accelerated rates. We launched a 26% protein and 16% fat milk replacer developed specifically for fast frame growth. For optimum intakes, computerised feeding systems allow calves to be fed high volumes of milk, little and often throughout the day. This system also monitors the volume drunk and drinking speed provides farmers with early warning of health issues.

Adult cows – nutritionists have a limited number of feed ingredients and energy sources available to help them meet the challenge of increasing

individual cow productivity.

Improvements in productivity must be achieved without negative effects on cow fertility, health and welfare.

In the first instance we have seen diets change dramatically in the UK as systems have gradually moved away from extensive forms of dairy production. Consequently the proportional contribution of grazed forage to cow diets has decreased.

Cow dry matter intake is limited by the rumen size and regulation by chemostatic mechanisms, including ‘type’ of nutrient metabolised in the liver (propionate vs acetate) and the effects of particular nutrients on satiety factors such as cholecystokinin (12).

More intensive, cereal-based diets enable cows to consume higher levels of energy than through grass-based systems, facilitating greater production per cow, or allowing the cow to more closely fulfil her genetic potential.

However, we must not lose sight of the important and essential contribution home-grown forage will continue to make to the nutritional requirements of the herd.

Current feed systems (eg Feed into Milk; Thomas 2004) (13) enable ration formulation for cows at given levels of production. However, a major challenge for animal nutritionists is to develop computer feed programs which facilitate response prediction to energy and nutrients, thereby improving rationing accuracy, feed efficiency and economic returns, based on an established marginal response to additional feed. Attempts to predict responses to energy supplementation have been reported with some success (14).

Increasing output Increasing production invariably involves supplying additional feed to the cow, usually as more digestible, more efficiently-utilised feed sources.

In practice, increasing energy supply can be achieved by increasing the proportion of concentrate feed in the diet, for example wheat and maize.

However, this is not without its problems and relying too heavily on starch-rich feed sources can lead to problems such as acidosis - low rumen pH, and laminitis.

Using fat supplements as an energy source is one method of helping counteract the twin requirements of increasing production while maintaining or improving cow health.

Fat has the highest gross energy concentration of any nutrient but

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economic & social simply adding it to a ration can cause major upset and reduce rumen function, by for example decreasing fibre digestibility (15). Furthermore, according to the biohydrogenation theory of milk fat depression, the addition of unsaturated oil to rations can lead to the development of particular trans-fatty acids which are detrimental to milk fat production (16).

The potential negative effects of adding fats and oils to diets led Volac to launch Megalac rumen-protected fat, based on the calcium salt technology developed by Dr Don Palmquist at Ohio State University, USA. Farmers are now able to add fat to their rations ‘safely’ and improve production efficiency, cow fertility and animal health (e.g. reducing the acid load in the rumen and the consequent development of laminitis).

Fertility Poor fertility in UK dairy herds is another major issue. Conception rate to first service has fallen to below 40% (17), and is influenced by a number of factors, energy supply being one of the most critical.

Quality of ovulated eggs can be measurably improved by supplementing dairy diets with specific rumen-protected fat sources, which also increases progesterone production, the essential pregnancy hormone (18, 19). Implementation of

Conclusions Increasing output, as achieved on dairy farms over past decades, must continue if we are to feed the rapidly increasing world population and at the same time achieve a sustainable sector. This will require greater adoption of technological developments to increase productive efficiency - milk output per unit of resource input; and at the same time reduce environmental impact.

We have already witnessed huge improvements in global production efficiency; a given volume of milk requires just 10% of the land area

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new technologies to more accurately predict oestrous (heat) could help improving pregnancy rates.

Environment Improving production efficiency is a vital component in reducing the dairy sector’s environmental impact.

It is estimated anthropogenic emissions from processing and transportation account for 2.7% (±26%) of the total emissions of global milk production (FAO 2010) (20).

Methane – methane is estimated to account for between 30% and 50% of total greenhouse gas emitted from the livestock sector, with approximately 80% coming from enteric production in the rumen (21).

As well as the negative environmental implications, methane represents a considerable loss of energy to ruminants, ranging from less than 2% to over 10% of gross energy intake.

Methane is primarily produced as a by-product of anaerobic fermentation in the rumen by micro-organisms, facilitating the utilisation and digestion of poor quality, high cellulose forages.

