Beef Cattle and Sheep (Carbon Footprint)

Annette Brooke Excerpts
Wednesday 26th June 2013

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Portrait Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
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Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the research that has been carried out in Northern Ireland? The greenhouse gas implementation partnership seems to agree with him that there is still a body of research yet to be carried out. The Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Belfast, which is working with DEFRA and the department of agriculture and fisheries for Scotland, says as part of that research that the ongoing challenges of the inclement weather present a problem.

Annette Brooke Portrait Annette Brooke (in the Chair)
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Thank you for that. We will keep interventions a little shorter in future.

Neil Parish Portrait Neil Parish
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The hon. Lady is right, because climatic conditions will make a difference. The amount of time that an animal takes to finish grazing to become fat also makes a difference, as does the time taken to finish an animal for meat production. All such things have to be taken into consideration. Of course there are a number of ways to measure carbon.