Farmers angry at major study saying we should cut most meat from our diets

FARMERS have labelled as a ‘ludicrous distraction’ a major study which advised that we need to drastically cut our meat consumption – to a burger a week – in order to reverse climate change.

The Lancet medical journal stated that to create a sustainable future we should cut our consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar by about 50% and double our consumption of nuts and vegetables.

People should limit themselves to a burger a week, no more than 1.5 eggs a week and just under a chicken nugget and a half a day, according to the report.

The researchers behind the report said a ‘great food transformation’ is need by 2050 with the optimal diet to do so based on whole grains, fruit and vegetables, and a dramatic cut in red meat. Experts advise we should get 35% of all our calories from whole grains and plant sources and limit red meat to 14g a day – the equivalent of about half a pork sausage.

And there’s bad news for spud lovers as the report said daily consumption of potatoes has been associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes,

However, Joe Healy, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association, said that it was ‘a ludicrous distraction to suggest that people should have little or no meat and dairy as part of their diet’.

The IFA said Irish farmers were already ‘engaged in climate action’ and that a cut of production here would be damaging elsewhere.

‘We are the most carbon-efficient dairy producer in Europe and amongst the top five in beef,’ Mr Healy said.

‘It’s important that this sustainable production is not restricted, as it would lead to increased international climate emissions. This would happen because regions like the Brazilian Amazon in South America would be deforested to meet this growing demand.’

Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association president Pat McCormack said that recent debate suggested there was an ‘open season’ on farmers.

Mr McCormack said that in 2017 the same journal released a survey that reported that those who cut back on fats had far shorter lives than those who consumed butter, cheese and meats.

‘Were they right in 2017 and wrong now, or is the other way around?’ he asked.

‘I don’t want to be flippant, but we’re constantly being told that our diets are killing us at the same time as we’re living longer than ever.

‘Both of those statements can’t be right.’

‘Farming in the EU produces around 10% of total carbon emissions; energy produces over 80%. When are we going to hear the proposals for that energy production sector that’s responsible for eight times more carbon emissions than the food sector?’

However, environmentalists welcomed the findings of the study, which they said supported what they had been advocating in recent years.

The Green Party said that the report’s findings must come as ‘a wake-up call for Government’.

‘This is not just about climate change; it is about changing ecosystems, biodiversity, soils, water quality and air quality,’ said Pippa Hackett, Green Party spokesperson on agriculture.

‘When the fines come, it will be the farmers who will yet again take the blame for reckless Government decisions and poor leadership from our farm organisations.’

Environmental action group Friends of the Earth said that it was a mistake to ‘bet the future of the family farm in Ireland on the endless expansion of beef and dairy’.

‘It was a risky assumption that the rest of the world would adopt Irish and European and American dietary patterns that the demand for meat and dairy would continue to grow,’ director Oisín Coghlan said.

He said that it was not sustainable to continue to ‘base the prosperity of rural Ireland on big beef and dairy’.

Earlier this week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told Fine Gael’s parliamentary party that he is trying to eat less meat in an effort to reduce his carbon footprint. Rural TDs criticised the Taoiseach’s comments and said that such remarks did not support rural farmers.

Responding to the backlash, Mr Varadkar later told the Dáil: ‘I did not give anybody dietary advice or suggest that anyone else do anything. I was specifically asked what I was doing on climate change and I said that I was trying to eat less red meat.’

The Taoiseach added that he’d had a ‘very nice Hereford steak’ the previous night.

Kerry Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae said that people who suggest eating no meat ‘never did a day’s work’.

‘If there was a shovel put into their hands they’d starve with the hunger because they won’t make it until dinner time,’ he said.

Comment – Page 14 jane.fallon.griffin@dailymail.ie

A ‘ludicrous distraction’

‘I had a very nice Hereford steak’