Written question asked by Lord Barker of Battle (Conservative) on Tuesday, 4 November 2003, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 20 November 2003. It was answered by Ben Bradshaw (Labour) on Thursday, 20 November 2003 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the potential effects of climate change on British agriculture. - Including figures and refs to www.ukcip.org.uk/Agriculture/agriculture/htm and Climate Change and Agriculture in the UK and http://defraweb/environ/climatechange/index.htm.

Answer: Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent assessment she has made of the potential effects of climate change on British agriculture. [137270] Mr. Bradshaw: Since 1987 MAFF and now Defra has commissioned over £6 million of ongoing research focused on (i) identifying the impacts of potential climate change on UK agriculture; and (ii) helping farmers to develop adaptation strategies to manage the impacts of climate change. A report which summarises this research was published in early 2003 and is available on UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) website: http://www.ukcip.org.uk/Agriculture/agriculture.htm. Furthermore, in 2000 we commissioned a report `Climate Change and Agriculture in the UK' aimed at raising awareness of climate change within the farming community. Where sufficient evidence was available, this report summarised possible adaptation strategies to cope with expected changes; where the knowledge base was less robust, the report set out the potential impacts on UK agriculture. This report is available on the Defra website: http://defraweb/environ/climate/climatechange/index.htm

Secondary information