Browse content similar to 30/01/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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OK, and again, Neil, well done. Eddie grateful for you taking the | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
time to come in. No on BBC News, it's time for Meet the Author, with | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Nick Higham. Philip Lymbery is the chief | :00:07. | :00:11. | |
executive of Compassion in World Farming, which campaigns against the | :00:12. | :00:15. | |
factory farming of animals. He has written a book with Isabel | :00:16. | :00:20. | |
Oakeshott, called Farmageddon, The True Cost of Cheap Meat, about the | :00:21. | :00:24. | |
impact of factory farming, not just on animals themselves, but the | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
environment and on human health. As you can probably tell, it is the | :00:29. | :00:37. | |
work of a passionate crusader. Philip Lymbery, this seems to be a | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
pretty angry book, you look at the harm that factory farming does do | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
animals, the environmental degradation, threats to health, the | :00:47. | :00:50. | |
waste, which of these things makes you most angry? As a passionate | :00:51. | :00:57. | |
bird-watcher, personally, it is the countryside, what we're doing to the | :00:58. | :01:01. | |
countryside. Looking at what is happening in this country, once | :01:02. | :01:06. | |
common farmland birds have declined over recent decades by up to 90%, we | :01:07. | :01:15. | |
can see that the roll-out of industrial agriculture in Britain | :01:16. | :01:18. | |
has had a profound effect on green and pleasant land. With the book, we | :01:19. | :01:25. | |
wanted to show that things could, if we let it, get so much worse. And | :01:26. | :01:30. | |
you did that by travelling the world, going with Isabel Oakeshott, | :01:31. | :01:35. | |
and a camera crew, and interviewed and filmed farmers, local people, | :01:36. | :01:44. | |
all around the world. This is a dead zone, it has been completely | :01:45. | :01:48. | |
contaminated by pollution coming from the fish meal industry. | :01:49. | :01:57. | |
We wanted to show people what industrial agriculture, factory | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
farming, means, not just to the countryside, or the animals that are | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
imprisoned in these institutions, but also what happens to people's | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
health and the neighbours of factory farms. Let us speak about China, you | :02:13. | :02:20. | |
look at pig farms, and there is a lot of increasing pig farming going | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
on in China, because the Chinese are growing richer, want more meat, and | :02:25. | :02:31. | |
this is the solution. You can see the Chinese point of view here. | :02:32. | :02:34. | |
Highly else will be feed this growing burgeoning wealthy | :02:35. | :02:42. | |
population? Sadly, they have been sold this morale is that mega farms | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
are the way forward, eye-poppingly huge farms where animals are kept in | :02:47. | :02:55. | |
these things, and it is very hungry for green, for cereals that could be | :02:56. | :03:02. | |
fed directly to people. -- hungry for grain. You went to California, | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
where fruit trees and almond trees are grown, with mega dairies, | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
thousands of cows, and having terrible trouble disposing of | :03:13. | :03:21. | |
waste. Yes, causing great pollution. When we went up about that | :03:22. | :03:24. | |
landscape, in a small aeroplane, what we saw was this mammoth | :03:25. | :03:30. | |
patchwork quilt of crops peppered with what looked like fishes scars | :03:31. | :03:37. | |
on the landscape. They were mega dairies, thousands of cattle in | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
single muddy paddocks, and each one accompanied by an Olympic-sized | :03:44. | :03:50. | |
swimming pool, which was holding the map. And it it -- holding the Mac. | :03:51. | :03:56. | |
And just one of those is likely to be having the effluent equivalent to | :03:57. | :04:02. | |
deal with of a small city. But the pressure is partly on land. Organic | :04:03. | :04:08. | |
farming is wonderful, but if you keep livestock organically, you need | :04:09. | :04:11. | |
to give them space, and we do not have enough, do we? There is plenty | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
of space in Britain and in Europe. What is often overlooked is 70% of | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
the British land surface is agricultural, 66% is part, lots of | :04:23. | :04:30. | |
space to put animal. -- pasture. Taking animals of the land is a | :04:31. | :04:37. | |
mistake. And feeding animal on grain instead of grass makes the food and | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
healthy. It increases the level of saturated fat, decrease as the | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
levels of mega freeze and other health giving benefits. -- omega 3s. | :04:47. | :04:57. | |
Some people see factory farming as necessary evil to feed people. But | :04:58. | :05:04. | |
maybe even a necessary good? why should we expect people on low | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
incomes to feed their children on unhealthy food from factory farms? | :05:09. | :05:15. | |
That cannot be right. Organic farming may produce better food, | :05:16. | :05:18. | |
healthier food, but it is expensive, and Prince Charles runs an organic | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
farm at Highgrove, which often does not make money. The trouble is, for | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
60 years in Europe and the USA, policy regulation and subsidies, the | :05:30. | :05:37. | |
whole regime has been lined up behind this push towards industrial | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
agriculture. Thankfully, in Britain, our farmers are relative | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
novices, but the impetus from the US is to get even more intensive, using | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
seductive language like sustainable intensification, an oxymoron if ever | :05:52. | :05:59. | |
there was one. I believe this is so serious, threatening the health of | :06:00. | :06:02. | |
our food, to decimate again countryside, that government needs | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
to intervene, it needs to get involved and make sure that policy | :06:09. | :06:15. | |
and subsidies go behind the better way of producing food and farming, | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
making it financially favourable to buy good food, to produce food in an | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
animal friendly environment, environment friendly, healthy way, | :06:26. | :06:32. | |
rather than as it is making it more attuned to intensive agriculture. | :06:33. | :06:38. | |
Villa Limerick, thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much. -- | :06:39. | :06:47. | |
Philip Lymbery. Coming up, more on the special day of coverage of the | :06:48. | :06:50. | |
terrible weather. We hear from a drainage expert about what needs to | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
be done in Somerset. And the latest from Italy where a court is said to | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
be about to give its verdict in the Meredith Kercher murder | :07:00. | :07:00. |