English The National Beef Association have put forward a proposal that any animal slaughtered over 27 months of age should be subject to a £100 ‘environmental tax’. In a 9 page document, the NBA puts forward a range of justifications for this tax. In a nutshell they argue that the less time an animal is alive the less pollution it causes because it emits less methane.
The LWA is seriously concerned about this proposal because it is based on a misunderstanding of climate science and will incentivise intensification of the most destructive approaches to beef production, at the expense of sustainable, grass-fed systems.
In their analysis the NBA overlook the fundamental differences between the climate impacts of intensive feed-lot systems in which animals are fed on concentrate feed (with corresponding emissions of fossil fuel carbon in the production, processing and transportation of feeds, much of this offset and unaccounted for because it happens abroad) and grass-fed agroecological systems in which animals graze meadows building biodiversity and carbon rich soils, with little need for concentrate feed.
The heart of the matter is a misunderstanding, often perpetuated by supporters of industrialisation in farming, of the fundamental differences between ‘biosphere’ methane and ‘fossil fuel’ carbon in the environmental balance of farming.
Biosphere methane circulates in the atmosphere, converts to carbon dioxide that is used by plants that are eaten by grazing cows, some is released as methane by the animals, that breaks down quickly into carbon and is reabsorbed by plants. This is a cycle as old as ruminants. The cycle is broken when fossil fuels are used to produce the feeds as carbon is extracted from a stable form underground and emitted in the production of feeds, contributing to carbon build up in the atmosphere.
Imposing a tax on animals that are finished more slowly will encourage farmers to feed more concentrates and disadvantage farmers using sustainable and regenerative production systems. This is exactly the wrong direction for beef farming, and either a cock-up based on a weak understanding of the carbon cycle, or a cynical conspiracy to justify intensification with false environmental credentials.
So, cock up or conspiracy? Difficult to say. Hopefully cock-up, and the widespread criticism of the document will see the NBA issuing a retraction and apology. However, we are concerned that the NBA may be seeking to further concentrate the beef industry in the hands of larger beef farms which focus on rearing beef cows indoors as currently 6 retailers are already responsible for over 80% of UK food retailing and with processing in turn being consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer businesses. The chairman of the NBA currently finishes over 6,000 cattle/year, in a yarded system.
We are concerned that this proposal for a £100 tax on older animals is nothing to do with the environment and that it could be negatively impact grass finished systems (inherently suited to smaller farms), thus allowing an ever smaller number of farmers to buy stores and finish them on contract for the supermarkets. This proposal needs to be exposed now, otherwise beef production inevitably goes the way of pigs and poultry, where beef animals are finished indoors or in yards rather than reared slowly and naturally outdoors on an eco-friendly, grass-fed diet.
If you have concerns about this report please email the NBA here: info@
