The Climate Change Committee has once again called for significant reductions in ruminant livestock across Scotland. This time a 26% reduction by 2035.
The Committee has once again failed to recognise the importance of cattle and sheep farming to the cultural, environmental and economic success of Rural Scotland as well as the production of red meat being beneficial to the food security and general health of the population across the UK.
At a time when other global powers’ actions are limited, the Committee seems set on destroying our homegrown ability to produce high quality, nutritious food at an already significantly lower than global average footprint. Reductions in the herd and flock in Scotland do not even register in the global context of carbon reduction, yet it would absolutely damage farming, supply chains, rural communities and have a significantly negative impact on UK food security were it to be followed.
The Committee’s use of questionable research and studies should be recognised and called out by policy makers rather than accepting recommendations that are unjust and widely damaging to Scotland’s farming and food supply chain and will undoubtedly damage our pathway to improving biodiversity and restoring nature across Scotland. It is widely acknowledged cattle and sheep play a critical role in these initiatives.
Indeed, the Committee and Scottish Government could support the work of Quality Meat Scotland and the Red Meat Resilience Group, of which IAAS is a partner, to actually grow our depleted national herd to meet the increased demand for high quality protein that is growing across the UK. Meating our potential is an important step in rebuilding our national herd as demand for red meat grows into 2030.
Our carbon footprint for red meat production is already acknowledged to be significantly lower than that of the rest of the world, and in a society which clearly values the benefits of high quality red meat, we should be focusing on how that product can be delivered with as low an environmental impact as possible, not trying to starve the nation of food they wish to consume and that we know has positive health benefits.
It is clear that the CCC remains out of touch and continues to peddle this anti-farming rhetoric rather than make efforts to recognise Scottish farming’s importance to UK food security and supply. We would recommend that they instead seek to work more closely with the sector to help come up with ways to further mitigate and adapt to climate change rather than with sweeping draconian reductions in livestock that would have negative ramifications well beyond the limited reductions in carbon emissions.