Michael Macleod

Scotland's Rural College | SRUC · Sustainable Ecosystems Team

Soil carbon sequestration (SCS) practices on French agricultural land are part of the portfolio of actions available to policymakers in the field of climate change mitigation and are central to the success of the “4 per 1,000” initiative, launched by France in 2015. To date, there has been limited research considering their applicability to vineyar...

This paper illustrates the way in which systems dynamic model can be used to appraise measures designed to improve resilience. The result identify potential synergies and tensions between the goals of resilience and climate smart agriculture, and raises the question of whether fully climate-smart goals are viable in these systems.

The adoption of soil organic carbon sequestration (SCS) practices on agricultural land offers the double advantage of offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improving soil quality. However, little is known about the drivers that might influence winegrowers to adopt these practices, whose uptake remains low on viticultural land. Better unders...

Net soil carbon sequestration on agricultural lands could offset 4% of annual global human-induced GHG emissions over the rest of the century and make an important contribution to meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement. To harness this potential of the agricultural sector to positively contribute to the sustainability agenda, a package of polic...

We aimed to estimate 1) the marginal effect of liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica) infection on productivity of Scottish beef cattle, and 2) the associated greenhouse gas emissions intensity (GHG EI). Data comprised 240,065 abattoir records from NE Scotland from 2014-2017, including the presence or absence of lesions typical of liver fluke in the liver...

The implementation of soil organic carbon sequestration (SCS) practices in agricultural land has the potential to help to mitigate climate change at the global level. However, our understanding of the extent to which viticultural soils can contribute to this global effort remains limited. In this study, we used a random forest regression to predict...

Improved animal health can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity in livestock systems while increasing productivity. Integrated modelling of disease impacts on farm-scale emissions is important in identifying effective health strategies to reduce emissions. However, it requires that modellers understand the pathways linking animal health...

Improved animal health can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity in livestock systems while increasing productivity. Integrated modelling of disease impacts on farm-scale emissions is important in identifying effective health strategies to reduce emissions. However, it requires that modellers understand the pathways linking animal health...

Vineyards are usually cultivated in soils characterised by low soil organic carbon (SOC) content and have high risks of soil erosion and degradation. Increasing SOC stocks in these cropping systems has the potential to contribute to climate change mitigation through SOC sequestration and to enhance soil quality. We conducted a meta-analysis and com...

The report examines the environmental, economic and social consequences of the EU livestock sector, and identifies ways in which it might be improved.

Nitrous oxide (N2O), like carbon dioxide, is a long-lived greenhouse gas that accumulates in the atmosphere. Over the past 150 years, increasing atmospheric N2O concentrations have contributed to stratospheric ozone depletion¹ and climate change², with the current rate of increase estimated at 2 per cent per decade. Existing national inventories do...

Strategies for achieving environmental sustainability of protein production vary regionally. In this study, a framework was applied that would quantify a region-specific contribution to global protein supply with a special focus on protein quality i.e. essential amino acid composition. The framework was applied in Scotland and showed that high-qual...

Global aquaculture makes an important contribution to food security directly (by increasing food availability and accessibility) and indirectly (as a driver of economic development). In order to enable sustainable expansion of aquaculture, we need to understand aquaculture’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how it can be mi...

Senegal, located in West Africa, is an example of a low- to middle-income country where the government has prioritized improving livestock production self-sufficiency, with a strong focus on dairy. Among other initiatives, the use of exotic dairy cattle has been promoted, despite no evidence for the potential livelihood benefits (or otherwise) to s...

Global aquaculture makes an important contribution to food security directly (by increasing food availability and accessibility) and indirectly (as a driver of economic development). In order to enable sustainable expansion of aquaculture, we need to understand aquaculture’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how it can be mi...

This study quantifies the global GHG emissions from aquaculture (excluding farming of aquatic plants) and explains how cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) could be used to appraise GHG mitigation measures.

The role of livestock in supporting human well-being is contentious, with different perceptions leading to polarised opinions. There is increasing concern about the health and environmental impacts of a high rate of consumption of livestock products in high-income countries. These concerns are heightened by an increase in consumption in middle-inco...

To limit warming to well below 2°C, most scenario projections rely on greenhouse gas removal technologies (GGRTs); one such GGRT uses soil carbon sequestration (SCS) in agricultural land. In addition to their role in mitigating climate change, SCS practices play a role in delivering agroecosystem resilience, climate change adaptability, and food se...

The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill, amending the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, set the ambitious GHG emissions reduction targets of 90% by 2050, compared to a 1990 baseline. In accordance to this, the Climate Change Plan (Scottish Government 2018a) set out policies aiming to provide further GHG mitigation in Scot...

