Tag: live stock

Counting on … day 190

11th October 2024

The left hand half of this diagram shows the amount of land used in the UK for different purposes – from providing grazing for beef cattle and sheep (the largest single use) to land cultivated as orchards (smallest alongside land used for growing Christmas tree!). 

The right hand half shows overseas land that we rely on (effectively use) to produce food stuffs that we import – and again land for beef and lamb production is the largest. 

Even just halving our meat consumption, would free up huge amounts of land that could be better used for rewilded biodiverse rich landscapes, as well as having space for increased horticultural production of a wide range of fruits and vegetables. 

Counting on … day 95

29th April 2024

For a change of emphasis, I plan over the next few weeks to look at some of the things we do as a household to live more sustainably. Maybe what we do might prompt some thoughts for you, and maybe you will have some ideas to share as well. 

I follow a vegan diet and as I am the main cook, all home cooking is vegan! 

Vegan diets have a smaller carbon footprint and cause less damage to the climate – research suggests somewhere in the region of 75% less! The food grown for vegan diets uses less water and less land – largely because of the significant amounts of land and water needed to grow feed for farm animals. Needing less land has two benefits – first the ability to grow more food for a growing population, and second the ability to set aside more farm land for rewilding and restoring levels of biodiversity. 

I also chose a vegan diet on the grounds of animal welfare. Even eating a vegetarian diet involves the slaughter of young animals – principally male chicks and male calves – as well as the likelihood that the females will have stressful lives of repeated birthing. 

I can see that for some people raising low intensity livestock can be a key part of a farm’s ecology, and that eating small amounts of meat and dairy would be consistent with that.

Further reading – 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food

What would happen to the cows is we all went vegan? – https://greentau.org/2022/09/23/the-green-tau-issue-53/comment-page-1/

Tips for switching to a vegan diet – https://greentau.org/2021/10/12/eco-tips-11/