On meat and food production
In his article on an extravagant source of food, Simon Fairlie targets the production of meat, and not obviously superfluous agricultural products such as cut flowers, cotton, tea, coffee, sugar and much of the dairy industry (28 April).
He does not mention the ecological contribution made by naturally maintained herbivores; most of what they eat and drink is excreted in nutrient-rich urine and faeces that feeds soil microbes and enhances biodiversity. If grass plants are not eaten, they eventually die, taking with them birds and insects; it is only when herbivores are denied access to grass that they become polluters on a grand scale.
Many livestock producers dislike intensive animal-rearing methods, but the demand comes from supermarket chains wanting a consistent product, and consumers who want tender meat but have little understanding of nutrition. In Australia, much of the grain that is fed to cattle was sown for human consumption but downgraded because of adverse growing conditions, so feeding grain to animals does not always take food out of a human mouth.
Fairlie is correct that there are greater differences between management systems than species, as grazing animals can co-exist with trees, shrubs and birds in a way that annual crops cannot. Homo sapiens has destroyed most of the world’s mega-fauna and almost all the apex predators; now that we occupy both roles it is essential that we replicate grass-based ecologies.
Philippa Morris
Gravesend, NSW, Australia
• Simon Fairlie is correct in saying that animals raised on permanent pasture have a much less damaging environmental footprint. We are hill farmers in New Zealand; our farm is too steep for grain crops. The animals are feed on grass only, with a supplement of willow foliage in a dry year, meaning the meat has a healthy omega/fatty acid balance.
We don’t use antibiotics or nitrogen fertiliser. Our permanent pastures are diverse, containing 20 or more species per square metre. The only alternative land use is forestry, which employs fewer people. Nine billion people will need protein in their diet and we can produce that protein in a sustainable manner on land that would otherwise not produce any food at all. What the world needs is sustainable and appropriate land use.
Dave Read and Judy Bogaard
Wairoa, New Zealand
• I was very interested in the article by Simon Fairlie on eating meat. I was one of five children brought up in the late 1930s and 40s never to eat meat. We are now all in our late 60s and 70s, and none of us have ever eaten meat. We are all healthy.
I do a lot of work in south India on nature reserves and none of the people there eat meat either. They are also quite healthy.
A H Morley
Conwy, UK
The economics of growth
Without growth, does economics have a future? (Larry Elliott, 28 April). Perhaps as a branch of moral philosophy, finding ways to measure economic justice and sustainability, the better to offer us sound advice on how to get to the promised land?
Many of us appear to be shocked by the vote for Brexit in Britain or the election of Donald Trump as president in the US, but both are intelligible in terms of the cultures from which they emerged. Unfortunately, too much of the reaction, at least in the US, has more to do with style than substance – the latter would remain essentially unchanged were Trump to disappear. Perhaps we should be asking: what is it about us? Apropos, maybe an epitaph for our market/money culture is William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
Felix Prael
San Diego, California, US
A pathway to cleaner air
One way to reduce the level of air pollution and traffic around schools and nurseries in Britain (14 April) would be for parents to stop driving their children to school. From the age of five on, my children walked to kindergarten and school with others from the neighbourhood, and the schools here still actively discourage mummy/daddy taxis. As a result, children have, on the way to and from school, plenty of fresh air in all weathers, movement and opportunities to hone their social skills.
If British parents are worried about their children’s safety, they could organise rotas or employ lollipop-people to escort the children.
Silvia Dingwall
Nussbaumen, Switzerland
Briefly
• Sonam Wangchuk’s ice stupas water storage system (28 April) sounds like a brilliant idea. It is so simple and practical even in developing countries. Some nations like Peru, which gets very little rain, depend on melting ice from the Andes for its water supply. Ice stupas could prove to be a boon in such countries. Let us hope for widespread adoption of this system as we face water shortages from climate change.
Bill Mathew
Melbourne, Australia
• The story about the Deliveroo document directing staff not to refer to deliverers as “employees” is reminiscent of the Walmart documents with tips for managers on keeping the firm “union-free” (14 April). With the “gig economy”, however, it seems the goal is to avoid even minimum levels of treatment, through remaining “employee-free”. Capitalism is progressing.
Greg DePaco
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
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