TIM EAGLE: These unrealistic recommendations could spell the end of the Sunday roast

Daily Mail​

23-05-2025

Being a farmer isn't just like any other job. It is a complete way of life for us.
It is a huge part of our identity, and I never tire of telling people about my sheep farming background.
That work on my farm in my home area of Moray helps form many of my opinions and outlook on things happening in the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, it is why I made one of my earliest speeches since becoming an MSP last year live from my lambing shed.
But while those who are detached from what being a farmer or working in agriculture entails, this week we learned of another potential hammer blow to our future prospects.
This time it came from an extensive report from the Climate Change Committee who were handing down advice on Scotland's carbon budgets to the SNP government.
While the initial headlines - including in this paper's Wednesday edition - were taken up by the revelation that the costs of hitting net zero each year will be a jaw-dropping £750 million per year - there was something much more alarming for our farmers buried within the report.
The committee report talks about reducing cattle and sheep numbers by over a third by 2045 - the year the SNP say they want to achieve net zero.
Cattle numbers are already declining in Scotland and stood at close to 1.7 million last year. Yet if the SNP give these recommendations the green light, then that number would be reduced by 550,000 over the next two decades.
And as for sheep, these proposals are recommending a cull of over two million sheep.
It's bad enough thinking about that prospect as an animal lover as they are seen as the go-to target to try and desperately ensure climate targets are hit, but this is about more than just raw numbers.
Do SNP ministers seriously think this is a realistic proposal to help them with their 2045 target? Sheep and hill farmers are already under huge pressure and dealing with tight margins.
How do they think they could survive if you suddenly have two million fewer sheep across Scotland's land?
As we have seen with the understandably furious reaction to Labour's cruel Family Farm Tax introduced last year by Rachel Reeves, if there are no farmers, then there is no food.
Surely someone on the committee should have looked at this advice and thought we're making the farmers the easy target again once again.
But there was more to come on top of the livestock culling. The committee also want red meat consumption to be cut by a third compared to 2019 levels.
Now I'm all for promoting a healthy lifestyle, but eating red meat can easily form a part of that, something which more and more people seem to want to try and shoot down.
Eating our red meat supports our farmers and some of Scotland's most iconic products that are known across the globe for how tasty they are.
Frankly these overarching recommendations could spell the death knell for the ever-popular Sunday roast.
Those on the committee probably haven't even thought about that. To most people and not just those living in rural Scotland, it will look like they have plucked some numbers out of thin air and demand that they are hit.
Yet it's not just our farmers and land managers who could be hit, our struggling hospitality sector could be as well. They'll read this with horror and tell the committee, hands off our carvery and hands off our burgers.
Reducing the red meat consumption by such dramatic numbers isn't living in the real world.
Everybody accepts that they need to do their bit to tackle climate change and protect the planet for future generations.
But the committee and out-of-touch SNP ministers who remain wedded to their 2045 target date at all costs need to recognise you do that by bringing in pragmatic and sensible measures and engaging with key sectors, not hitting them with arbitrary targets.
And how about SNP ministers recognising for once that farmers and the agriculture sector are already doing their bit to tackle climate change. Emissions from agriculture have fallen by 12 per cent since 1990.
Farmers are constantly looking at new ways to produce their food and investing in green technology, but they need governments and key committees like this one to be on their side.
Right now, they are being treated as a punch bag by bureaucrats and politicians who think they know best.
Well, I've got news for them. Farmers like me are not just going stand on the ropes being battered anymore.
We're fighting back and all we want is to be listened to.