Why cutting cattle can’t solve the climate crisis | Letters
Written by Letters
Stuart Roberts, vice-president of the NFU, makes the green case for maintaining cattle grazing in the UK, while Simon Fairlie thinks cutting meat production is a distraction
It is too simplistic to say that cutting livestock numbers everywhere is the most efficient way of reducing emissions, as your article suggests (Governments urged to set deadlines for cutting livestock production, 12 December). The world’s livestock systems differ too significantly for them to be generalised, and doing so hinders the countries that are practising sustainable farming methods and which have an ambition to do even more.
Compared with the mass-scale intensive systems in the US or Brazil, our livestock systems are unrecognisable. British farmers do not clear rainforest to make way for beef production. Our meat does not come from the ashes of the Amazon. We value our carbon sinks.
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