Achieving an optimal nutrient balance is one of the main targets of sustainable agriculture. The aim of this study was to identify “hotspots” of agricultural nutrient imbalance. This was done by developing a modelling framework and using it to analyse the spatial distribution of agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus flows. The nutrient flows for the...

Increasing the production of meat and milk within sub-Saharan Africa should provide significant food security benefits. However, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represent a challenge, as cattle production in the region typically has high emissions intensity (EI), i.e., high rates of GHG emissions per unit of output. The high EI is caused by the rela...

Agricultural by-products are an important component of livestock feed. In Scotland, distillery by-products are protein rich and traditionally cost competitive feed ingredients in cattle production. However, during recent years, distilleries in the UK (including Scotch whisky producers) have started to use the by-products also as a source of renewab...

Developing countries are experiencing an increase in total demand for livestock commodities, as populations and per capita demands increase. Increased production is therefore required to meet this demand and maintain food security. Production increases will lead to proportionate increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions unless offset by reduction...

The livestock sector is one of the fastest growing subsectors of the agricultural economy and, while it makes a major contribution to global food supply and economic development, it also consumes significant amounts of natural resources and alters the environment. In order to improve our understanding of the global environmental impact of livestock...

Improving livestock health offers both private and social benefits. Among the potential social benefits is a reduction in the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from livestock production. Reductions in emissions intensity (the amount of GHG produced per kilogram of meat, milk or eggs) may occur, as improving health can lead to improvements in t...

The Scottish Government commissioned ClimateXChange to assess the greenhouse gas abatement potential from a range of measures to manage slurry in Scotland, to inform policy thinking on the forthcoming Climate Change Plan. This report presents findings on the potential effectiveness of five types of measures. Most cattle in Scotland are housed from...

Endemic sheep and cattle diseases and greenhouse gas emissions - Volume 7 Issue 3 - D. J. Bartley, P. J. Skuce, R. N. Zadoks, M. MacLeod

Climate change has the potential to impair livestock health, with consequences for animal welfare, productivity, greenhouse gas emissions, and human livelihoods and health. Modelling has an important role in assessing the impacts of climate change on livestock systems and the efficacy of potential adaptation strategies, to support decision making f...

Executive Summary This project was commissioned to help Scottish Government explore how the agricultural sector can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the targets under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. This report examines the approaches for quantifying emissions, reviews recent studies and provides recommendations...

This paper reviews the international literature on the cost-effectiveness of supply-side mitigation measures that can reduce the emissions intensity of agriculture while maintaining or increasing production. Sixty-five recent international studies of cost-effectiveness covering 181 individual activities are reviewed. Nine case studies of well cover...

Deliverable D11.2Theme 2: Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnologies

The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD, Regulation No 1305/2013) offers a wide range of opportunities to advance climate mitigation and adaptation activities through Rural Development Programmes (RDPs). Building on experiences gained in the 2007–2013 programming period, Member States can use RDPs to support many practical actio...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation is one of the main challenges facing agriculture, exacerbated by the increasing demand for food, in particular for livestock products. Production expansion needs to be accompanied by reductions in the GHG emission intensity of agricultural products, if significant increases in emissions are to be avoided. Suggested f...

Abstract Text: This paper describes a framework to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement potential of range of animal and system management options, including genetic improvement and estimates their relative cost effectiveness. The potential cost effective abatement that could be achieved in UK livestock by 2022 was estimated to range from 1....

Nitrous oxide (N2O) makes the single largest contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from UK and European Union agriculture. Ambitious government targets for GHG mitigation are leading to the implementation of changes in agricultural management in order to reduce these emissions (mitigation measures). We review the evidence for the contribut...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to deliver good ecological status (GES) for Europe's waters. It prescribes the use of economic principles, such as derogation from GES on grounds of disproportionate costs of mitigation. This paper proposes an application of the proportionality principle to mitigation of phosphorus (P) pollution of 544 Scott...

The animal food chain contributes significantly to emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). We explored studies that addressed options to mitigate GHG emissions in the animal production chain and concluded that most studies focused on production systems in developed countries and on a single GHG. They did not account for the complex interrelated effect...

This paper derives a notional future carbon budget for UK agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry sectors (ALULUCF). The budget is based on a bottom-up marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) derived for a range of mitigation measures for specified adoption scenarios for the years 2012, 2017 and 2022. The results indicate that in 2022 arou...

Export Date: 18 April 2012, Source: Scopus

This paper addresses the challenge of developing a ‘bottom-up’ marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) for greenhouse gas emissions from UK agriculture. A MACC illustrates the costs of specific crop, soil, and livestock abatement measures against a ‘‘business as usual’’ scenario. The results indicate that in 2022 under a specific policy scenario, arou...

Emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture are likely to come under increasing scrutiny as governments around the world develop proposals for large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Yet while there is a range of technically feasible measures for reducing agricultural emissions, it is not immediately apparent which options deliver the most econo...

