Ripon farmers changing how they work to tackle climate change
Freak weather patterns are having a detrimental impact on what's grown in the UK
A farmer from Ripon has told us he's changing the way he produces food to try and tackle climate change.
Global warming is likely to bring more variable climate with a greater chance of more extreme weather events. This includes late spring frost or windstorm, which may cause crop failure.
Future climate may also increase occurrence of extreme impacts on crops, so poor weather conditions like drought or prolonged soil wetness could result in substantial reduction in yield and quality.
James Johnson and his father run a farm near Fountains Abbey and are focusing on regenerative agriculture which is a type of holistic farming which improves water and air quality, enhances ecosystem biodiversity, produces nutrient-dense food, and stores carbon to help mitigate the effects of climate change.
He said: "It's purely based on improving soil health so the idea is to reduce the amount of artificial fertilisers and chemicals we use and instead working with nature rather than against it.
"It's something completely new to us and we're hoping to integrate our livestock into our crop and rotation. So our lambs are grazing our crops to take the diseases off the leaves rather than spraying it with chemicals.
"The great thing about this is we're growing a living root in the soil instead of leaving stubbles bear over winter. We're putting a cover crop in between cash crops which absorbs carbon from the atmosphere because without it the bacteria and fungi in the soil will die so it's keeping the soil more healthy.
"Improving the soil health improves our draining so in wet times we can get onto the ground more quickly and its the same in dry times as the soil will have held more water."
There are warnings from the farming community that climate change needs to be a top priority or it could risk food shortages.
Extreme weather patterns are already impacting what food is produced so farmers are focusing on holistic farming to improve soil health so it can cope.
James, added: "By doing this we are making our food security more resilient. If we don't look at our soil we're more are risk of these freak weather systems so as a consumer you're at risk of the food being more scarce.
"If we were just relying on things we could grow we'd be at risk of food shortages so the consumer would drive prices higher. The food security is better if we have a more integrated approach by not using these chemicals and instead using livestock. The food quality is much better as well.
"We are here to produce food for the consumer but also try and work with nature to create a healthy ecosystem not just for us but for all our birds, mammals and organisms in our countryside."