Press Release - Human beings do not eat grass - NBA reminds climate change pathfinders

  Human beings do not eat grass – NBA reminds climate change pathfinders.

The debate on the best way to combat climate change is moving so fast that the Centre for Alternative Technology’s (CAT) report, “Zero Carbon Britain 2030”, which was released on Wednesday (June 16th) is already outdated.

The National Beef Association, which is committed to helping UK agriculture meet Government carbon reduction targets, is dismayed that yet another potentially influential organisation has been unable to resist the easy call to condemn meat production as wasteful. 

Sydney University has shown that a cow grazing one hectare (2.5 acres) releases 54 kgs per year but that hectare of pasture land itself captures and stores 8.7 tonnes of CO2.

“The CAT has called for an 80 per cent cut in the UK’s livestock numbers over the next 20 years.  This is a naïve statement that fails to recognise that 72 per cent of the UK land mass grows vegetation that can only be eaten by sheep or cattle - and not humans,” explained NBA chairman, Christopher Thomas-Everard.

“The good management of grazed pasture land is essential to sequester and lock vast stores of carbon into the soil below.  Managing otherwise unusable land in this way provides many millions of wholesome meals for people and contributes greatly to the national economy.”

“If the small amount of grassland which is ploughable (only 1.9% of total moorland and pasture) is converted to cereal crops, just to satisfy the false mantra that meat production is wasteful and a vegetarian diet is better, it would be a terrible mistake and release a mass of CO2 into the atmosphere.” 

“The Centre for Alternative Technology’s report completely ignores the production of meat off land that cannot be ploughed.  We must remember human beings cannot eat grass.”

For more information contact:

Christopher Thomas-Everard, NBA Chairman.  Tel. 01398 324 200