Culling 200,000 Irish dairy cows is the wrong way to meet Ireland’s climate targets, the president of Macra na Feirme, Elaine Houlihan has said. Macra creates a platform that allows young farmers’ voices to be heard. Houlihan described the report which contained the proposal as a “complete kneejerk report.”
Houlihan also pointed out: “Has anyone taken a step back and seriously looked at what signals these reports focusing on culling send to young farmers considering entering a sector? Are Ireland and Europe serious about Generational Renewal?”
Any plan to cull Ireland’s dairy herd must be voluntary, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (“ICMSA”) has warned. ICMSA is a lobbying group that represents all farmers in Ireland, particularly dairy and livestock.
ICMSA President Pat McCormack told Newstalk Breakfast on Tuesday: “If there is to be a scheme, it needs to be a voluntary scheme. That’s absolutely critical because there’s no point in culling numbers from an individual who has borrowed on the back of a huge financial commitment on the back of achieving a certain target that’s taken from under him.”
Further reading:
- 200,000 cows to be culled in order to meet climate targets, Newstalk Breakfast, 30 May 2023
- Cull of Ireland’s dairy cattle for climate targets should be ‘voluntary’, farmers say, Irish Times, 30 May 2023
What climate alarmists and those who seek to profit from the agenda refuse to acknowledge is that the livestock/methane narrative is a misconception. The proponents of the climate agenda consistently portray cows as pumping additional methane into the atmosphere. This is simply not true. Ruminant livestock methane is virtually irrelevant as a greenhouse gas. And methane from cattle is part of the biogenic carbon cycle which has been around since life began.
Read more: Irish government proposes culling 200,000 cows to meet climate targets