However, grazing and high forage production systems inherently produce more methane than high concentrate systems, providing scope to manipulate diet composition to reduce enteric methane production. Various methodologies have been studied to reduce ruminal methane production,

while the carbon foot print of milk is only 37% that of 60 years ago. To maintain this and to improve those levels of efficiency, the dairy sector is looking forward to the introduction of a number of new technologies. For example genomic selection is advancing genetic progress by 60% annually, a miscellany of tools from sexed semen and heat detectors to simple weigh scales will bring significant improvements to efficiency, while on-going developments to improve longevity will increase productive efficiency and reduce lifetime dairy cow carbon emissions.

including dietary addition of unsaturated fatty acids to act as hydrogen sinks (22), medium-chain fatty acids as microbial inhibitors (23), and garlic to directly inhibit methanogenic bacteria or the metabolic pathways of methane synthesis (24).

Efficiency Improving production and fertility per animal can make a major contribution to gross efficiency of dairy herds.

Yan et al. (25) concluded that selection of cows capable of high levels of milk production and energy utilization efficiency offers an effective approach to reducing methane emissions from lactating dairy cows.

Producing 1M litres of milk from cows yielding 9,000 litres per cow per year would reduce methane production to approximately half that of cows yielding only 6,000 litres per year (26).

Herd replacements contribute up to 27% of the methane and 15% of the ammonia produced by dairy cows in the UK, but substantial reductions in emissions of these pollutants can be achieved by improvements in fertility and cow longevity (26).

Similarly, increasing cow longevity from three to 3.6 lactations would reduce lifetime greenhouse gas footprint (kg CO2e/litre milk) by 4.4% (27).

A significant proportion of the improvements in productive efficiency has been achieved through increased use of cereals and protein crops, which itself raises questions about the role of these feeds in animal production versus competing needs for human consumption.

Continued take up by dairy farmers will be dependent on whether or not investment in each development can prove to be cost effective, both for the short and long term, and that it will fit within the sector’s complex legislative framework.

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economic & social References 1. Delgado, C, Rosegrant, M, Steinfeld, H, Ehui, S and Courbois, C (1999). Livestock to 2020: The Next Food Revolution. Food, Agriculture, and the Environment.

International Food Policy Research Institute, Discussion Paper 28.

2. Kite Consulting (2011). World class dairying, A Vision for 2020. www.kiteconsulting.com/_Attachments/resources/315_s4.pdf 3. Capper, J.L, Cady, R A and Bauman, D E (2009). Dairy’s environmental impact: then and now. Hoard’s Dairyman, September 2009, p 547.

4. Brigstocke, T (2004). The future strategy for dairy farming in the UK. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Volume 165.

5. Miglior, F, Muir, B L, and Van Doormaal, B J (2005). Selection indices in Holstein cattle of various countries. Journal of Dairy Science.

88, 1255-1263.

6. DairyCo (2010). Accessed January (2012). http://www.dairyco.org.uk/library/farminginfo-centre/breeding/breeding-briefs 7. Warkup, C, (2011). Where Next for Livestock Innovations? The Oxford Farming Conference 2011.

8. Brickell, J S, McGowan, M M Pfeiffer, D U and Wathes, D C (2009). Mortality in Holstein-Friesian calves and replacement heifers in relation to body weight and IGF-I concentration, on 19 farms in England.

Animal 3, 1175-82.

9. Wathes, D C, Brickell, J S, Bourne, N E, Swali, A and Cheng, Z (2008). Factors influencing heifer survival and fertility on commercial dairy farms. Animal 2, 1135-43.

10. Klassen, D J, Monardes, H G, Jairath, L, Cue, R I, and Hayes, J F (1992). Genetic correlations between lifetime production and linearized type in Canadian Holsteins. Journal of Dairy Science 75, 2272-2282.

11. Vukasinovic, N, Schleppi, Y and Kunzi, N (2002). Using conformation traits to

improve reliability of genetic evaluation for herd life based on survival analysis. Journal of Dairy Science. 85, 1556-1562 12. Allen, M S (2000) Effects of diet on short-term regulation of feed intake by lactating dairy cattle. Journal of Dairy Science, 83, 1598-1624.

13. Thomas, C (2004). Feed into Milk. A new applied feeding system for dairy cows.

Nottingham University Press.

14. Kirkland, R M and Gordon, F J (2001).

The effects of stage of lactation on the partitioning of, and responses to changes in, metabolisable energy intake in lactating dairy cows. Livestock Production Science 72, 213224.

15. Chalupa, W, Vecchiarelli, B, Elser, A and Kronfield, D (1986). Ruminal fermentation in vivo as influenced by long-chain fatty acids. Journal of Dairy Science, 69, 12931301 16. Lock, A L and Bauman, D E (2007).

Milk fat depression: What do we know and what can we do about it? Pebb State Dairy Cattle Nutrition Workshop, pages 9-18.

17. Royal, M D, Darwash, A O, Flint, A P F, Webb, R, Wooliams, J A and Lamming, G E (2000). Declining fertility in dairy cattle: changes in traditional and endocrine parameters of fertility. Animal Science 70, 487-501.

