The industry will play its part in hitting climate-change targets – but the Government must not set targets beyond our reach. QMS chair Jim McLaren is right to highlight that, under the current carbon emission measurement and technologies, hitting a net zero target would result in a much smaller livestock sector.

For the chair of a non-lobbying organisation like QMS to be so emphatic at the same event as the Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing, it has to be assumed that the Government wants public protest from the industry, so that they can face down their Green colleagues’ push for higher climate- change targets.

Protecting the planet is a worthy ambition, and we will all play a part. However, it must be recognised that food production has created carbon ever since we first cultivated crops and domesticated animals.

The 90% target within the current climate-change bill is tough enough for the sector to strive for without setting it beyond the current range of possibility. Too tough a target and you will lose any farmer goodwill, as the challenge would be deemed impossible.

There need to be reasonable targets set, which farmers can achieve and that will help get the public onside, preventing more damaging and delusional articles from hitting the press.

Speaking to Peter Alexander, a leading climate-change scientist at Edinburgh University, it is clear that a large number of climate-change articles in the public press are based on global science with aggregated figures, which poorly fit Scottish farmers.

One recent study that caused alarm in the broadsheets said: “If you do one thing to save the plant, then stop eating meat.”

Based on the amount of land used to make meat, the study split the globe into pasture and arable land, taking no regard of different climates and soil type. How can you compare the Nigerian goat herder with the Shetland sheep farmer?

One organic famer I spoke to, who runs a 1,000 acre farm in Aberdeenshire, told me that they have only recently managed to become carbon neutral, since installing wind turbines and solar panels, restricting grazing areas and planting a third of their farm in trees.

If this is what it takes to have zero emissions, it spells the end for many family farms.

But all is not lost. Carbon emissions can go down through increased efficiency, by taking some simple steps.

One good place to start would be if all cattle farmers culled the bottom-performing 10% of the herd each year.