Entitled "An economic assessment of GHG mitigation policy options for EU agriculture", the study was published by the EU Commission's Joint Research Centre and created six different scenarios to investigate the impact of emission reduction goals on EU agriculture activities.

Some of the scenarios allowed for tradeable emission permits while others did not.

In all the scenarios, a lower level of agricultural activity was found to be the main adjustment needed in order to reduce GHG emissions, with the largest decreases in agricultural activity predicted to take place in the livestock sector.

Projections for beef herds

Within the livestock sector, the herd size of beef meat activities was found to be most affected, because reductions of other activities, for example dairy cows, would entail higher economic losses per unit of emission savings.

A reduction in EU GHG emissions of 19% was projected to result in a 31.1% decrease in the beef herd while a reduction of 28% was projected to result in an almost 50% decrease.

However, this sharp decrease in herd sizes is not fully reflected in the supply, which decreases by 17.8% and 29.2% respectively. That supply in beef meat activities decreases less than herd size indicates a change in herd structure, decreasing the pure beef producing herd and using more the offspring of the dairy herd for meat production.

Projections for pig sector

In the pig sector, both herd size and production also face decreases at EU level in order to come in line with GHG emission reduction targets.

Projections for dairy sector

The EU dairy sector is less affected than the beef sector, with reductions in the dairy cow herd of between 6.0% and 10.3%. The reductions in milk production are smaller than the reductions in herd size (- 5.4% and -9.1% respectively), indicating only a rather small increase in productivity per cow.

Projected producer prices

Due to the fact that the large production decreases provoked by the GHG reduction policies are not compensated by equivalent imports, all producer prices in the EU are projected to increase. However, the study also found that production decreases are generally lower in the scenarios with emission trading, meaning that the producer prices of pig meat, poultry meat and cow milk are considerably less affected than in the respective scenarios without tradeable emission permits.

Total GHG emissions in the EU

GHG emissions in the 'agriculture' category accounted for 10% of total EU GHG emissions in 2011. Ireland accounted for 31% of these total emissions while Malta accounted for 2%. According to the researchers, such variation between countries can be attributed to the typology as well as relative size and importance of the agricultural sector in each country.

EU agricultural emissions sources

The study found that nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural soil management accounts for 52% of the EU's total agriculture emissions. Methane emissions from enteric fermentation account for 32% while emissions from manure management account for the final 16%.

Reductions in GHG emissions

Over the last two decades agricultural GHG emissions decreased by 23% at aggregated EU level, from about 600 million tonnes CO2 equivalents in 1990 to about 460 million tonnes CO2 equivalents in 2011. In most of the Member States, more emission decrease was achieved during the 1990s (-16%), whereas the reduction path significantly slowed down in the time down in the time period between 2001 and 2011 (-7%).

The study attributes this general decrease in EU GHG emissions to several factors, most of all to productivity increases and a decrease in cattle numbers, as well as improvements in farm management practices.

To prevent the most severe impacts of climate change, the international community has agreed that global warming should be kept below 2ºC compared to the temperature in pre-industrial times. That means a temperature increase of no more than around 1.2°C above today's level. Last year the EU pledged to reduce its emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 in order to remain in line with this target.