That was the message during a meeting of farming bosses with the Shadow Secretariat for the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) ahead of their recommendations for Britain's emissions targets for the next 40 years.

President of the National Farmers Union (NFU) Peter Kendall and president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) Henry Aubrey-Fletcher made a joint statement on behalf
of the Agricultural Sector Association's Climate Change Task Force to CCC chairman Lord Adair Turner.

While the sector leaders are urging the CCC to recognise the unique role of agriculture in providing renewable natural resources together with other environmental services, they were keen to stress the need for foresight when it comes to setting targets for agricultural industries.

The CCC is producing a report, set for publication in December, which
will provide independent evidence-based advice
to Whitehall on the
targets it should set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from now until 2050.

Part of the report will see the committee setting out carbon budgets for the economy up to 2022 and a long-term target to 2050 and advise on how different sectors of the economy including the agricultural sector can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Britain.

Industry representatives at the meeting, which took place at an aerobic digestion plant and farm in Bedford, were keen to impress on Lord Turner the need for understanding when setting targets for agriculture.

They raised fears among sections of the farming community that if emissions targets are made too ambitious there will be a serious impact on competitiveness as it would lead to a rash of foreign food imports from countries making little or no attempt to cut their own greenhouse gas pollution.

Mr Aubrey-Fletcher said: "We think by the end of this visit Lord Turner appreciated that agriculture really is different.

"It produces non-CO2 greenhouse gases, which are orders of magnitude more complex than CO2 to understand, to measure and to control.

"Farming is a highly fragmented industry, producing freely tradable goods and as an industry has little ability to pass on cost increases down the chain to consumers.

"But most of all, and unlike any other sector of the economy, agriculture offers a multitude of routes through which it can offer solutions to climate change by dealing with wastes, producing renewable energy and displacing greenhouse gases otherwise emitted from other sectors."

Mr Kendall said: "We are urging the Climate Change Committee to take an economically viable and evidence-based approach to greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets."