Ian Gibson wants to invest in plant science

Climate change has become the media story of the decade, and rightly so.

When it comes to combating it, however, it seems that planting trees to offset carbon emissions could actually contribute to global warming unless the trees are planted in the tropics.(1) First generation biofuels are also giving us a nasty surprise. The deforestation of developing countries, currently taking place in the rush to make way for biofuel plantations, is having a far more severe effect on the planet than many of us imagine.

Climate change presents us with a set of extremely complex problems. So what is the solution? It comes in the form of UK plant science.

Biomass

Instead of looking abroad to solve our energy needs, we should be concentrating efforts in the UK on a ‘second generation’ of bioenergy crops which use biomass.

Miscanthus, switch grass, willow and poplar can all be grown in the UK. They use less land area than existing biofuel crops, are renewable and carbon neutral. They do not use the same volume of chemicals and pesticides which other crops such as rapeseed have been criticised for.

At Rothamsted Research they are growing short-rotation-coppice willow. This will grow on marginal land and requires little input. If we can get 350,000 hectares of UK land growing ‘second generation’ bioenergy crops which can then be processed to produce fuels such as biodiesel, this will meet seven per cent of UK petrochemical needs without reducing food production and with very little input.

The BBSRC has just put in £20m to the research. But we face a situation where, before the research is done, many companies and countries are going ahead and planting vast areas of biofuel crops which are actually damaging the environment.

If we are able to produce more bioenergy crops in the UK we will be able to control how they are farmed and regulate the CO2 emitted. We will also guarantee our future energy security.

Biofuels v. food

Inevitably there will be a competition for farm land between biofuels companies and the food industry. Bioscience offers us the potential solutions we need.

It is predicted that, by 2050, the average temperature in East Anglia will have risen by 3 degrees Celsius. In addition to this, there will be greatly reduced rainfall, greatly increased water evaporation and a great deal more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Arable farmers will need crops which can grow and be harvested under variable temperatures and rainfall. Farmers will face new infections and parasites. Wetter winters will make cereal crops more prone to fungal diseases such as Fusarium ear blight. We will simply not be able to continue on with the same crops or the same variety of crops which are traditionally grown in the UK.

Bioscience solutions

As well as increasing rain water catchments, irrigation and irrigation efficiency, we must also look at the genetic make up of plants that survive in extreme climates. We can protect cereal crops from fungal diseases by introducing genes with a natural resistance. Once we isolate the genes which allow plants to cope with temperature, these too can be bred into commercial crop varieties.

Scientists at the John Innes Centre have isolated several genes which control whether a plant needs a cold period before it will flower. This cold ‘trigger’ can be bred in and out of plants to produce winter and spring varieties. This technology will be increasingly important as the temperature rises.

More investment

It is clear that plant science has a central role to play in our future and in combating climate change. Yet at the same time there are talks of job losses in plant science institutions. Rothamsted Research experienced a net staff reduction of 17 during 2005/06. The John Innes Centre in Norwich is at present a world class institution producing world class research in this area. But how long will Britain remain at the forefront of plant science if we do not make the necessary investment?

BP recently decided to establish a $250 million biofuels research centre in California rather than the UK. One of the persuading factors was that Governor Schwarzenegger agreed to match the investment while the BBSRC was only able offer £20m.

If climate change is an important issue for government, and it seems that everything from the Labour Government’s Climate Change Bill to David Cameron’s organic trainers suggest that it is, then plant science must be made a national priority, soon.

Reference

1. See Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory news release

Dr Ian Gibson is MP for Norwich North