Louisa Pearson: 'Spring lamb . . . not on my menu'

Did you know that there's a practice called rogue taxidermy? It involves using a selection of bits of animals to produce dragons and griffins and other creatures that David Attenborough never meets in his documentaries. Now there's something for the kids to try during the Easter holidays.

Back to Dolly. I was thinking about her because it's Easter and, for many folks, spring lamb will be on the menu. Not my menu, I hasten to add. In my book, lambkins are for cooing over, not for sending to the slaughterhouse, but I know I'm in the minority. So for all those of you with the mint sauce poised and ready, let's take a look at the environmental credentials of the chops on your plate.

Unlike the horror stories you hear about intensively farmed chickens or pigs, sheep farming in Britain is a far more sustainable affair, with most sheep spending the vast majority of their lives outdoors. During the summer, there are an estimated 24 million sheep and lambs in the UK. One of the reasons that meat gets a bad rep in terms of environmental impact is because of the vast swathes of land required to grow feed for the animals, plus the associated fertilisers, pesticides and fuel this consumes. But unlike some farm animals, the average hardy upland sheep needs very little artificial feed or other forms of cosseting.

In economic terms, these upland sheep transform land that has little other agricultural value into meat, dairy products and wool. Still, let's pause for a moment and remember that overgrazing can destroy habitats such as moorland, reducing biodiversity.

Last year, two disgruntled Northumberland farmers took part in a study of the carbon footprint of their lamb. Said disgruntlement emerged after the New Zealand lamb industry produced a report saying NZ lamb was four times as energy efficient as British lamb. They argued food miles were negated by more efficient farming methods (fewer fertilisers, no concentrated feeds etc). The British industry hit back saying the study had used statistics only for lowland sheep farms, while two thirds of sheep in the UK graze on uplands. You get the drift.

The Northumberland farmers joined forces with Northumberland National Park Authority and the National Sheep Association and discovered their lamb was almost carbon neutral at the farm gate (transport, packaging and refrigeration costs would still have to be added if sold in the supermarket). The main greenhouse gases produced by the farms were methane (burping sheep) and nitrous oxide (fertilised grassland). However, existing woodland on the farms helped to offset these emissions. It was recommended that, for zero-carbon lamb, the farmers should plant some more trees.

And so we all live happily ever after (except for the lambs). And you may want to think twice about tucking into lamb at Easter, as to ensure they are ready for the big day these lambs are born in winter then spend most of their time indoors, being kept warm and getting fattened up on concentrates rather than enjoying the traditional grass diet and days spent bouncing around in the spring sunshine. Lecture over.

It must be time for egg-rolling. Organic eggs or Fairtrade chocolate ones, obviously.

This article was first published in The Scotland On Sunday on April 04, 2010