30th January
This last week the radio programme Farming Today has been reporting on the difficulties livestock farmers have been facing with insufficient supplies of winter feed. Last year’s hot dry summer reduced crop yields meaning there has been a shortage of things such as hay, silage, maize, sunflower seeds, rape seed etc. Farmers have had to buy in extra feed including more imported soya beans. The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) said that “the UK needs a national protein strategy to safeguard feed security because that impacts food security.”
This bemuses me. Would it not be more logical, if we are wanting to increase national protein security, to focus on growing more plant based proteins that can be fed directly to humans rather than feeding us indirectly via livestock? Gaining our protein needs from livestock rather than plants is much more inefficient in the use of land, water, fertiliser etc and generates far more pollution costs too.
The Green Tau 