In Udder News

at

From top: cows; today’s Irish Times front page lead story

“sup?

The IPCC concluded that eating less meat, especially in developed countries, and reducing food waste was an effective method to help reduce global warming. It predicts this action would save millions of square kilometres of land being degraded by farming.

The findings led to calls on the Government from climate campaigners and the Green Party to draw up a national land-use plan to help redirect agriculture and to set out how afforestation could help reduce carbon emissions..

Climate experts say Ireland is too reliant on cows (Irish Times)

Meanwhile…

Well.

It’s a start.

FIGHT!

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65 thoughts on “In Udder News

  1. eoin

    Grass-fed beef with very high standards of veterinary care and food safety? Our beef should be coveted the world over. Instead, you can get a kilo of sirloin at Tesco for less than a tenner.

    1. Joe

      missing the point, it’s not the quailty it’s the fact that red meat consumption will be lowering.

        1. postmanpat

          So you scoff estrogen flooded female bovine flesh which was raised ,slaughtered and deboned by exploited Brazilians paid below minimum wage by AIBP. Wow! How manly you are!!

          1. The Old Boy

            A quick Google search gives “Aberdeen International Business Park” and, erm, “The Association of International Boudoir Photographers”.

      1. postmanpat

        Also “grass-fed” = better (?) is a marketing con for affluent gullible foodies. You could just tell most people this streak is grass fed beef and they wouldn’t even notice that it was actually steroid fed horse.

        1. dubdec99

          Grass fed IS better….whether or not it’s grass fed beef under the wrapper is a different story

    2. postmanpat

      “Our” beef? You mean the private corporations who lobby the DBEI to get special treatment and special low pay workers permit quotas undemocratically year after year? , who go on to exploit and underpay Brazilians, claiming Irish and EU workers don’t want the work . *(because it pays terrible minimum wage for heavy duty work ) , beef? Our beef? Irish beef is practically Brazilian beef anyway (if its not horse meat) . A cows a cow, feed it something it will eat, kill it, and get steaks. lie and say its grass fed, in different cellophane package and charge more for the exact same thing, because it tastes the same. schedule “inspectors” (wink wink) to show up when it suits the meat packaging company management so they can get the plant ship safe for the duration of the inspection. “hide those horses in the back Pedro & Enrique and keep yer mouth suit if you know what’s good for you” (not that anyone will get in trouble in the slightest even if Seabiscuit galloped through the factory trying to escape a bolt gun during a routine inspection)

      1. Joe Small

        It is hard to get boners in this country. We have to get in foreign boners. Did I mention the lack of Irish boners? Stop laughing at the back of the class there.

  2. Ug

    Fake News in the Fake News Failing Irish Times.

    The IPCC is not a scientific organisation.

    It’s a political con job.

    Fact.

    1. millie vanilly strikes again

      Oh! More ‘Facts’ from our Very Reliable Source of the Truth, Ug.

      And his sister, Ug2. We are so lucky.

      1. Spaghetti Hoop

        Oh I am not acquainted with the Ug Family, how exciting. Are either reincarnations of previous delightful guests?

  3. GiggidyGoo

    Ireland has always depended on the agri sector. Our country’s indigenous economy (our country) is being weakened by the bilderbergers and the ‘EU’ under the guise of climate change. Want to break a country and make them depend on you? – Remove its main indigenous income.
    A quick look at the globe will give you an idea of the size of ireland in relation to the overall size of the earth, and we are meant to be one of the biggest polluters? Have a look at marinetraffic.com for pollution. Have a look at the Ruhr in Germany for pollution.
    The Greens should be ashamed of themselves.

    1. Cú Chulainn

      I concur Mr. Goo. The greens are fools. The climate in Ireland is perfectly suited for cattle and livestock. It is not suited for lots of tillage including wheat. It’s the Greens and their blanket hysteria that gets me. Stop beef and then derogate the land with chemicals to grow stuff that shouldn’t be there. It’s about working in harmony with nature. The greens are just part of the problem.

      1. some old quare

        Ireland is the perfect climate for growing most vegetables and has done so for centuries. The Beef and Dairy export industries is what is relatively new and now on such an industrial scale that the land has been scraped of everything apart from cows.

        What we now call farming is no friend of nature- it is environmental vandalism.

      2. postmanpat

        Underpaying Brazilians to debone meat is working in harmony with nature? cow wee polluting waterways and causing dead zones in the sea? Green house gasses?

  4. bisted

    …An Tain Bó Cúailnge …just one of the sagas from a time that Ireland was even more reliant on cattle than today

    1. Cathal

      Green party’s view of Irish history involve Georgian houses and where to buy them in South Dublin

  5. Spaghetti Hoop

    In the 1980s there were 80,000 cattle farmers in Ireland. There’s now about 17,000. I am a dedicated environmentalist but I believe this latest pressure on farmers and beef producers alike is an over-reaction and not science-based. Of course we are going to produce more methane than say, Spain – our levels will be neutralised by our partners in the EU.Beef is one of our manufactured resources and it should not be compromised by scare-mongering.

