Ripon farmer calls for collaboration to tackle climate change

A Ripon farmer is urging collaboration between the farming industry and Government to tackle climate change.

James Johnson has backed the National Farmers Union's tree strategy, which has been launched at the 2021 Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate.

The NFU says planting the right tree in the right place should be the driving principle to plant more trees to tackle climate change.

The strategy talks about how farmers can make use of trees, as well as accommodating them, but it would work best with collaboration from ministers.

WATCH: James forecasts future changes for farming, caused by climate change

28-year-old James, who farms near Fountains Abbey, told us: "Everybody farms differently, and implementing the tree strategy will be different for everybody. The big benefit for us, looking at regenerative farming practices, we're wanting to improve biodiversity.

"Planting trees is only going to help that, but it's making sure we plant them in the right place, and not going to affect our food production, our food security.

"Farming has a great place to make everything better. There's been farming practices in the past when we went through that industrial phase where food was everything. Food is still everything, but there's always that field corner at the side that doesn't really produce anything.

"It's about looking at our farming and saying, 'yeah we can lose that bit of the field,' because it's not going to feed much, it yields less."

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• great yorkshire show
• national farmers union
• Climate change
• tree planting