BBC at it again re meat and climate

Oldmacdonald

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scotland
When you say twice the cattle do you only count domesticated cattle as I seem to remember there were millions of bison roaming the plains, millions & millions of wildebeest or do only our cows now take the blame for convenience sake!
Just looked it up it seems there were 50 to 60 million bison in the 1800s, I guess they ate nothing!

Theres more than a billion cattle just now.
 

delilah

Member
They gave a hierarchy or proteins to eat with regards to GHG emissions saying beef was the worst down the plant based being the best. I don’t think the NFU has that as their official line do they?

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

Indeed and where did the BBC researcher find the data. May we suspect Google an up pops AHDB NFU data

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 ?

But what they don't take into account is that the land, fields, hedges crops etc that are used to rear the livestock more than offset the emissions from livestock farming.
What other polluting industry or polluters have anything at all to offset their pollution!
This is not a fair comparison & is totally misleading the gullible general public!

As Above. Why are you blaming the BBC ?
 

delilah

Member
But Mike Berners-Lee has OK'd it with his biased measures of carbon footprint of meat, and he's written books and everything, and the Beeb go to him for expert advice, so that's all good. So ner!

Which is a broad translation of the dismissive email from BBC Complaints Dept, upthread.

Reminds me, I must chase MBL and JP for a reply to this email. Will keep forwarding it to them till they reply, there must be something in their taxpayer-funded contracts that obliges them to engage ?

Good afternoon Joseph, Mike.

Cows cause climate change. I’m still unsure quite how you pulled it off. Clever tactics and hard work on your part ? UK ag being its usual complacent self ? Both probably. Anyway, the game is up. You both know as well as I do that it’s nonsense. We could shoot all of the cows tomorrow and GHG emissions wouldn’t fall.

I would suggest that now, in the run up to COP26, is the perfect time to come clean and acknowledge that you got it wrong. Look at it one of two ways. You could quietly release it so that it gets lost in all the other eco news. Or you could make a name for yourselves by going large on it. Do this now, then we can all move on and work together to address the real environmental damage. It is the food chain that needs to change, we all know that.

A change in focus may present difficulties in terms of where you and your faculty get your funding from, but i’m sure that your commitment to sound science will rise above that. Look forward to hearing from you on this.

yours etc
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
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 ?
Because they only ever show one side of the story, why not mention that the farming mass more than offsets farming pollution, we get crap stories of polluting industries & energy suppliers pretending they offset their pollution by simply planting a few trees on farmland!
As for the BBC programme that started this I really thought it was a spoof story as it seemed so ridiculous especially when all these so called "farmers" sat down around the table for their vegetarian main meal, somehow it all looked very staged for the programme!
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Well Rishi Sunak a few moments ago defending the reduction in tax to internal UK air flights said 'flying contributes just a few percent of global warming and internal UK flights a tiny proportion'. As Mrs TESCO says 'every little helps'. Hey ho.
So a "few percent (LOL btw!!) is ok then? Oh well, ruminants in the UK are 4.5% (even if you allow for that figure being demonstrably too high due to misallocation of their methane in calculations), so can't see what all the fuss is about.......

Since the moment he was appointed Chancellor I wasn't sure what to make of him, although I had my suspicions. Now I know. What a bell end.
 

Ted M

Member
Livestock Farmer
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't disagree with the figures they quote if our own representation feels the need point the gun at our own heads.
However whilst feeding a mates cows this morning, had Times radio on in the loader reporting that butchers shops had seen a 28% increase in sales during and since the pandemic.
Jump in the car to come home, good old tinpot bbc local radio are interviewing a vegan food purveyor (incidentally a "reformed" butcher) and proclaiming that everyone's going veggie over the same period.
Same as they announced a 17% drop in meat sales on their website when Tesco were announcing a 21 or 22% increase.
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Indeed and where did the BBC researcher find the data. May we suspect Google an up pops AHDB NFU data. I watched with interest as my daughter (just finished University) researched various topics for her various essays and project reports. And Google and a couple of other search engines were her tools. I do it also. So fascinates me as to getting true data. What is true data. Hey ho. Anyway the RAF are busy contributing to global warming at Coningsby - Typhoons were on full maneuvers early in the week - must have known Rishi is going to sub the fuel bill out of the Universal Credit £20 cut. Afterburners on full burn - single mum with kids or single old aged pensioner hypothermia - win win.
Search engines are fabulous tools for the spreading of misinformation. They're one of the reasons we're doomed as a race. We are turning ourselves more stupid by the second.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
So a "few percent (LOL btw!!) is ok then? Oh well, ruminants in the UK are 4.5% (even if you allow for that figure being demonstrably too high due to misallocation of their methane in calculations), so can't see what all the fuss is about.......

Since the moment he was appointed Chancellor I wasn't sure what to make of him, although I had my suspicions. Now I know. What a bell end.
Have a feeling Bozo & Carrie are pulling all the so called ministers strings as it has his footprint all over it!!!
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
So a "few percent (LOL btw!!) is ok then? Oh well, ruminants in the UK are 4.5% (even if you allow for that figure being demonstrably too high due to misallocation of their methane in calculations), so can't see what all the fuss is about.......

Since the moment he was appointed Chancellor I wasn't sure what to make of him, although I had my suspicions. Now I know. What a bell end.

He is a smooth operator! Sade 1984 superb track - lyrics reasonably appropriate for Rishi.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
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.
 
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DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
But what they don't take into account is that the land, fields, hedges crops etc that are used to rear the livestock more than offset the emissions from livestock farming.
What other polluting industry or polluters have anything at all to offset their pollution!
This is not a fair comparison & is totally misleading the gullible general public!
To put that into simple terms for the NFU:
Yes faming INCLUDING plant farming emits carbon but it also ABSORBS carbon in a big way. What other industry can you as a member of the public think of that absorbs carbon. At all. Have a little think about that and get back to us as to why you think farming of all things is warming the planet.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
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 ?

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.
 

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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