    1. postmanpat

      There’s this “our ” again. !! It’s not “our”, it’s private for profit corporations that get tax breaks and concessions from “our” government. But “WE” don’t get any benefit one way or the other plus the environment suffers. If we cut beef out altogether it would improve the environment and we wont see any actual downsides. The industry executives will freak out but what’s that? a couple score of mega rich suits Vs the rest of the Irish population?

      1. Spaghetti Hoop

        The producers get incentives from the CAP. We, as in you, I and the average householder don’t receive a monetary benefit, but we have Irish beef at a reasonable price in our supermarkets.The Swiss make a lot of labour-intensive watches. I would imagine the average Swiss man or woman can buy a watch quite cheaply. Some probably believe that robots might make a better watch.

        Be careful of what you are proposing to give away, postman.

        1. postmanpat

          I stopped eating meat years ago. I don’t need it. Beef was never that tasty to me in the first place. The only thing I miss the taste of, is pork . And as for nutrition? if any , is cancelled out by cancer risk so no thanks. So what’s my incentive to prop up our beef industry? (also I have a clock on my phone so the Swiss can shove it ) What exactly am I giving away?

          1. some old quare

            @ postmanpat- in what way is a plant based diet less nutritious than that of someone who choses to eat animal products?

          2. Increasing Displacement

            I don’t need it! You don’t need tv. You don’t need a car. You don’t need double glazing. You don’t need a mobile phone. Clown.
            I assume you gave up every thing bar amino acids, basic minerals and water so?

            You miss pork? One of the worst of meats (due to how it’s produced/animal welfare) bar it’s taste. A magical animal who you can eat in many ways and use it’s organs for humans.

            Cancer from beef? Go fornicate yourself with a rusty fish hook. Do you live near a city? That’s way worse. Grow up. Stop spouting utter crap you read in the Mirror.

    2. some old quare

      The amount of farmers is irrelevant- beef production has risen year on year and is set to continue to do.

      1. Spaghetti Hoop

        The amount of farms, or more precisely, hectares, IS relevant.
        The capacity-building to achieve Paris goals is a big concern of ours. I am however, keen to see EU countries continue some core industries while still making adaptations in others.

        1. some old quare

          Surely the most important figure is the actual amount of cows? And that keeps increasing.

          But, in an indirect way, the reduction in farmers is a contributing factor because all the small meadows, fields and hedgerows are being scraped off and replaced with fields where you would need binoculars to see the other side. Not a single tree to be seen, let alone anything else.

          But as someone who grew up on a farm, what strikes me most is how intensive it has become- strip grazing into the dirt and silage cut twice a year is bound to be doing damage. And that is not even thinking about the fertilisers and other poisons being sprayed to keep yields up.

          1. Cathal

            Where be are these fields? All the fields around here are overgrown with rushes and giant rhubarb, hardly a cow or a sheep to be seen. Drive or cycle around the country and see that what you are saying isn’t true. Big business are pushing Banks to foreclose on farmers so they can buy the land cheaply for forestation , EU will be throwing out huge grants for massive forests

          2. some old quare

            I have been over most of the country in the past year Cathal and it is most definitely happening.

            Unlike Spaghetti Hoop above I have no figures but there is a definite consolidation which in turn increases pressure to improve beef yield production.

          3. bisted

            …I’ll go with Cathal here leather boy…I’d say you never had dung on your dungarees…

          4. some old quare

            Oh look at you all SF west of Belfast environmental about South Armagh.

            Here is a tip- stop brown papering the planning department of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council before withholding funding from Newry Pride without warning or explanation.

          5. Increasing Displacement

            With Cathal here too
            I live in the middle of cow country and I do believe you’re talking through your hole.

  6. Pat O'Kelly

    I can’t eat grass but I can drink milk and eat beef
    Grass grows really good in Ireland
    So let’s support our beef farmers

  7. Gabby

    If we are a methane-producing agricultural society, let us study how cow patties in India, where the cow is sacred, are collected and used in large cement methane-digesters attached to houses. The methane gas is used for cooking and other household purposes. Digesters are eventually cleaned out, the residue organic material is composted into fields, and new cow patties are placed in the digesters for production of new gas. Good old Indian know-how.

    1. postmanpat

      That will go down real well in our white bread , over sensitive, over sanitized society that uses fresh drinking water to flush the toilet.

  8. kellyma

    I am trying to cut down on meat. Our diet has developed to be very meat heavy over the last few decades. Our parents would not have eaten the amount of meat we do. The world population is growing by the day and if everyone were to eat as we do in the west, it appears that this would just not be sustainable. Studies here there and everywhere; I read most of them and my personal conculsion has been that i am trying to eat more vegtarian type meals (2 meat free days a week) and also doing all i can to reduce food waste. Buying less in bulk and going to the shop more for fresh produce that I will use. Also started growing rocket because i found my lettuce bags were basically a process of me buying bags of lettuce that were ultimately going straight into my compost bin…. Its v easy to grow and you don’t need much space and then you pick it when you need it.

  9. Cathal

    Where be are these fields? All the fields around here are overgrown with rushes and giant rhubarb, hardly a cow or a sheep to be seen. Drive or cycle around the country and see that what you are saying isn’t true. Big business are pushing Banks to foreclose on farmers so they can buy the land cheaply for forestation , EU will be throwing out huge grants for massive forests

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