The climate change argument is so lame as to make sheep look very smart indeed.
“Just grow crops on that land instead of raising cattle.”
Right. Yes. Absolutely. Have you been outside? Not outside in a city. Outside outside. Countryside outside. Have you looked at what 65% of Britain’s agricultural land actually looks like?
It looks like the side of a mountain in Snowdonia with soil the depth of a paperback novel and an annual rainfall that would make a rainforest feel overdressed. It looks like the Scottish Borders at 400 metres elevation, where the wind comes in horizontal for nine months of the year and the frost doesn’t fully leave until June.
It looks like the Devon coastline on 40-degree slopes where no tractor has ever successfully operated without becoming a story people tell in the village pub for generations.
It looks like the Brecon Beacons, where the peat bog comes to meet the acidic grassland and the nearest thing to an arable field is someone’s daydream. These are not fields that have been selfishly hoarded by farmers for cows while perfectly good crop-growing sits unused. These are fields where the cattle ARE the only possible food production. Where the grass grows because it evolved to grow there, and the cow eats it because it evolved to eat grass.
Plant quinoa in mid-Wales and it will stand briefly in the wind, look confused, and die. Plant wheat on a Cumbrian fell and the sheep will watch it fail with the quiet satisfaction of animals that know how this works.
The people saying “just grow crops instead” have confused a topographic map with a menu. The land does not offer what the spreadsheet requires.
The cow is not blocking a better option. The cow IS the option.
It is, in fact, the ONLY option.
Go outside. Have a look. Bring a coat.”
@samahoole on X
