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Editor hits out at BBC Radio 4 'Start the Week'
Meat Industry Vilified by Andrew Marr and Guests
I don't know whether you heard Andrew Marr's "Start the Week" on Monday
9.00am on Radio 4, but many thousands will have. It's normally the high
point of my listening week, as I judge Marr to be balanced and
fair-minded. This week's issue demolished the livestock industry with
all those on the programme being horrified at the methods employed by
factory farming which, we were reliably informed, provided 93% of the
meat we consume in Britain.
This week's facts came from the author Jonathan Safran Foer. He was
joined by Anthony Julius who believes anti-semitism pervades English
culture; a Prof Graciela Chichilnisky, who is concerned with the
perception of risk by people, governments and international bodies, and
the author of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith.
Foer has turned vegetarian and is the latest author to write about the
iniquities of farming and food. The programme blurb says his book
Eating Animals reports his investigation into the livestock industry
"and makes for uncomfortable reading on the truth about factory farmed
meat"and the claims he makes were clearly shocking to the panel who had
apparently read the book.
The discussion was one sided - even Andrew Marr admitted as much - when
each participant confessed to either not eating meat or, as Julius told
us, eating a small portion of chicken on a Friday night and another
small portion for lunch on Saturday. No rib eye steak eaters here. And
unfortunately Marr failed to play devils advocate, or indeed question
any of the damaging allegations made against the farming industry.
So the participants nodded in agreement when Foer stated that 96% of
American meat came from factory farms, and that we were hardly better,
with a figure of 93%. Not one of these intelligent academics and
thinkers felt the need to ask for a definition. One imagines that some
of these people travel through the countryside - maybe even Andrew Marr
does himself - but not one managed to relate this experience with the
fact that 93% of UK meat comes from factory farms. Where are they? What
are those smallish herds of cattle doing in fields visible from the M4,
M1, M6? What about all the meat which is sold as 'organic'? Does this
also come from a factory farm?
There was not a flicker of a question to Foer about this allegation of
his. Yet, if this was an exaggeration, might not other claims be as
well? We are all aware that not all livestock farming is as it should
be, and this concerns small family farms as much as factory units.
Animals do get kept in poor condition, and this and other programmes
could be justified, and supported, in exposing the problem.
My fury resulted in the following letter to Andrew Marr - but I have yet to receive a reply and rather think I won't.
I also copies it to Joe Watson, the Scottish farm journalist who is
wanting to bring mis-reporting of farming affairs to the notice of
others. Maybe he will wish to respond and take up the issue of this
programme, and Mr Foer's wrongful claims.
My email to Andrew Marr
Dear Andrew
I know little first hand about American farming - though have just returned
from a week there - in Texas. But I have a real knowledge of the industry
in the UK, and write and publish a magazine that helps family farmers to thrive.
Jonathan Safran Foer said this morning that 96% of meat in the USA,
and a smaller 92 (or was it 93?)% in Britain is produced by factory farming.
The statistics are of our industry totally contradict the facts.
Please take a look at the stats for herd sizes in the UK as published by DEFRA:
https://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publications/auk/2008/AUK2008CHAPTER3_AUK.pdf
They show the average dairy herd has 80 cows, and that 55% of the total cows are in herds
greater than 100. A herd of 100 is not large. Cows can be handled as individuals in just the
same way as pupils in a school of 100 can be treated individually. Legislation restricts the
use of drugs and chemicals, including antibiotics that are used, and market demands through
dairy contracts make these restrictions even greater.
The average herd of beef cows is even smaller, at just 28 cows, and just over half are in herds
greater than 50.
The average flock of sheep is 217, and again it's around half that are in flocks greater than 500.
It must be pointed out that many of these big flocks are grazing uplands and marginal areas -
places like the Welsh hills, Lake District, Scottish uplands - well away from factory conditions.
Even pigs are surprisingly small, with an average of 100, and 70% in herds of more than a
thousand. And chickens? 35,000 is the average flock size and 65% are in flocks of more
than 35,000 - but that still means that 35% are in flocks of less.
Where was the balance in your programme?
All your experts, yourself included, tacitly assumed the figures to support the Mr Foer's argument.
Maybe you didn't have time to think, time to investigate. You have such heavy commitments to so
many programmes each week that checking and asking don't come into the equation. Maybe
you think it perfectly reasonable because the fashion today is to be vegetarian, and even if
you eat meat the fashion is to knock the mainstream food trade. So you know that knocking an industry
like farming is, generally speaking, acceptable to the majority of your esoteric audience, many of whom
are anxious to be in the vanguard of public opinion.
The whole problem is that is strays away from the truth. It becomes factually incorrect. It is, to be
blunt, a bit of a lie. Easy to make, easy to accept when the tide of opinion is behind all this. And easy when
a celeb like yourself is such a busy and important man. Wealthy and influential too, someone whose
gravitas and authority can take many thousands along with them.
So no thanks for your programme this morning, one I normally look forward to.
Mike Donovan
editor, Practical Farm Ideas
11 St Mary's St, Whitland, Carmarthenshire, SA34 0PY
www.farmideas.co.uk farmideas.blogspot.com
mike@farmideas.co.uk
T: 01994 240978 M: 07778 877514
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