Suffolk farmers coast to the future

What will coastal Suffolk look like in thirty years' time? How will climate change affect the area’s much-loved landscapes including farmland and other unique habitats? These are the subject of a new project managed by the East Anglian office of the National Farmers’ Union on behalf of the Suffolk Coast & Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

As well as investigating likely scenarios for farming and the countryside over the next few decades, the Future Landscapes project will also provide clear and practical advice to farmers and land managers on how to adapt to new challenges presented by climate change. The project will focus on the AONB, which covers the entire Suffolk coast from Lowestoft to Felixstowe and extends between 1 and 5 miles inland.

The NFU will be working with local and national partners on this important project. Students from Otley College will be interviewing farmers in the district to ascertain attitudes towards and perspectives of climate change and climate change adaptation. Climate change experts from Cranfield University will be investigating what the changing climate will mean for  farm businesses in the Suffolk Coast & Heaths.

Successfully adapting to, and mitigating against, climate change at the same time as producing more food and impacting on the environment less is one of the key priorities for UK farming.  However, much of the work done on climate change so far has focussed on mitigating the impacts – reducing fossil fuel use and carbon emissions, and improving energy efficiency – rather than dealing with the outcomes of climate change. Many farm businesses are already adapting to these changes but more work is needed to help farmers understand how to cope successfully climate change in the coming decades. Future Landscapes will help farmers in the Suffolk Coast & Heaths to do this. 

The Suffolk Coast and Heaths is an important area for cereal, field vegetable and outdoor pig production, and its ecologically valuable grazing marshes support beef and sheep production.  The AONB is home to other unique habitats and threatened species, and its relatively undeveloped landscapes of rolling farmland, heaths and forests support a booming tourism industry. But the combination of light, sandy soils and proximity to the sea mean that the area is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Climate change impacts are already felt in the area and are likely to increase.  Projections published in 2009 show that summer rainfall will decrease in East Anglia, a region already suffering from pressure on water resources as its population grows.  Sea level fluctuation, temperature changes and heavier winter rainfall will all bring additional challenges.

So the project will be covering a lot of ground, both in terms of identifying impacts of climate change and giving farmers the kind of information they need to successfully adapt to them.  We’ll be holding a series of events in 2011 for farmers, land managers and others involved in agriculture, so look out for more information on the project over the next 18 months.

Alex Dinsdale is the Countryside Policy Adviser for the NFU in Suffolk. You can contact him by email on alex.dinsdale@nfu.org.uk.