Sustainability
Food

Eating less meat won't save the planet ... some opinion from Guardian readers 2008

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Food / The big issue / Eating less meat won't save the planet

Limiting or reducing global livestock numbers may be sensible but cutting demand for meat is not ('Is our taste for Sunday roast killing the planet?' News, last week). It will turn cattle into cat food, result in abandoned hill farms and agricultural land being switched to non-food uses while rainforests will still vanish for other Western luxuries; land usage is about money. Such a change needs investment in farming, more conservation and a short-term increase in meat consumption from such animals, then a later fall.

There are alternatives. Silvaculture (eg pigs in woodland, sheep in orchards) and game ranching can combine habitat conservation, food production and carbon sinks while feed changes can dramatically cut emissions and waste.

Support and funding for habitat conservation and better food supplies are what matter; we all have our preferences, but 'Eat this, not that or less of the other' is the wrong way round. Iain Climie Whitchurch, Hampshire

The argument that the UK's uplands will become 'barren' if not grazed is as flawed as the statement that 90 per cent of all species live in rainforests. Ungrazed heather does eventually become overgrown and 'senile', but this leads to the opening up of patches of ground that become colonised by other plant and then tree species, eventually leading to more natural communities, such as rowan, ash and acid oak woodlands. Grazing arrests such natural successions and overgrazing is consistently identified by government nature conservation advisors as one of the biggest threats to the UK's uplands. Dr Peter Jones Department of Geography, University College London, WC1

We agree that we should eat only moderate amounts of meat. We have been strong advocates of eating less but better quality meat for many years. But there is danger of over-simplifying this message.

Grazing animals are converting something humans can't eat (grass) into something we can (meat and dairy products). Meat and dairy products from grass-fed animals contain more beneficial nutrients and contain healthier fat, and grazing animals help preserve some of the most beautiful and highly valued landscapes in Britain. Most important, grazing animals protect some of the most significant carbon stores: permanent grassland and heather moorland. We should view these areas, as we do rainforests, in terms of their ability to store carbon, and subsequently their potential to fight climate change. Emma Hockridge Policy Department, Soil Association, Bristol

Distinctions must be made between intensive and extensive livestock production, with much of the latter carried out on land that is too cold, mountainous or dry for crops. Livestock production on that land supports millions of (largely poor) people; without livestock it would support no one. An overall reduction in meat consumption in industrialised countries would limit further deforestation and reduce greenhouse emissions. But we should also look further ahead, using labelling schemes to select meat sustainably raised where crops cannot be grown, and market reforms to unlock the livestock-raising potential of the world's drylands and the people who live on them. Professor John Morton Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, London SE10

It's a bit rich to be told that we need cattle and sheep to preserve the UK's meadowlands and upland habitats, when throughout history it's been overgrazing that has caused these habitats most harm. Nobody is telling the Masai tribesmen what they should do, but a pure vegetarian diet saves many acres of land and would even give Britain the opportunity to be self-sufficient in staple foods. Kath Clements Sheffield

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