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.
Mirlo. Would really like Mark to tell you about all the good work farmers are doing with help from RSPB with farmland birds but surely you do not have to stick your head in the sand,look it up on RSPB website as the RSPB has just rewarded a farmer for a competition for conservation and if you go back over Marks previous blogs far enough you will find what farmers are really doing.
I find it astonishing the things you get wrong and argue you are right.
Repeat and you can look it up on the Internet but it is a well known fact that the milk and milk product imports are £1990 million,exports are£726 million.meaning as I said before the difference of a deficit and cost to the U K of £1226 million.
Please do a bit of homework and get things right,for sure all the figures Ihave quoted by sights easily found on Internet cannot be wrong or maybe even you will suggest everybody else is wrong and you are right.
Surely you know that from when milk quotas came into force around 1983 the U K became a serious importer of milk and milk products as U K not allowed by E U to supply all U K needs(really for someone who in your comment professes to know about farming you show a serious lack of it so would assume the same is true of what is happening on U K farms with improving the lot of farmland birds)
Look up the evidence on the Internet,farmers are even helping with re-introduction of Cranes and Sea Eagles.