BBC at it again re meat and climate

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
My daughter has to my surprise got herself a job working for a PR outfit, hence the reason a country chap not used to heavy road traffic successfully negotiated central London traffic last night (I am just hopeful I didn't trigger any camera traps en route!) And her role from what I can make out is a 'researcher'. Of her salary over half will got to pay the 'inflated' London rent for her room - met the Landlady last night at 9pm for key handover (of Russian extraction from the accent) So a degree in Politics and off she goes. The firm she is working for has from the website and her comments principals who I recognized straight away as regular contributors to national news media. So there you have it. As a world of which I know nothing I await with interest any debriefs from her.
Could be some tense times ahead.
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
This was the response I had back from the beeb following their shop well for the planet programme.

Thank you for contacting us about Shop Well for the Planet, 14.10.2021.

We’ve looked very carefully at the science and had expert advice on all the figures quoted in the series. We are comfortable that data which is widely accepted by the scientific community supports what we have stated in the episode - ‘More than half of global food emissions come from animal products…’. These numbers relate to food GHGs alone, not all anthropogenic GHGs.
With regards to the figures for the lamb curry, we focused on the specific curry that the family were eating and compared it to a vegetable version. All calculations were done using carbon footprint data for UK Lamb and vegetables as opposed to global averages. We hope this helps clarify matters and we appreciate your interest and feedback on the show.

Best regards,
BBC Complaints Team
Just as expected.
What interests me in that reply (I didn't watch the original prog so have no ref point) is that they are saying 50% are from ANIMAL products, whereas I'm guessing the original quote was 50% from the entirety of the worldwide food chain. Courtesy of our friend Joseph Poore I assume?

So have they misquoted themselves or just flat out misrepresented the "facts" as hoodwinked by his Josephness?
 

Oldmacdonald

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scotland
There is nothing like twice the cattle there were 200 years ago, which was in any case a low point in cattle numbers historically. There are far more cattle slaughtered because a majority are now killed at between 14 and 20 months old whereas decades and up to centuries ago there were more unproductive sucklers and slaughter age was nearer 36 to 48 months of age. So there is a far higher turnover of beef cattle today, which doesn't equate to increased livestock unit equivalence.
Dairy cows are even more productive in that they produce easily three times the milk per unit per year as they did up to the 1960's and they last near enough to the same age as they have done since the 1970's, around 3.5 lactations as an average. So more production from fewer cows and more concentrates fed per cow and therefore less rumination per cow and per unit of production.

I know. I was using a basic unit of difference for my point.

I'm really starting to think you have absolutely no source to back up your claim. And THAT is what undermines our industry.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
I know. I was using a basic unit of difference for my point.

I'm really starting to think you have absolutely no source to back up your claim. And THAT is what undermines our industry.
I have long ago found the source and I'm not going to waste my time to satisfy your contrary views that are typical of the absolute shambles that is agricultural PR. Farmers, of which I assume [perhaps wrongly] that you were once one, are their own worse enemy.
Find the information yourself. It is certainly out there. Or go and find something productive to do rather than try to undermine British agriculture. There are plenty of others that do that without any honest facts or figures quite successfully without your help.
 

Oldmacdonald

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scotland
I have long ago found the source and I'm not going to waste my time to satisfy your contrary views that are typical of the absolute shambles that is agricultural PR. Farmers, of which I assume [perhaps wrongly] that you were once one, are their own worse enemy.
Find the information yourself. It is certainly out there. Or go and find something productive to do rather than try to undermine British agriculture. There are plenty of others that do that without any honest facts or figures quite successfully without your help.

Shouldn't take any time to find? That's why you suggested to me it was easy enough to find myself?
I was a farmer, and as it so happens, still am.

It's not out there. I don't think such evidence exists. Is dispelling mistruths really undermining British Agriculture? Or is going about making false statements more undermining?

Do we really want our industry to be known for saying whatever comes to mind as long as it is in support of what we do, regardless of whether the facts are a crock of shite?
 

oil barron

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Yes, they do, because they say that livestock contribute 6% of UK GHG emissions and crops 4%.



Quite. If I was a BBC researcher, why wouldn't I believe that UK AG contributes 10% of UK GHG emissions ? If the NFU and AHDB say it, you would assume that the true figure is higher ?



As Above. Why are you blaming the BBC ?
There’s this. It’s pretty good, no?
 

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delilah

Member
There’s this. It’s pretty good, no?

https://www.nfuonline.com/nfu-online/sectors/dairy/mythbuster-final/

The whole document is awful. It repeatedly drives home two messages. Firstly, that cows are causing climate change. Secondly, that some cows are better than others. The first point is a lie, the second point drives a wedge between UK producers who choose to use differing systems. It is no way to represent an industry. If it is the best the NFU can do, then they need to be kept well away from the media.


edit: What a way to start a document:

Myth 1: British livestock and dairy farming are the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions

I'm not aware of even the most zealous anti-cow fruitcakes coming out with that one. Who the hell decides that a good starting point for the defence of an industry, is to present a myth that isn't even out there ? The whole document wants taking down, along with every other NFU statement that paints us black.

I am sick of it, and so should be every livestock producer. Stop whingeing about the BBC, get your own house in order.
 
