Europe
August 8, 2016
Agriculture’s carbon footprint totals about six billion tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) each year, making up 13% of global emissions. In fact, after the energy sector, agriculture is the world’s second-highest emitter.
Looking ahead, mitigating emissions and the effects of climate change will be crucial to preserving our planet. But with a growing global population and changing consumption habits, set to rise to over nine billion people by 2050, demand for food and in turn food production will also rise. With this in mind, it’s clear that reducing the impact of the agriculture sector will play a particularly crucial role in keeping global temperature targets below a 2oC rise.
That’s why Monsanto, in Europe and the rest of the world, is working to spread awareness and highlight to the public today the significance of agriculture’s environmental footprint. Working together on solutions to effectively reduce CO2 levels from this essential sector is already front of mind for farmers, scientists and policy makers.
Today, Monsanto Europe has launched its digital campaign, #CO2MUCH, which follows the journey of crops from farm to fork and focuses on their impact on the environment.
The campaign will offer information and insights related to the carbon footprint of agriculture, including answers to questions like: how much CO2 is produced by certain crops? What is Monsanto’s contribution to reducing CO2? It will also offer a look into the carbon footprint journey comparing organic crops with conventional crops. A recent study found that when comparing conventional with organic crops neither was environmentally superior to the other. At the same time, using biotech crops can reduce CO2 emissions by 28,000 million kg per year.
We’ll be talking more about how Monsanto works with farmers to optimise the use of their existing farming footprint, so keep an eye out for what’s next. But first check out the #CO2MUCH campaign on our Twitter account here.
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