I saw a farmer interviewed last week, who spoke very passionately about the farming of livestock not being damaging if it was done correctly. He had a loss-making beef farm, but was reasonably comfortable and didn't actually need the farm income, so he'd decided to stop intensive and farming and roll everything back several decades. He re-wilded much of his farm, allowed the animals to wander from field to field, stopped giving them processed feed, stopped supplying supermarkets and despite it not being his primary aim, he'd actually returned the farm to profit. He was very realistic and appreciated that in many parts of the world there were people that didn't have the luxury of being able to afford to do what he did, but he saw the future as a general move to meat being a more premium product, eaten less regularly, just as it used to be. It was quite an interesting programme.
Much better way to farm by the sounds of it, but I think were talking about two different things though. The main issues with meat production are the volume of water needed and the acreage of land needed per mouth fed, compared with non meat feeding. I’m interested in this stuff, but not particularly evangelical about it. The fact that veganism is less impactive on the environment (particularly in terms of water use and land not available for other things while the world population is increasing) isn’t why I became vegan. That was me being selfish as it makes me feel healthier.
Worth while pointing out that the NFU is losing tradition farmer members hand over fist and has a large number of corporate members like supermarkets, feed and chemical producers. Ask a farmer what NFU stands for and many will say No ****ing Use.
Just one example of some of the daft things being done in the name of being 'green'. My son in law works for a large plant hire company and they had a lot of demand for electric vehicles, so developers could promote their green credentials on site. One of the things they now hire out is an electric mini-digger, it runs for about four hours on one charge (depending on the job), but takes over five hours to charge, so is generally left on a diesel generator overnight. The diesel generator uses more fuel than the diesel digger, making it a completely pointless exercise.
The volume of water used for meat and dairy has in some calculations included the rain water that fell on the land anyway, in many cases animals are kept on land unsuitable for other forms of cropping, hills, dales, valleys and areas of high rainfall (scotland) The grass land captures carbon the animals provide the fertilizer for it to grow. Oddly enough I feel I am becoming more evangelical about local food including meat, don't like been accused of killing the planet by someone eating avocado on toast, washing it down with almond milk.
Watched the hairy bikers other day and they were saying 80% of the shellfish caught in the uk goes abroad and we import 80% in!!! Wtf
I don't mind a pub quiz now and again. I once won a free pint in Grafton as best performer in the newcomer category. The answer which swung it in my direction was in reply to the question. In which city was Martin Luther King assassinated? ......No cheating. On a trip to a Chicago bar I was the only one who knew that Anne Hathaway was Mrs Bill Shakespeare. That's Yanks for you. Thick as two short planks.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen announces the United States will support the UK's climate investment funds capital markets mechanism to attract significant climate finance from the private sector.
I keep hearing about this 'fueling the media'. So, if they stopped that would it help, or is it done with green energy?
Aye, I had an interview for a job working with cattle in Suadi Arabia. Massive air conditioned cow sheds in the middle of a desert. Mental.