Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Scottish Beef Farmers Try to Stop Tree Planting

SAMW seek consultation assurance on future tree planting

You'd think that with with a environmentally loaded gun pointing squarely at the head of the beef Industry they would be a bit more careful about hitting the headlines with stereotypical rhetoric.But no.

Goodland and Anhang reported last year (2011. Livestock and greenhouse gas emissions: The importance of getting the numbers right, by Herrero et al. Animal. Feed Science and Technolog y166–167, 779–782 (doi: 10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2011.12.028). For the World Bank,  and state the lifecycle and supply chain of livestock products account for at least 51% of annual worldwide reen house gas emissions.

This is more than is attributable to all the world's transport. A number of researchers are reaching similar conclusions, if we continue to eat meat in the quantities we are the consequences will be catastrophic.


Director's Cut. Beef is bad for health and the environment.
 On one hand you have Oscar-winning Director of TitanticAvatar and Terminator,James Cameron saying you can't be a true environmentalist if you eat meat.

On the other hand you have the Scottish Beef Industry seemingly clueless on their Public Relations faux pas apparently complaining to the Forestry Commission about planting trees on land that could be used for beef farming.

The Scottish Beef Industry is also asking politicians for an extra 10% subsidy to try to encourage more farmers to raise cattle.

Because the food chain and the profits of food production is now largely controlled by investment banking stock brokers, wholesalers and retailers, farmers the worldover are being squeezed out of the big boys profit margins. Dairy farmers and Beef Farmers in particular are getting a taste of what it's like to be a farmer in the developing world with little or no say in how their product is produced or a fair share of the profits.

Can Scottish farmers survive the middlemen?
Perhaps it's time Fair Trade organisations looked closer to home and helped Scottish farmers to set up co-ops to regain control over their income and decide the most sustainable and profitable use of their farmland that doesn't need big government subsidies to help it break even.

What do you think?

Can Scottish farmers survive the middlemen?

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