Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - The Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to research by the University of Sydney, published in the Natural scientific journal on 20 June 2022, if he will take steps in response to that research that found a fifth of all food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from transporting edible products.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government’s recently published Net Zero Strategy sets out our plans to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions. This includes a range of policies and actions to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions (including methane) from within the food system from farm to fork.
For example, ruminant livestock are the leading cause of food methane emissions, but feed additives with methane inhibiting properties have the potential to reduce emissions, especially from housed cattle. Whilst this is an emerging technology, the Government is actively investigating the promising role these products may have in delivering emissions savings in the medium term.
More broadly the Government will support the agricultural sector to decarbonise through the schemes set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, which aims to support farmers to adopt low greenhouse gas emission farming practices and increase the carbon stored on their farms, helping to improve business productivity and profitability gains.
The Government also supports the work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), whose Courtauld 2030 voluntary agreement includes a target to reduce GHG emissions across the food supply chain. Periodic estimates of UK household food waste levels are undertaken by WRAP with government funding with the next estimate reporting year being 2022/23.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - The Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to research by the University of Sydney, published in the Natural scientific journal on 20 June 2022, what assessment his Department has made of the validity of the finding that a fifth of all food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from transporting edible products.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government’s recently published Net Zero Strategy sets out our plans to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions. This includes a range of policies and actions to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions (including methane) from within the food system from farm to fork.
For example, ruminant livestock are the leading cause of food methane emissions, but feed additives with methane inhibiting properties have the potential to reduce emissions, especially from housed cattle. Whilst this is an emerging technology, the Government is actively investigating the promising role these products may have in delivering emissions savings in the medium term.
More broadly the Government will support the agricultural sector to decarbonise through the schemes set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, which aims to support farmers to adopt low greenhouse gas emission farming practices and increase the carbon stored on their farms, helping to improve business productivity and profitability gains.
The Government also supports the work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), whose Courtauld 2030 voluntary agreement includes a target to reduce GHG emissions across the food supply chain. Periodic estimates of UK household food waste levels are undertaken by WRAP with government funding with the next estimate reporting year being 2022/23.
Asked by: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - The Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his timeframe is for implementing secondary legislation to reform rights of way.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has decided to take forward a streamlined package of measures to implement rights of way reform including repealing the 2026 cut-off date to record historic rights of way, as well as giving landowners the right to apply to divert or remove rights of ways in specific circumstances. These measures, along with accompanying guidance, will be implemented as soon as reasonably practicable.