McLaren takes moral high ground over beef

Published on Sunday 17 April 2011 18:27

The production of beef from Scotland's uplands was defended at the SAMW conference by Jim McLaren, the new chairman of the red meat industry promotional body, Quality Meat Scotland.

McLaren, who stood down as president of NFU Scotland in February, dismissed claims that producing meat was an inefficient way of utilising protein which could be consumed directly by humans.

Research by Professor Mike Wilkinson at Nottingham University had exposed the fallacy of the argument frequently promulgated by the anti-meat lobby.

"The real argument is not about the total protein intake of cattle but the amount of protein fed to cattle which we humans could consume ourselves," said McLaren.

"On that basis, Professor Wilkinson has demonstrated that only 0.92kg of human edible protein is required to produce 1kg of beef from an upland suckler herd although total protein intake is 26.3kg. The rest of the protein comes from grass and rough grazing on land incapable of producing food for human consumption.

"This is a fantastic story for the red meat industry to grab."

McLaren said the research finding was particularly important for Scotland where 85 per cent of the land was officially designated as less favoured and only capable of producing grazing for livestock.