I caught a bit of the One Show last night where one of their regular reporters was extolling the virtues of going veggie to save the planet. The usual arguments were put forward although a food critic did try to put the other side of the story and interviewed someone from Wharfdale Auction Centre who pointed out how the whole agricultural economy would collapse if people gave up meat.

What drove me nuts however was a throwaway comment she made towards the end of the piece. She started talking about the globalisation of the meat industry claiming : "We have this bucolic idea of cows and lambs skipping around the fields but it is not like that anymore...."

I can point her to plenty of farms where it is just like that. I suppose at least the presenter Christine Bleakley tried to tell her that, but... ahhhggggg!!!

 Here's the link if you want to wind yourself up: (2.26 through to 9.37 mins)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p99rd/The_One_Show_07_12_2009/

 

 

I never usually watch the One Show but last night I was setting up what to record later in the evening and the sound was on and I heard the start of this segment so actually watched it.  I have just watched it again to make sure I had heard it correctly before commenting:

1.  Does the Beeb not know that pork and poultry produce very little in the way of methane?  You wouldn't get that impression from the programme, even though they start off by telling you that methane is expelled by belching from cows and sheep, why the video of pigs and the butchery display of all types of meat?

2.  The statement was made that meat production creates more greenhouse gasses than transport.  I have heard this quoted several times in the past week so decided to check it out.  Transport and communications in the UK are responsible for about 13% (and rising) of UK greenhouse gas effects.  The whole of agriculture is only responsible for about 7% (and falling).  I don't know how much of that is the meat industry, but you get the point.  This oft quoted statistic seems to be just plain wrong.  FG readers may have noticed in the editorial of last week's issue that the writer quotes UN figures for GHG emissions from livestock farming as 18% which he then says is even greater than transport.  Two column inches later he quotes the 7% figure for the UK agricultural total but doesn't seem to see the disparity between the two statistics.

3.  The reporter said she had given up meat and turned vegetarian.  That implies that she still eats dairy produce.  Doesn't she know that comes from methane burping ruminants?

4.  She didn't say she had given up eating rice - another huge producer of methane.

5.  As Isabel points out the comment about the myth of cattle grazing and lambs frolicking in the fields seemed to be somewhat belied by the footage they showed of exactly that.

It is annoying that programmes such as this waffle on with little regard for the facts but on the other hand I guess it's probably reassuring that most viewers will take little notice anyway.  

 I'm glad I wasn't the only one that was irritated by it, though after reading their comments section about on their website I felt a lot better that even the majority of the general public knew that it was a bit (well a lot) off the mark.

Don't get me started Isabel.  We are getting deluged with the same bilge(how is that for a word not often used by a Yank, or a farmer).  I still fail to see how livestock can be such a big part of the problem, when there have always been livestock.  And as I have pointed out about 10000 times, there use to be 70 million or so bison on the great plains, flatulating and belching like crazy. 

I guess I am a "denier" but with a forecast high tomorrow of just 15F, I can't really get into the whole spirit of global warming.  15F is getting to be my low end comfort limit, any colder and I am turned into a crying baby.  By the way, the NWS December forecast is for above normal temperatures, so maybe we will get some 70F weather around Christmas to even it all out.

 its all very well coming out with these findings, but they should present the other side of the story aswell. therse never anti organic stories in the press or pro meat eating, just the hippy stories about naiive views of the countryside.

it's one of the things I've found from my time in the education system, farming is always shown as the "bad one" with no actual information about what we all know as farming. The "veggie" side of the argument has all these big celebrities behind/promoting their argument, but the "conventional" farming argument is not really put forward by and celebrities or big public figures.

madfish:

it's one of the things I've found from my time in the education system, farming is always shown as the "bad one" with no actual information about what we all know as farming. The "veggie" side of the argument has all these big celebrities behind/promoting their argument, but the "conventional" farming argument is not really put forward by and celebrities or big public figures.

 

 

Yeah i agree. one of the modules in my chemistry GCSE last year was called "Food Matters", and looked at the difference between "intensive" and "organic" farming. not once was the word conventional used, just pictures of huge great artic tractors on american praries and battery hens to illustrate "intensive", while nice freindly looking old farmers had taken time from their weeding on a nice summers day to have their picture taken to illustrate "organic" farming. during that module it soon transpired that i knew more than the teacher, so basically taught the rest of that module :)