18. Garnsworthy, P C, Lock, A, Mann, G E, Sinclair, K D and Webb, R. (2008a).

Nutrition, metabolism, and fertility in dairy cows: 1. Dietary energy source and ovarian function. Journal of Dairy Science, 91, 38143823.

19. Garnsworthy, P C, Lock, A, Mann, GE, Sinclair, K D and Webb, R (2008b). Nutrition, metabolism, and fertility in dairy cows: 1.

Dietary fatty acids and ovarian function.

Journal of Dairy Science, 91, 3824-3833.

20. FAO, 2010. Greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy sector. A life cycle assessment.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

21. Newbold, J C, Yanez-Ruiz, D, Morgavi, D P, Fievez, V Kim, E J and Scollan, N (2010).

Reducing greenhouse gas on farm. Feed Compounder, July 2010, pages 34-36.

22. Czerkawski, J W, Blaxter, K L and Wainman, F W (1966). The metabolism of oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acids by sheep with reference to their effects on methane production. British Journal of Nutrition 20, 349.

23. Dohme, F A, Machmuller, A, Wasserfallen, A. and Kreuzer, M (2000).

Canadian Journal of Animal Science 80, 473482.

24. Busquet, M, Calsamiglia, S, Ferret, A, Carro, M D and Kamel, C (2005). Effect of garlic oil and four of its compounds on rumen microbial fermentation. Journal of Dairy Science, 88, 4393-4404.

Capper, J L, Cady, R A and Bauman, D E (2008). Increased production reduces the dairy industry’s environmental impact.

Proceedings of the Cornell Nutrition Conference, 2008, pages 55-66.

25. Yan, T, Mayne, C S, Gordon, F J, Porter, M G, Agnew, R E, Paterson, D C, Ferris, C P and Kilpatrick, D J (2010).

Mitigation of methane emissions through improving efficiency of energy utilization and productivity in lactating dairy cows. Journal of Dairy Science 93, 2630-2638.

26. Garnsworthy, P C 2004. The environmental impact of fertility in dairy cows: a modelling approach to predict methane and ammonia emissions. Animal Feed Science and Technology 112, 211-223.

27. Woods, V B, Ferris, C and Morrison, S (2010). Calculating the greenhouse gas footprint of dairy systems: a preliminary analysis of emissions from milk production systems in Northern Ireland, and some practical mitigation strategies. Improving the sustainability of dairy farming within Northern Ireland.

Proceedings of an AgriSearch seminar held at the Agri-Food and Bio-Sciences Institute, Hillsborough, 21 October 2010.

book & report reviews Reviewed by Ed Richard Bourne and Mark Collins. The Commonwealth Foundation, London SW1Y 5HY. Hook to Plate: the state of Marine Fisheries; a Commonwealth Perspective ISBN 978-0903850-37-7

T

he recently published Census of the Oceans has highlighted the impact man is having on all aspects of the marine environment and the plant and animal populations which live there. This book contains descriptions and discussion of fisheries as a component of the food supply. It explores the history of fisheries and their exploitation by coastal communities. Although it takes a Commonwealth perspective, the

lessons are equally applicable to management of all marine fisheries.

The complexities of internal, national and international trade are explored in terms of WTO agreements and the impact of subsidies, not just on the food supply of countries offering subsidies, but also the adverse effects on those nations which do not support their fishery industry.

Individual chapters by specialist authors explore diverse topics such as fisheries and food security, industry organisation, management and the role of cooperatives, the role of marine protection areas in enhancing stocks and the international law of the sea.

Chapters explore the options for long term solutions with regional policies to improve the management of fish stocks.

Topics are explored in well researched and referenced chapters and the book is well written and edited. It contains 16 chapters by 24 specialist authors who explore the wasteful and inefficient features of fisheries.

Chapters deal with prospects for improving the sustainability of fisheries so that the industry can more readily provide for the well being of coastal communities dependent upon fishing as well as international trade.

The book will make essential reading for anyone involved in fisheries policy whether at national or international level. The challenges facing fisheries management to produce a sustainable industry which supports adequately the communities dependent upon fish are clearly identified.

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letters

A response to a letter on “cocktail effects” Dear editor, In a letter in the autumn 2011 edition of World Agriculture, Christopher Jones commented that in my recent article on pesticide toxicity (Pesticide toxicity and public chemophobia: how toxic are modern-day pesticides?

World Agriculture 2011, 2 (1), 22-31), I did not discuss the possible adverse effects associated with the simultaneous exposure to the residues of multiple pesticides, so called “cocktail effects”. This is quite true and I would like to rectify this situation.

