I’ve received a directive from Defra telling me that the government has decreed that farmers must reduce green house gas emissions, ‘to at least 6% lower than currently predicted by 2020’. As the, ‘currently predicted’ figure isn’t stated the directive is meaningless but they say that agriculture is responsible for 7% of total emissions and that methane (which cows emit) is 25 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. This coincides with Lord Stern’s call for us all to give up eating meat (and presumably say good bye to wool and leather) to save the planet.
This leaves farmers such as me feeling a grave sense of injustice. My cows and sheep graze on pasture which is unsuitable for growing crops. As Graham Harvey established in his book, ‘The Carbon Fields’ grazing permanent pasture with ruminants is actually an overall carbon ‘sink’ because of the vast root structure below ground which takes up carbon efficiently when they are grazed hard. And if there were no animals on this land it would revert to brambles and bracken and the landscape would be destroyed.

Our Wagyu Bull Paul has died suddenly, unexpectedly and tragically. Paul was one of the first three pure bred Wagyus to be born in this country and as such lived his life under the spotlight. Even the moment of his conception was filmed for TV when a frozen embryo was transferred to one of our pedigree Galloway cows who acted as surrogate mother. When he and two brothers were born they were again on TV and in the National Press and were subsequently the subject of a 25 minute programme for Radio 4. Paul’s brothers were castrated and are due to be slaughtered for beef when they are 31 months old but Paul as the strongest and best looking was left intact as he had been chosen to be the resident bull for the Wagyu herd, which would have ensured him a long a productive life. Paul’s carcass was taken to Carlisle for a full post
mortem to determine the reason for his death but no cause could be found, so his death remains a mystery.