Diets must adapt to climate threat.

Byline: MORGAN PARRY

By MORGAN PARRY THE farming unions reacted angrily last week to the economist Lord Nicholas Stern's views on meat eating.

Having studied the origins of our greenhouse gas emissions, Stern concluded that eating less meat would be a good thing for the planet.

With the livestock sector dominant in Wales though, this message is understandably seen as a threat to the livelihoods of Welsh farming communities. But I don't think we all need to go vegetarian, and I don't think a diet lower in meat has to be bad for Welsh farming.

According to the International Panel on Climate Change, the livestock sector alone now generates 13.5% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Livestock rearing also takes up more land than other types of food production, and with global meat production and milk output projected to double before 2050, as the world population increases and more people follow high meat and dairy diets, the environmental problems will grow.

In Wales, agriculture is responsible for at least 10% of direct greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), about a fifth of the emissions that the Welsh Assembly Government has some control over.

If we add in the emissions from processing, transport and cooking, food becomes a very significant part of our climate problem.

Anything we can do to reduce emissions needs to be looked at, and diet is undeniably a factor.

The options for farmers in Wales have been constrained by public policy as well as our landscape. Sheep and cattle grazing currently dominates food production in the hills and uplands, although historically much larger areas of Wales were used for arable crops, and there may well be ways to expand arable and horticulture as the climate changes.

I recognise as well the efforts that are already being made to reduce emissions: better soil management, reduced fertiliser input and different animal feed will make a difference.

But all these "supply-side" interventions together will make only a small contribution compared to a change in dietary preferences.

I agree with the NFU on one thing. Reducing livestock numbers in Wales to reduce GHG emissions would simply "export" our GHGs to other countries as they expand their livestock sectors.

That is why I've argued we should measure our personal and collective responsibility for GHG emissions, rather than the arbitrary way we do at present. By measuring only the emissions from the land of Wales, we ignore the significance of international trade.

Our personal and collective choices are highly significant.

There are two ways of resolving this dilemma. The first is to relocalise our economies and food supply chains, so that we buy most of our food from our local farmers. If other countries did the same, our export market would shrink and the number of livestock on Welsh farms would fall, even if we ate more meat.

Welsh Lamb should be safe - but is beef? Some other foodstuffs would become more expensive, but we would be more resilient and self-reliant.

The second way is to continue to import from and export to the global marketplace, and to make sure that our landscape is the most carbon- and methane-efficient places in the world to grow particular types of food.

We are likely to have a natural advantage for lamb, maybe also dairy, but less so for beef, and horticulture may become more attractive.

Either way, diet is important. We need to limit the growth of livestock rearing globally by reducing demand for the product, by eating a little less meat.

But we don't all need to become vegetarian.

The biggest challenge for the Welsh countryside in the years ahead is how to balance traditional aspirations for farming, rural communities, landscape quality and wildlife conservation with the very challenging land-use changes that will result from a warming climate and a depletion of our natural resources.

Farming unions, natural scientists, politicians and economists like Lord Stern must work together to ensure that change doesn't threaten farming in Wales or of the rural population.

But change, I think, is inevitable.

. Morgan Parry is chairman of Cynnal Cymru /Sustain Wales and a member of the Climate Change Commission for Wales

CAPTION(S):

Welsh livestock farming faces darks clouds on the horizon as it wrestles with the twin demands of food production and climate change Picture: ANDREW MILLIGAN/PA WIRE