The fear of cocktail effects is predicated on the observation that in certain circumstances mixtures of biologically active chemicals can display synergism. In other words the mixture of chemicals can result in greater biological effects than would be expected from consideration of the biological activity of the individual chemicals alone at the same concentrations. Since most pesticide toxicity testing is done on individual active ingredients alone, it is therefore proposed that mixtures of pesticide residues in food could possibly be more toxic than testing would predict.

I’d like to make a number of points: firstly it will come as no surprise to learn that companies engaged in the invention of new pesticidal active ingredients actively look for combinations of pesticides which have the potential to act synergistically.

Such mixtures will be more effective in the field and hence lower spray concentrations will be required. For instance herbicides which inhibit 4hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) are often used in tandem with herbicides which block photosystem-II since these mixtures tend to be especially effective. However it must be emphasised that such genuinely synergistic effects are rare: generally the activity of mixtures of compounds is well predicted by the activity of the

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individual components alone. In fact antagonistic effects, where mixtures of compounds are less active than would be predicted, are more common than synergistic effects and this can be a real issue in new product development.

Secondly, where genuine synergy is observed, the magnitude of the effect is invariably small. A factor of three would be considered very significant.

In my paper I show that typical exposure to pesticide residues in food is of the order of a million-fold too low to have any impact on the health of people consuming the food. At such miniscule levels of exposure, even if synergistic effects exist they are of no consequence – the million-fold safety factor is many orders of magnitude greater than any synergistic effect that has ever been established. There are no reports of synergy ever being recorded at doses typical of pesticide exposure in food.

A recently published comprehensive literature review (Boobis et al. Critical Reviews in Toxicology, 2011, 41 (5), 369-383) sought to analyse all of the studies that claim synergistic effects of mixtures of compounds in mammalian test systems at “low dose” (i.e. near to the no adverse effect level, still many orders of magnitude higher than actual pesticide exposure in food). The authors identified 90 studies examining combinations of 204 compounds published in the peer reviewed literature between 1990 and 2008. However convincing, quantitative evidence of synergy was only presented in six of these studies and the magnitude of synergy reported never exceeded a factor of four.

Finally the whole “cocktail effect” concept perpetuates the absurd idea that there is somehow something special about synthetic chemicals and their toxicity relative to natural chemicals. All of the myriad natural

chemical components of our food are capable of being toxic (if the dose is sufficient), and many are present in higher concentrations and are more toxic than pesticide residues. If synergistic toxicity between chemicals present in our food is really considered to be a safety issue, surely we must also consider the possibility of synergism amongst these natural chemicals? It may be argued that these natural chemicals have been in our diets for many years and hence we would have spotted any such toxicological issues by now. However new types of food are being introduced all the time and chefs delight in combining ingredients in ever more exotic and inventive ways.

It can therefore equally be argued that we are continually being exposed to novel mixtures of potentially toxic natural compounds most of which have never even been isolated and identified, let alone tested for toxicity!

It is perfectly reasonable for the public to demand extremely high standards of safety in the food chain, and that is what is routinely delivered by modern agriculture. However the issue of “cocktail effects” is often used by those opposed to the use of pesticides in agriculture to imply uncertainty in the safety of this technology. The Precautionary Principle is invoked and ever more testing is demanded, along with guarantees of absolute safety which are of course impossible to provide in any context. This threat remains entirely hypothetical and these effects have never been measured at realistic concentrations. The fact remains that pesticide residues in food are irrelevant to our health, and the use of pesticides in agriculture makes our food safer than it has ever been before.

David Hughes, Syngenta, Jealott’s Hill International Research Centre, Bracknell, Berkshire, UK RG42 6EY

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instructions

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e have made a change to the guidance for citations in the text. In future, references should be numbered sequentially in the text and listed in the Reference section in numerical order. We have made this change as we consider it makes articles easier to read and simplifies the text. In this Issue there is inconsistency in the way references are presented, but we hope to adopt the new system with effect from the next Issue.

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looking ahead

World Agriculture: potential future articles Jonathan Shepherd Aquaculture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; are the criticisms justified?

Wallace Cowling GM canola for Australia Matthew Gilliham Saline soils and genes AndrĂŠ Bationo African soils, their productivity and profitability of fertilizer use Ed Barbier Agricultural land expansion in many tropical regions with poor use of irrigation and fertilizers leads to destruction of natural habitats Alan Buckwell Future of UK farming Penelope Bebeli Genetic pollution of landraces Peter Barfoot & Graham Brookes PG Economics Global GM crop technology and pesticide reduction associated with use.

Michael Turner Seed policies in guiding seed sector development in the 'post project era'.

Published by Script Media, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS WORLD AGRICULTURE 53

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