Western Morning News (Saturday)
So, is eating meat bad for us? No, that’s too simplistic...
Martin Hesp investigates the impact of meat eating on the planet, and discovers the benefits that come from choosing the right kind
There’s a media-shorthand which constantly repeats the claim that eating meat is bad for the planet. It is uttered without any underlying qualification that might suggest we should eat less meat – and that, when we do eat it, we should make sure it’s the right kind of meat.
However, as an increasing number of food-producers take an interest in environmentally sensitive options such as regenerative-agriculture, the “right meat” message is beginning to gain traction.
And it plays well when it comes to the consumer guilt felt by millions of carnivores who feel constantly battered by the all-meat-is-bad message – especially when they learn that some less-industrialised forms of meat production can actually be good for the environment.
It’s a bit like seeing morning mists clear above a Devonshire wildflower meadow – which happens to be a case in point because wildflower meadows tend to rely heavily on the very grazing animals which get the bad press, but so many of us like to consume.
To put it another way, there’s a multiplicity of stories to be told beyond the overly-simplistic narrative that one important and traditional part of the human diet is just plain bad. Stories which concern wildflower meadows, grazed woodland areas, different types of heath, hedgerows, copses and many other elements which make up Britain’s multitude of habitats and landscapes.
Now two men whose careers have been bound up in telling stories about the environment, wildlife, nature and much else in the great outdoors, have joined forces to tell a very real and commercial tale about the meat they oversee, which is being sold from a website launched today. Their venture, called Farm Wilder, is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) based on the concept of providing nature-friendly beef and lamb to a public which is showing an increasing interest in the “right kind of meat”. In other words: Westcountry meat which is good for wildlife, good in the fight against climate-change and good for human health – meat which can be enjoyed without the consumer fearing their next bite will damage the planet.
At this point, a cynic might query the idea of nature-friendly meat. But when they learn one of the founders behind Farm Wilder is former BBC Natural History Unit executive producer Tim Martin, they might be more convinced by the authenticity. Why would an award winning film-maker and passionate naturalist – frustrated after years of watching and documenting the relentless decline of British wildlife – set up a company designed to cash in on something as ephemeral as the meat-eater? Fellow director, Dartmoor-based Luke Dale Harris, has a similar story – he’s a former investigative environmental journalist who currently provides farm and policy advice with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group.
So these are passionate people, convinced that their not-for-profit enterprise can make a difference. Here’s what Tim told me when we met in a Devon wildflower meadow recently...
“It’s like electricity – you can have good meat and bad – just like you can have power from renewable or fossil fuels. There is a sort of meat which is actually a very important part of the ecosystem and you can eat that meat, which has a much lower carbon footprint or is even carbon-negative, because it’s the kind of meat that is essential for wildlife.
“If we didn’t have grazing animals – especially cows – we would lose so many of our wildflower meadows, so many of our rare plants and animals – skylarks, butterflies, orchids – all sorts of things. So, as a flexitarian, I am someone who eats a bit less meat and who pays more for it because it’s higher quality. And I know this meat is helping to make wildlife better and helping with climate change as well. It’s not that complicated.”
Now, our armchair cynic might retort: “All very well, these high ideals – but in a cut-throat market like food retail, how many people are willing to pay extra to help a few birds and bees?”
Which brings us to the second part of this story. The wildflower meadow Tim and I were sitting in happens to belong to a man whose company is well known by those working in the Westcountry meat industry and beyond. Andy Gray is CEO of MC Kelly, a Devon-based company which supplies to hotels, restaurants, butchers and “anyone else who wants meat” – and his large and impressive existing organisation is now heading up the commercial side of Farm Wilder.
“I am a very enthusiastic environmentalist as well as running a meat company – and, looking at the way the wind is blowing when it comes to global warming and the crash of biodiversity, I felt that – as butchers – we have an opportunity to influence the future of farming,” said Andy.
