Climate responsibilities not forgotten amid pandemic

The Scottish farming industry’s focus remains firmly on keeping food and drink on the nation’s table during the coronavirus pandemic, writes NFU Scotland vice president Martin Kennedy on the NFU Scotland website.

However, in the background, NFU Scotland continues to recognise its responsibility to respond to climate change.

‘NFUS recognises the risk climate change poses and why we are committed to continue playing an active role in tackling it,’ said Mr Kennedy. ‘We want to see an approach to mitigate climate change that also enhances biodiversity and drives benefits for food production and for our landscapes and communities.

‘We need to take opportunities to adopt management and measurement tools. We know this can bring win-win solutions: small changes to more efficient farming methods can cut greenhouse gases per unit of food produced while delivering financial wins for farm businesses.

We must continue to make decisions based on the most relevant and up-to-date scientific evidence. It is crucial we are not selective with our approach – even if we discover things that don’t seem at first to be to our liking.

‘We know recovery from COVID-19 will present unique challenges for all of society, businesses and government. Despite this uncertainty, Scottish farmers remain committed to producing high quality food in a way that reduces our carbon footprint and protects the environment.’

The union’s ground-breaking work in partnership with the Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) will bring clarity on the impact Scottish agriculture has on the climate when it is published over the coming weeks, summarising current knowledge and showing an accurate picture of agriculture, highlighting where there is certainty and areas where we need more research.

‘Scotland is already recognised as being well ahead of the curve when it comes to climate change and so long as we continue to drive positive measures to improve our position, market opportunities for our products can only increase,’ concluded Mr Kennedy.