§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the environmental benefits accruing from the ability of(a) sugar beet and (b) other crops to act as carbon sinks. [155664]
§ Mr. MorleySeparate estimates for sugar beet are not available but research sponsored by the Department suggests that an upper limit of 0.14 million tonnes carbon per year (Mt C/year) is accumulating in crop biomass as a whole in the UK, mainly as a result of increases in crop yield. This is small compared with the amount of carbon that is sequestered by forests, which is currently around 3 Mt C/year.
Agriculture and forestry sectors probably contribute most effectively to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through the production of energy crops and wood fuel by displacing use of fossil fuels.