We are urgently developing research requirements with other European laboratories to make sure we understand and the disease (Schmallenberg) better.Funding key to help farmers combat climate change
THE Welsh Assembly is being pressed to increase research funding into reducing methane emissions from livestock.
CountryLand and Business (CLA) Wales chairman, Ross Murray, said that eating less meat was not the answer to climate change. Such calls were grossly misguided and would only create other problems.
The real answer was to find new ways to produce meat with lower greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
He said: “Calls for people to give up eating meat to fight climate change are misjudged. Meat provides us with key nutrients and farming fewer livestock would create other problems.
“Milk from cows, for instance, is a key nutrient for the healthy development of young children.
“The only substitute available would be very large volumes of soya, but it should be remembered that soya farming has destroyed many thousands of acres of rainforest across the world and continues to do so.
“Wales has world class resources at IBERS and at University of Wales, Bangor, and we should be leading the way with research into refining livestock breeding and production so that emissions are reduced.
“Climate change is an issue we take very seriously, but eating less meat would make little difference.
“We believe that research into farming methods that limit the greenhouse gases that cows and other livestock emit is the key to moving forward.”
He also stressed it made little sense to plough up natural grazing land for human food crops which would in itself produce significant carbon emissions.
Readers' comments (1)
Alex Morrell | 8 December 2009 3:33 pm
That is one argument - but the way it is so authoritatively delivered one could be forgiven for thinking that this is a truth descended from above.
Must all children drink milk to live healthy lives?
Is it natural for one species to drink another’s milk?
Are there no substitutes besides soya? If not man has done incredibly well to survive through the centuries.
It is too simplistic to list a few partisan reasons for eating meat and expect people to listen.
If people want to eat meat they will if they don't they won't. What bothers me is that someone wishes to influence the outcome of this decision by stating half truths. That goes for both the pro and the anti meat eating camps.
Inform people objectively but be indifferent to the choice made based on this information.
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