Should we eat less meat?

Our personal contribution to climate change is regularly in the news and in November 2009, an opinion poll for BBC Wales suggested that 76% of us think that changing our lifestyles would be a worthwhile response.

Food is a big part of our lifestyle choice, and the growing of it causes 10% of Wales' direct greenhouse gas emissions. If we add in the additional emissions from processing, transport and cooking food, it becomes a very significant part of the climate change challenge.

Firstly, we must stop wasting food. Currently we throw away one-third of our food, either at supermarkets, restaurants or in our own kitchens: this should be socially unacceptable.

But our diet is also an important consideration, because livestock rearing generates 13.5% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and takes up more land than other types of food production.

As the world population has increased and more people follow high meat-and-dairy diets, the amount of land now given over to agriculture worldwide is a major cause for concern. And just as in transport, where our individual choices add up to a big source of carbon emissions, so it is with food, where our diet and shopping habits are driving climate change.

In Wales livestock rearing, particularly of sheep and cows, is the main kind of agriculture practiced, so talk about vegetarianism and low-meat diets is of real concern to farmers. But most of us buy our food from the global marketplace, rather than from local suppliers. So since meat eating is now a global issue, we as consumers in Wales must take our share of the responsibility.

Alternatively, we should relocalise our food systems, and produce in Wales only what we eat. This sounds attractive, but the disappearance of our export markets would be a major shock to the rural economy.

But if we all ate just a little less meat, would we necesarilly be threatening the livelihoods of Welsh farming communities? I don't think so.

We need to start paying for our food (as well as our transport, electricity and everything else) according to how much impact it has on the climate. Then the places and methods that produce meat with the least emissions would have an advantage. The landscape of Wales produces beef and lamb in a fairly climate-friendly way, so if world demand for meat was curtailed, Wales could maintain its market share even if prices paid to farmers went up.

Farmers are already beginning to improve the way their livestock are fed, and fertiliser use is being reduced. Better integration of dairy and beef production could result in fewer animals for the same output. If all Welsh farmers adopted current best practices, we could save around 10% of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

So we can continue producing lamb and beef in the uplands, perhaps even in a more intensive way on less land so that wildlife habitats can be protected.

But it makes sense for us not to be too specialised elsewhere. As the climate changes (as it surely will) we may be able to grow a greater variety of crops on our best agricultural land: horticulture will become more profitable as water becomes scarce in other parts of the world. Polytunnels and greenhouses, heated by anaerobic digestion, could increase yields dramatically.

Diversification could reinvigorate the economy, and the decline in rural populations could be halted. But we need to support farmers to make the necessary changes.

We may well grow to appreciate our farming communities more, and understand better the services they provide. And as we see the link between our food and our farmed landscape, we'll be making a contribution to reducing our personal impact on the climate.

Written by Morgan Parry, Chair of Cynnal Cymru / Sustain Wales, and a member of the Climate Change Commission for Wales set up by the Welsh Assembly Government.

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