By Andrew Shirley
Farmers Weekly's flabbergasted Business Editor
Everybody wants to be environmentally friendly these days, but DEFRA seems to have finally lost the plot.
It is planning a series of "roadmaps" to identify ways to make the various sectors of farming greener and has just released some draft proposals for dairying.
So far so good, we all need to do our bit for global warming and the like.
But, inexplicably, these proposals include a huge switch by consumers to UHT (longlife) milk and a 60% cut in methane emmissions by dairy cows.
At the moment only 5% of milk consumed in the UK is UHT, but DEFRA reckons that could be increased to 90% by 2020.
Apparently DEFRA did a blind tasting and people couldn't tell the difference. Rubbish.
I don't know about you but I can't stand the taste of longlife milk and certainly won't be bullied into giving up my fresh and tasty pinta.
It would also open the door to imported UHT milk from Eastern Europe where farmers have much lower costs.
And I'm not even sure how it would save the environment. Granted, it wouldn't need to be transported in refrigerated lorries, but it would still have to go in the fridge once opened.
But that won't matter because if DEFRA has its way we'll have to slaughter most of our dairy herd anyway to cut methane emmissions to the levels its happy with.
Thankfully, these are draft proposals and the NFU and Dairy UK has united to rubbish them. But what on earth made DEFRA think anybody would take them seriously?
What they have done is outraged the industry. But maybe that was DEFRA's aim.
Perhaps by suggesting such whacky and ridiculous ideas to begin with they think the sector will jump to embrace anything that sounds vaguely reasonable.
The final report is due in November. Hopefully it will container some slightly saner proposals.
Comments (2)
Tell me about it - I have just attended an internation conference on cutting phosphorus pollution from farms and heard a paper from a UK research institution that had been commissioned to look at alternative ways of reaching reduced P loss targets - one method was to STOP HAVING LIVESTOCK IN THE UK - this is crazy beyond belief!!! I am thankful to say it did not reach the Defra consultation paper but frankly I was shocked it had even been considered!
Comment left on September 26, 2007 5:15 PM
Posted on September 26, 2007 17:15
The Campaign for Real Milk (CAMILK) wss set up a few years ago to (successfully)fight the Government's proposed ban on Green Top (unpasteurised)milk sales from licensed farms. We are about to launch a new campaign to encourage people to drink "Real" milk, i.e. milk with cream on the top, raw or traditionally pasteurised silver top. The supermarket giants have been doing a highly efficientjob of homogenising all their milk over the last 8 years and the last thing consumers want is being forced to drink long life when their choice has already been radically reduced. It is medically proved that the more milk is heat treated the more good bacteria are killed off and the more people suffer from allergies and bowel disorders. RICHARD COPUS, CAMPAIGN FOR REAL MILK. (Note to editor: I formed CAMILK with Sir Julian Rose of The Soil Association. You can contact me for more details and history on: 07766 335344 during the day).
Comment left on October 24, 2007 5:01 PM
Posted on October 24, 2007 17:01