Dr Alice Brough at it again.

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
I love the way there is never a distinction between farmed livestock and wildlife.
Do livestock species not deserve a place on this planet? Should every other species be made extinct because they are not human and are blamed on climate change. When in reality it is humans that are to blame more than any other species/all other species put together.
 

N.Yorks.

Member
She seems to be saying that the richest nations on this planet demand more meat, so to feed that demand we have large intensive systems to allow us to supply large quantities - they come with a price that the consumer doens't directly pay for.

Don't think she's having a go at extensive beef, lamb and dairy.....

Too many people wanting more than they need and not wanting to pay a realistic price. (That's a very simplistic statement but it's mostly correct.)
 

N.Yorks.

Member
I love the way there is never a distinction between farmed livestock and wildlife.
Do livestock species not deserve a place on this planet? Should every other species be made extinct because they are not human and are blamed on climate change. When in reality it is humans that are to blame more than any other species/all other species put together.
She was criticising intensive livestock systems more than anything........
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
The big white elephant in the room is that there are too many people on the planet and we consume too much rubbish in the way of resources on pointless crap to make our lives happy and meaningful.
If we halved the population, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.
Now where did I leave that that virus🤔.
 
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tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
She was criticising intensive livestock systems more than anything........
But in reality they want rid of all livestock farming, intensive or not. That doesn't mean turing them out to lead natural lives as that wouldn't stop climate change. The sheep and cows would still produce methane and the pigs would destroy all their veg and cereal crops.
 

Extreme Optimist

Member
Livestock Farmer
The big white elephant in the room is that there are to many people on the planet and we consume too much rubbish in the way of resources on pointless crap to make our lives happy and meaningful.
If we halved the population, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.
Now where did I leave that that virus🤔.

Totally hit the nail on the head. There are around 2 billion people too many on the planet. How that is resolved is way beyond my pay grade, but if we are to have a sustainable future, some difficult decisions are going to need to be made.......but won't!
 

PaulNix

Member
Location
Cornwall
I thought these vegan headbangers had fudged off since this Covid crap....it’s been bliss not hearing about them for 6 months

Seemed to me they gave up for a while because of the fact the working population were home and on the net so a lot more common sense was around to shoot them down, now more and more are heading back to work they can start again in their echo chambers of similarly minded people.
 

bitwrx

Member
More than a grain of truth in some of it, but:
- Our vet uses a new blade for each PM. I would have thought that would be sensible, rather than using the same blade for 10 or more. Also, why is she removing the head?
- If she's worried about splashed of goo in the face, surely she could wear a mask? Or just be a bit more skilfull.
- I'd like to see a pig cough and sneeze while in a snatch wire. They're usually to busy squealing. Hearing protection is the only PPE required.
- Factual inaccuracy regarding floor area. Classic mixup between m² and a square with a given linear measurement along its side. GCSE maths that one... Thought vets were bright?

I kinda stopped listening after that, but a lot of people without specialist knowledge wouldn't. Deeply cynical to link the current pandemic with livestock farming. But then, that's propaganda for ya; fear sells.

The link between human rights and animal rights with regard to abattoirs and cutting plants is a specious one. I'd imagine working in an abattoir is a hard job, both physically and mentally. But the same could be said of many other jobs. Picking caulis, packing taties, picking Amazon orders, driving a delivery van. The pressure should be to make all those jobs better. Ironically, I know working on our intensive pig farm would be far preferable to many, compared to those jobs.
 

bitwrx

Member
Anyone smugly thinking that they're beyond criticism because they produce livestock extensively (as an outdoor pig breeder I might think this) should think again. These people want to end all livestock production. We meat producers need to stand together to defend those in the first line of fire, or you will be next.
I've come to the conclusion that just because it's outdoor, it doesn't mean it's any less intensive. AG Street's description of milking at a bale pushed me in that direction.
You're right that it's in our financial interest to push back, even if they aren't coming for us directly. I'm not sure what arguments to use though. It may be that we just have to keep repeating our own (positive) half-truths, and do it louder than they do with their negative half-truths.

I dunno. There's a great deal wrong with the way food production is set up right now. Not sure if there's a system out there with a lower aggregate value of wrongness though, but I'm fairly certain that a system without livestock would be worse overall than where we are now.
 
I've come to the conclusion that just because it's outdoor, it doesn't mean it's any less intensive. AG Street's description of milking at a bale pushed me in that direction.
You're right that it's in our financial interest to push back, even if they aren't coming for us directly. I'm not sure what arguments to use though. It may be that we just have to keep repeating our own (positive) half-truths, and do it louder than they do with their negative half-truths.

I dunno. There's a great deal wrong with the way food production is set up right now. Not sure if there's a system out there with a lower aggregate value of wrongness though, but I'm fairly certain that a system without livestock would be worse overall than where we are now.

It's more to do with the use of language. For example, Dr Bough runs on about mortality levels in pigs, the evolutionary reason that pigs have big litters (6 or so in the wild) is that they are naturally not very good at rearing them all, it's really a massive achievement of modern agriculture that domestic pigs have as little as ten to twelve percent mortality- I could run on and on but I must go and care for my animals.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
telling half the story on emissions
so does the oil industry take carbon out of the atmosphere ?
But if someone had stood next to her and picked up the gaping holes in what she was saying would they have been listened to

No, they'll shout you down rather than discuss
 

puppet

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
sw scotland
Covid probably came from wild animals. Not many post mortems done on them by the average vet. Does it matter that a cow consumes 150 litres a day if much of that is from a stream? How many people have a bath every day or 2 showers of wash their car and water the garden every week? ? Boris should ration those.
Cattle and sheep get blamed but she has a point about intensive pigs and poultry where everything has to be carried to them in a mainly cereal based diet. Hopefully more people will ask about food sources which should benefit a grass based system.
However if we all go vegetarian half of Malaysia and Indonesia will disappear under palm oil plantations. Our permanent grassland will release massive amounts of carbon and diffuse pollution growing wonky carrots and tatties among the stones.
 

dudders

Member
Location
East Sussex
I gave up only a minute in - couldn't take that delivery. Like the squeak of chalk on blackboard - those of us old enough to remember?

Interested to see Sir Francis Drake to the right - what was he about??

Also suspicious of vets calling themselves Dr. I know they're entitled to, but only recently so, and it says something about their attitude. A dig into her work history would be interesting.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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