30/01/2014 Meet the Author


30/01/2014

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OK, and again, Neil, well done. Eddie grateful for you taking the

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time to come in. No on BBC News, it's time for Meet the Author, with

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Nick Higham. Philip Lymbery is the chief

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executive of Compassion in World Farming, which campaigns against the

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factory farming of animals. He has written a book with Isabel

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Oakeshott, called Farmageddon, The True Cost of Cheap Meat, about the

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impact of factory farming, not just on animals themselves, but the

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environment and on human health. As you can probably tell, it is the

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work of a passionate crusader. Philip Lymbery, this seems to be a

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pretty angry book, you look at the harm that factory farming does do

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animals, the environmental degradation, threats to health, the

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waste, which of these things makes you most angry? As a passionate

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bird-watcher, personally, it is the countryside, what we're doing to the

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countryside. Looking at what is happening in this country, once

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common farmland birds have declined over recent decades by up to 90%, we

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can see that the roll-out of industrial agriculture in Britain

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has had a profound effect on green and pleasant land. With the book, we

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wanted to show that things could, if we let it, get so much worse. And

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you did that by travelling the world, going with Isabel Oakeshott,

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and a camera crew, and interviewed and filmed farmers, local people,

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all around the world. This is a dead zone, it has been completely

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contaminated by pollution coming from the fish meal industry.

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We wanted to show people what industrial agriculture, factory

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farming, means, not just to the countryside, or the animals that are

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imprisoned in these institutions, but also what happens to people's

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health and the neighbours of factory farms. Let us speak about China, you

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look at pig farms, and there is a lot of increasing pig farming going

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on in China, because the Chinese are growing richer, want more meat, and

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this is the solution. You can see the Chinese point of view here.

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Highly else will be feed this growing burgeoning wealthy

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population? Sadly, they have been sold this morale is that mega farms

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are the way forward, eye-poppingly huge farms where animals are kept in

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these things, and it is very hungry for green, for cereals that could be

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fed directly to people. -- hungry for grain. You went to California,

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where fruit trees and almond trees are grown, with mega dairies,

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thousands of cows, and having terrible trouble disposing of

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waste. Yes, causing great pollution. When we went up about that

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landscape, in a small aeroplane, what we saw was this mammoth

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patchwork quilt of crops peppered with what looked like fishes scars

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on the landscape. They were mega dairies, thousands of cattle in

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single muddy paddocks, and each one accompanied by an Olympic-sized

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swimming pool, which was holding the map. And it it -- holding the Mac.

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And just one of those is likely to be having the effluent equivalent to

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deal with of a small city. But the pressure is partly on land. Organic

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farming is wonderful, but if you keep livestock organically, you need

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to give them space, and we do not have enough, do we? There is plenty

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of space in Britain and in Europe. What is often overlooked is 70% of

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the British land surface is agricultural, 66% is part, lots of

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space to put animal. -- pasture. Taking animals of the land is a

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mistake. And feeding animal on grain instead of grass makes the food and

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healthy. It increases the level of saturated fat, decrease as the

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levels of mega freeze and other health giving benefits. -- omega 3s.

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Some people see factory farming as necessary evil to feed people. But

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maybe even a necessary good? why should we expect people on low

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incomes to feed their children on unhealthy food from factory farms?

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That cannot be right. Organic farming may produce better food,

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healthier food, but it is expensive, and Prince Charles runs an organic

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farm at Highgrove, which often does not make money. The trouble is, for

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60 years in Europe and the USA, policy regulation and subsidies, the

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whole regime has been lined up behind this push towards industrial

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agriculture. Thankfully, in Britain, our farmers are relative

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novices, but the impetus from the US is to get even more intensive, using

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seductive language like sustainable intensification, an oxymoron if ever

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there was one. I believe this is so serious, threatening the health of

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our food, to decimate again countryside, that government needs

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to intervene, it needs to get involved and make sure that policy

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and subsidies go behind the better way of producing food and farming,

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making it financially favourable to buy good food, to produce food in an

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animal friendly environment, environment friendly, healthy way,

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rather than as it is making it more attuned to intensive agriculture.

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Villa Limerick, thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much. --

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Philip Lymbery. Coming up, more on the special day of coverage of the

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terrible weather. We hear from a drainage expert about what needs to

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be done in Somerset. And the latest from Italy where a court is said to

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be about to give its verdict in the Meredith Kercher murder

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