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Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
https://www.nfuonline.com/nfu-online/sectors/dairy/mythbuster-final/

The whole document is awful. It repeatedly drives home two messages. Firstly, that cows are causing climate change. Secondly, that some cows are better than others. The first point is a lie, the second point drives a wedge between UK producers who choose to use differing systems. It is no way to represent an industry. If it is the best the NFU can do, then they need to be kept well away from the media.


edit: What a way to start a document:

Myth 1: British livestock and dairy farming are the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions

I'm not aware of even the most zealous anti-cow fruitcakes coming out with that one. Who the hell decides that a good starting point for the defence of an industry, is to present a myth that isn't even out there ? The whole document wants taking down, along with every other NFU statement that paints us black.

I am sick of it, and so should be every livestock producer. Stop whingeing about the BBC, get your own house in order.
so why are you still a member ? come to that why am I
 

oil barron

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
How come it's always agriculture under attack?

If we (livestock) emit 10%, or what ever figure someone wants to make up, of GHG's why do we never the BBC reporting about the other 90% of GHG's. Why is it always farmers getting victimised?
The one show are doing a different topic each night ahead of COP26. There just won’t be a thread on here about the transport discussion on the 1 show.
 

Ted M

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Shropshire
Just as expected.
What interests me in that reply (I didn't watch the original prog so have no ref point) is that they are saying 50% are from ANIMAL products, whereas I'm guessing the original quote was 50% from the entirety of the worldwide food chain. Courtesy of our friend Joseph Poore I assume?

So have they misquoted themselves or just flat out misrepresented the "facts" as hoodwinked by his Josephness?
The same thought occurred to me....
 
Many of you would do well to look up the work of Allan Savory, who puts a very compelling case that grazing ruminant livestock is the ONLY answer to climate change.
However, it is rather more work than the grazing systems used by many.
 

Dragon

Member
Location
Cornwall
So where does the extra green house gas/methan/carbon come from: (just for arguments sake a totaly forage based diet cow)
Surely the amount emitted by the cow equals the amount absorb by the grass; or even less due to being tied up in body mass and excreted dung.
Eventually it completes the carbon cycle!
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Complete with film of huge foreign feedlots, and a Mike Berners-Lee soundbite with no context saying that beef is always highest for carbon per gramme. Completely weasel in the way it presented meat and dairy in relation to the rest of BBC item.
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
Yes, so the BBC complaints team are correct, more than half of global food emissions of GHG come from livestock, it says so on the NFU and AHDB websites. So why are folks laying into the BBC ?
Can you send me that quote off the NFU website.
I know they are apologists, but I can’t find that quote
 

cows sh#t me to tears

Member
Livestock Farmer
They are working on that. They are buying land to plant trees that they can call their own to mitigate their gross pollution and assuage their customer's guilt. Never mind that the land already sequestered carbon under the farmer's stewardship. That doesn't count I suppose.
Yes, the public are gullible and their gullibility is helped by people like Old MacDonald, who once had a farm [ee eye ee eye oh] and undermines the farming message, that is more based in reality than those that would turn our land into parkland and forests between cities, cut through by motorways and train tracks..
It's simple. You pluck s figure out of the air, pay some money, and tell journalists how "friendly to the environment " you are.....
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Why are people worried about what the BBC reports when Johnson and his vegan wife have it in for us?

It’s official. Boris Johnson
🤡
🤡
🤡
the British Prime Minister plots move from meat-based diets for 'bio-engineered burgers' ahead of COP26

BORIS JOHNSON thinks humanity could soon abandon eating meat in favour of lab-grown, eco-friendly alternatives in a drastic bid to save the planet. The Prime Minister hosted an unusual question and answer (Q&A) session at Downing Street on Monday, answering children's questions about climate change. The event was co-hosted by Tanya Steele, the Chief Executive of WWF, ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. Boris Johnson was quizzed about a variety of topics, ranging from recycling to wildlife habitats, and was asked whether he would encourage a meat-free diet among other world leaders. The Prime Minister asked for a show of hands to see how many children in the audience were meat-free, to which only four hands went up, one of which belonged to Ms Steele.
He then asked who in the audience ate meat, to which the remaining children all raised their hands.
Despite the clear divide in the room, Mr Johnson said scientists are already developing plant-based alternatives to meat that could very soon become the norm.
I think that already science is developing meat substitutes that are basically engineered in a lab, that are very like meat and you won't be able to tell the difference between a bio-engineered hamburger and - I'm serious - and a real hamburger.
"And that will be the future very soon. I mean it's already here, I think."
Ms Steele added: "It is, definitely, and I think there's also things we can do to mix up our meals.
“Maybe less meat and put some beans in. It can still be very tasty but great for our climate."
According to Frank Mitloehner at the UC Davis Department of Animal Science,
In the US, for instance, cows and other ruminants are only responsible for about four percent of the country's greenhouse emissions.
And beef cattle only account for about two percent of direct emissions.
Three years ago, Professor Mitloehner penned an article for The Conversation in which he argued against the widespread adoption of plant-based diets as a means of saving the climate.
He said: "In my view, there are many reasons for either choosing animal protein or opting for a vegetarian selection.
"However, foregoing meat and meat products is not the environmental panacea many would have us believe.
Farmers Against Misinformation
 

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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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