Climate Change and Sustainable Crop Production: Farming is Changing

Abstract

The current public focus on development and adoption of more sustainable approaches to crop production in many parts of Europe will require widespread and significant changes to the way we farm. These changes are made even more complicated as they have to be implemented against the background of climate change, which threatens to impose further challenges such as changing ranges of pest species, variable and extreme weather conditions, the potential for growing new crops and a range of other issues that will require ongoing adaptability. Government policy and legislation, such as the UK Sustainable Farming Initiative (SCI) and the Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS), responds to the debate surrounding the future of farming by aiming to promote the adoption of more sustainable farming methods. Extensive work has been conducted in the UK to define what the new schemes encompass/require, and to seek farmer opinions and experience on the quality of the support and guidelines offered to adopters of the scheme, alongside financial support for implementing the work required. Maintaining the momentum of change needed to achieve the objectives encompassed by the new legislation will, however, require both a good understanding of how these schemes operate and close interaction between farmers, agronomists, industrial and academic R&D providers, and regulators, to support on-farm implementation.