News: February 2020

Date posted: 24/02/20

Letter to The Journal re Red Meat

 

Dear Sir,

I imagine that I was not the only person in the region to be desperately disappointed, but sadly not overly surprised, at the recent BBC documentary examining the meat industry. The programme focused on intensive production methods, and the associated environmental ills, in the Americas. The only nod to UK agriculture was a feature on a subsistence farmer in Wales, who looked as if he would struggle to feed his family through the winter and certainly was not going to contribute to feeding the general population.

The viewer was left with the impression that if you care for the environment, you should not eat meat unless you raised your own chickens. This is clearly bunkum and was the product of dreadfully slanted reporting. There was no mention of the largely grass-based systems which are prevalent in the North East, nor the strict environmental regulations under which our farmers operate, nor the environmental land management activities carried out by our farmers.

As much of the North East countryside is only capable of growing grass and rougher vegetation, most of our farmers do not have the option of growing other crops. High quality, grass-reared lamb and beef are their main income so why wont the BBC tell their story? If you love our countryside, eat locally produced red meat.

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