Reducing emissions from agriculture – the role of new farm technologies

1.0 Introduction and Background

Agriculture represented 16% of Scotland's emissions in 2018^[3]. The Scottish Government has committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2045, including a reduction of 75% by 2030. The Scottish Government's Climate Change Plan update^[4] requires the equivalent of a 31% reduction in agricultural emissions by 2032 from 2018 levels. Between 1990-2019 Scottish agriculture’s emissions decreased by only 13%.

Recent work on marginal abatement cost curves (Eory et al., 2022) presents a number of areas which, if adopted at scale, would support progress towards the net zero target in 2045. These technologies offer a feasible set of solutions which could be adopted for farming at a range of costs for on-farm adoption. As these effects and costs are reasonably well tested then more certainties can be placed on their potential if adopted by industry. These technologies, studied in the MACC for Scotland are shown in table 1.

Source: Eory et al. (2022

These technologies were also further explored with Farmer Led Groups which suggests that future policy has to recognise technologies which are both cost-effective to adopt and attractive for the farmer^[5].