I mentioned that MP Robert Flello had done well in the Private Members' Ballot and would be trying to introduce a Bill into Parliament on the subject of sustainable livestock management. This is a really tricky subject, and because of its difficulty it does not get as much government attention as it should. What would a sustainable livestock industry look like?
It probably wouldn't involve the import of soya-based animal feed from areas of destroyed rainforest. It probably wouldn't involve using so much of our productive farmland to grow grain to feed to cattle - we could grow food we could eat directly on that land instead. Might it involve keeping animals indoors for longer and scrubbing their greenhouse gas emissions out of the air in their sheds before it escapes into the atmosphere to worsen cliamte change? Might it involve eating less meat? Or more poultry and less red meat?
Tricky stuff indeed. But Mr Flello also has an Early Day Motion which is attracting many MPs' signatures. It is one of the most successful EDMs of this parliamentary session and gives a flavour of the thinking behind the Bill..
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
As you say Mark, a tricky one. I hope we don't get too hung up on emmissions from the animals themselves (eg carbon capture) when there are more immediate and 'easier' (as much as anything in this is easy) issues to address - for me, by far the biggest is exported environmental degradation - loss of rainforest to soya. The same applies to rainforest lost to palm oil abd other energy crops- as Mrs Spelman announces welcome funding to protect rainforest, we really as a country need to examine what we are doing here - as so often one policy in direct collission with the opposite.