“This gives us an opportunity to reward farmers who have looked after wildlife rather than farmers who haven’t, which is what the government normally does. Tim and Luke have identified people who have maintained habitat, which is good for biodiversity and good for the wildlife we all love.”
“This is our opportunity to reward them by paying them a little bit more,” he continued. “We have set up a direct marketing proposition which allows people to buy very high quality meat from wildlife-rich farmland. For MC Kelly it will be an add-on to what we do – but now we will have an online presence where we are direct-marketing to the public. This is something we learned to do during Covid and it’s an opportunity for us to sell direct.”
Tim told me: “The problem is that when you go into a
supermarket or a butcher’s, you have no idea where the meat has come from. It could have come from somewhere brilliant for wildlife, or it could have come from industrial farming. You have no way of choosing. So as a consumer I didn’t have a mechanism to allow me to buy meat that I knew was making a difference. That is what we have set up.
“Organic is great – I buy as much as I can. But the problem is it does not take us to where we need to be. Organic guarantees a lot of bugs and worms and so on which nature needs – but wildlife needs a lot more than that. Wildlife needs specific habitats – heathland, woodland, wildflower meadows. So we need to step-up from organic.
“What Farm Wilder does is add wildlife to the equation. Some of our farms are already organic – some are 100% pasture fed – we basically add extra measures that mean you get biodiversity as well as sustainability.”
It’s Luke who carries out Farm Wilder’s work in the landscape. Part of his job is to identify farms with great wildlife and farmers who want to work more sustainably and regeneratively.
“We put groups of farms together,” explained Tim. “In Devon the group is all about rare species – cuckoos, marsh fritillaries and a boggy environment called Rhos Pasture. One farm isn’t enough on its own. You’ve got to be connected – so we’ve got a group of farmers on Dartmoor who share ideas.
“One group has cuckoos – another group has marsh fritillaries. By having the grouped farms it all starts to connect because they have the same habitat and wildlife can spread between them. That’s our vision – to have connectivity across a super-group of farms which share similar wildlife that can spread between them.
“A single farm with cuckoos isn’t enough, because they would not survive. You need landscape-level conservation. Together, the sum is much greater than its parts. That’s what will bring back wildlife.”
“It’s a bit like WWF focusing on pandas or tigers,” Tim went on. “Those animals represent a whole habitat or landscape full of wildlife. And it’s like that with cuckoos. Because, to get cuckoos you need meadow pipits, and meadow pipits need that mosaic of short grass, boggy areas and scrub to nest in. So you are guaranteeing all those habitats.
“Cuckoos also need big hairy caterpillars, which have become increasingly rare. So you need the right field margins, heather and other plants and shrubs. To get cuckoos you need to have all these things lined up and working.”
“With internet marketing you can tell that story,” added Andy. “If you haven’t got a good story then, in marketing terms, you are just the same as anyone else. But this is a tremendous story – this is the best story around – which is why I am so keen to be working with them.”
“I think the emotion in this country has changed,” he continued. “And this is the best story around at the moment because huge numbers of the public are very worried about the environment.
“And we’ve got a brilliant young generation coming along who are much less cynical – young people are much more tuned into this stuff.
“If you take the silvo-pasture stuff here on my farm – we had 60 volunteers come here to plant trees. That just shows the market – they were willing to come out in wind and rain and be engaged.
And if those 60 are engaged, how many millions are there if you’ve got a population of 60 million? Yes, there’s going to be people buying something else or who can’t afford it – but that’s a hell of a big market for a small company like ours to be selling into.”
Andy Gray sums up the transfer from industrial-style farming to a more gentle and traditional agrarian regime thus: “We humans spent 20,000 years learning to grow stuff – then we got a chemistry-set and in 40 years we chucked a lot of that knowledge away. This is simply going back to the efficient nature-friendly techniques we developed over thousands of years.”
This article only scratches the surface of the Farm Wilder project – to read a fuller interview in which Tim and Andy speak of the underlying ethos, the principles and the plans, go to https://www. rawfooddrink.news.