Posted on 06/02/2023 1:24:52 PM PDT by Red Badger
The collateral damage of net zero is now getting uncomfortably close to home. First Dutch farmers were threatened with compulsory purchases to satisfy EU emissions targets, fomenting a new revolt in the process. Now it’s Ireland’s turn, where the government is reportedly looking at plans to cull around 200,000 cows to meet its climate targets. The scheme would be a bit like voluntary redundancy, with farmers offered financial inducements to give up their cows.
British beef and dairy farmers are now very jittery. It seems increasingly clear that there is an eco-modernist agenda to do away with conventional meat altogether. It’s not just the Extinction Rebellion mob, either; many of the world’s politicians are on board.
It’s very fortunate we’re out of the EU or we could be facing the same pressure from Brussels. Now, we can only hope that Rishi Sunak, who represents a heavily rural constituency in the Yorkshire Dales, understands what’s at stake for farming communities.
Spending vast sums of taxpayer’s money on destroying productive animals would be a perfect summation of the net zero madness infecting the West. The Irish Department of Agriculture has said that the report was just a “modelling document”, but no sane government would even get to the point of including such a plan in “a deliberative process”. Why? Because it is irrational.
Dutch and Irish politicians have failed to recognise that regenerative farming techniques allow livestock farmers to help mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil. The technology needed to measure soil carbon accurately has recently been developed by a British company, Ecometric. The results are startling. Some British livestock farmers are now being paid for the net carbon sequestered into the soils after the methane from their burping cows has been accounted for. It would mean changing the way we farm to embrace holistic methods; mainly replacing cereal-based cattle diets with grass, but it can be done.
And we should be embracing the energy-creating capacity of cows. Tallow from British cattle is already being turned into biodiesel – a one tonne animal produces enough for around 180 litres. And thanks to Somerset-based start-up, Biofactory, new anaerobic technology is already available to turn the methane in their manure into usable electricity and heat. The manure itself is converted by this process into a more nutritious digestate that can substantially reduce the need for harmful artificial fertiliser. My own dairy farm is investing in these new green technologies and we hope to be carbon neutral and net exporters of energy in just a few years.
Wreaking havoc on livestock farming families in the name of climate science is also very short-sighted. By the time, if ever, lab food technology, which uses huge amounts of energy currently, is efficient enough to replace the edible fats and proteins from animals, we will probably be using hydrogen technology instead of fossil fuels, and no one will be remotely worried about carbon.
If there are any in Britain minded to follow the Dutch and Irish examples, they should think again. Farming needs to become greener, but through harnessing new technology rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Read the above! Regenerative farming takes care of the methane “pollution”. Regenerative means grass fed cattle and not so much feedlot, feeding on grains. I ate a grass fed hamburger today. Yum! With some organic ketchup.
Buh Bye to that high end Irish Kerrygold butter.
That nice Dubliner cheese will also become way to expensive for big box stores to stock.
From last month...
https://www.farmprogress.com/marketing/u-s-dairy-herd-numbers-fall-to-27-932-
Not a coinkydink.
Not nuts.
But it IS evil.
Sheer, unadulterated evil.
This is insanity.
If interested, here is the 2013 UN report regarding their discussion on how livestock affects climate. They’ve been scheming for years.
Are the Irish protesting this?
Probably because they rarely could eat meat in the old country.
they mostly are scraps heads, lungs offal
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