Don't give up eating meat – and help to save the planet

Published on Tuesday 23 June 2009 22:51

THE world is an increasingly hungry place, and it is an absolute certainty that food production will have to be raised substantially quickly to avoid serious famine in many countries.

Statistics complied by the National Beef Association, which have been forwarded to both the Treasury and Defra (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) make this abundantly clear.

Christopher Thomas-Everard , the chairman of the UK-wide NBA, said: "With six million additional people in the world every day, a declining area for production and China and India raising their standards of living, agriculture on a global basis will need to produce 50 per cent more food by 2030."

That sounds a demanding task, but Thomas-Everard takes the case for greater production well beyond that simple equation. He said: "The world population at the end of May of almost 6.8 billion is increasing by 9,200 each and every hour – that's 220,000 each day, and will be at least seven billion by February 2012, 7.5 billion by 2015, eight billion by 2025 and nine billion by 2040. With improved medical knowledge and treatment for a wide range of diseases, these figures could prove to be an underestimate.

"Here in the UK the population is projected by the Office for National Statistics to increase from 60.6 million in 2006 to 65m in 2016 and 70m by 2028."

Sir Paul McCartney was recently reported as saying everyone should give up eating meat on Mondays to save the planet from global warming, but that simplistic argument does not sit well with Thomas-Everard.

He said: "Cattle, sheep and grass are part of the carbon cycle. Grass absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which is then released by bacteria, or breaking it down in the digestive tracts of ruminants, principally cattle and sheep.

"The entire cycle recurs repeatedly and is carbon-neutral. The same cannot be said for many plants. Plants worldwide produce millions of tonnes of methane each year, with the greatest share coming from the tropics. This contribution, according to leading scientists, is calculated to account for up to 30 per cent of annual methane emissions."

Thomas-Evererad is clearly not in tune with those who argue that the UK should divest itself of the vast majority of cattle and sheep and concentrate on arable crops, which some say would reduce carbon emissions.

He said: "Grass-fed UK beef and lamb, blackberries and field mushrooms have a lower carbon footprint than any alternative food. Imported food consumes fuel for chilling and food miles. Remember too, that some Brazilian beef is fed on cereals and soya grown on land that was formerly rainforest.

"The alternative of ploughing up grassland in the UK, and releasing colossal amounts of carbon to grow crops for human, pig and poultry foods, would be far worse for the climate and fossil fuel reserves than cattle grazing and foraging rough grasses, gorse and other vegetation that nothing else will, or can consume."

There will be many who will take issue with those arguments, but the facts are more difficult to counter. UK self-sufficiency in beef has dropped from 109 per cent in 1995 to just over 80 per cent last year: all the indications suggest that the figures for 2009 will show a further decline.

It is also acknowledged that, of the 17.4 million hectares of agricultural land in the UK, little more than 25 per cent is suitable for arable crop production. The balance is made up of grassland and rough grazing: people simply cannot live on grass.