Regulations designed to reduce the risk of E. Coli 0157 food poisoning are examined in this chapter. These regulations are somewhat unusual in that they have been the subject of several ex post analyses. The evidence suggests that the ex ante costs were underestimated because of incorrect assumptions that (a) the regulations would not impose any on...

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry (ALULUCF) are a significant percentage of UK industrial emissions. The UK Government is committed to ambitious targets for reducing emissions and all significant industrial sources are coming under increasing scrutiny. The task of allocating shares of future reduction...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry (ALULUCF) are a significant percentage of UK emissions. This means that as the UK and devolved administrations set ambitious emissions reductions targets, the ALULUCF sectors will come under increasing scrutiny and pressure to reduce emissions. In order to addre...

The implementation of regulations designed to improve the welfare of pigs is examined in this chapter. The evidence suggests that the ex ante costs are likely to have been overestimated, due primarily to baseline errors that are the inevitable result of not attempting to account for temporal variation in an industry undergoing rapid change. It is i...

This chapter introduces the concept of regulation, the reasons why it exists and the many forms that it can take. This is followed by an examination of the methodologies used by government to assess the impact of regulation and discussion of the debates surrounding regulation and its appraisal. © Michael MacLeod, Paul Ekins, Robin Vanner and Domini...

Government regulation is necessary to the economic life of all developed countries. However, although regulation is designed to benefit society at large, the costs of regulation, in particular the cost estimates employed in the policy-making process, are often hotly debated. Drawing on recent case studies, this innovative book examines the accuracy...

Dominic Moran a , Michael MacLeod a , Eileen Wall a , Vera Eory a , Guillaume Pajot b , Robin Matthews b , Alistair McVittie a , Andrew Barnes a , Bob Rees a , Andrew Moxey c , Adrian Williams d , Pete Smith

There have been a number of changes in UK food marketing recently, one of which has been the growth in the number of “farmers' markets“ (FMs). While the sector has grown rapidly, it faces a range of challenges, including: retaining critical mass; maintaining the FM brand; managing costs; improving co-ordination. Despite these challenges, it is argu...

In Ireland ‘commonage’ refers to lands jointly owned by several individuals who have grazing rights. Commonage can provide the low-intensity grazing regime regarded as optimal for habitat conservation, and it is also unlikely to suffer the negative impacts of building development or coastal engineering. Today, however, the traditional control syste...

This paper uses a variety of data sources and methodologies to construct business as usual (BAU) water-use scenarios for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) characterisation report, a key preliminary benchmarking requirement for member states. The paper addresses the most significant water-use sectors in Scotland over the period 2001–2015. In terms...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is perhaps the most ambitious piece of environmental legislation in the history of the European Union. The Directive consolidates existing water-related legislation and has the stated objective of delivering good status (GS) for Europe’s surface waters and groundwaters. But meeting GS is cost dependent, and...

Increasing the proportion of renewable capacity in the national energy mix may give rise to a range of economic costs. This paper considers the nature of water use in hydroelectric generation in Scotland. Hydroelectric generation is currently the highest volumetric use of water in Scotland. After calculating this volume, the paper considers the nat...

Legal factors play an underrated but significant role as constraints on conservation management. In this paper, based on observations in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, mode of land tenure is assessed to determine its influence on the conservation management of coastal dunes. The tenure types considered are: private ownership, co...

CLIMATE PATTERNS IN THE COASTAL ZONE Douglas L. Inman Coastal Morphology Group Integrative Oceanography Division Scripps Institution of Oceanography dinman@ucsd.edu Scott A. Jenkins Coastal Morphology Group Integrative Oceanography Division Scripps Institution of Oceanography sjenkins@ucsd.edu 20 June 2003 Preprint from Encyclopedia of Coastal Scie...

On dynamic coastal sites, subject to rapid and sometimes unpredictable shoreline changes, management problems can be aggravated if legally authoritative maps are obsolete. These difficulties are illustrated by two case studies from County Donegal in northwest Ireland. The first case study outlines the problems that arise where statutory functional...

The ways in which beach users in rural areas of Portugal and Ireland perceive and value beaches in their countries was investigated by means of a questionnaire survey. The survey was carried out on beaches in Co. Donegal in Ireland, and Sines in Portugal in the summer of 1999 and 294 questionnaires were completed. The survey found that there were s...

UK Government departments are required to undertake a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) when introducing any policy change that places a burden on businesses, charities, the voluntary sector or individuals. Part of this assessment involves the appraisal of the costs (and benefits) associated with complying with all the available options, as well a...

The ways in which people use beaches have important implications for coastal zone management, and in order for beach use to be sustainable, it often needs to be managed. The degree and mode of management depends on the circumstances of the beach, region, and country in question. The present legislation and coastal zone management framework in Irela...