A major report on land use and climate change by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) has told consumers that switching to a plant-based diet will slow global warming.

However, NFU Scotland has criticised the report for not acknowledging Scottish farming’s responsible approach to tackling climate where food is produced in a “highly sustainable way”, which it claims will present solutions to meeting targets on climate change.

Headline-grabbing

President Andrew McCornick said: “Here we have a headline-grabbing global report that, by its very nature, takes no account of an individual nation’s environmental credentials, farming systems or the steps it is already undertaking to tackle climate change.

“We take our environmental responsibilities incredibly seriously and continue to adopt practical, workable solutions and improvements to the challenge of climate change.

It is too simplistic to just take high-level global messages and apply them to Scotland

“The IPCC report only deals with the global scale and it is too simplistic to just take high-level global messages and apply them to Scotland.

"That needs some media outlets to undertake a reality check before applying the report recommendations to a nation like ours.

“While it makes little sense from a climate change perspective to cut down tropical rainforests to create grasslands to rear livestock, other parts of the world like Scotland are ideally suited to growing grass, rearing livestock and turning that grass into valuable, tasty protein that remains at the heart of balanced diets.

Virtuous cycle

“Our ruminant livestock are part of a virtuous cycle. They act as ‘air scubbers’.

"There is no methane being produced by our cattle and sheep that has not originated in the atmosphere and been processed through the grass they graze.

"That converts long-life carbon dioxide into methane, with a significantly shorter lifespan, with the huge benefit of tasty, affordable meat and milk.

“In Scotland, it must also be borne in mind that the good land that is suited to growing crops is already being used sustainably in this way and, in most cases, it is not possible for livestock farmers to switch their land to crop and vegetable production because of the geography, nature and vegetation of the land.

“These are facts around Scottish farming all too often ignored in the coverage afforded to such global reports.”