Thread by @EssaysConcern

Soil carbon is important but it is staggering that both Minette Batters and Prince Charles have made unchallenged statements on @BBCr4today : That some farms are already carbon neutral and that soils could take up 70% of the world's emissions 1/

This is all in an effort to promote sustainable livestock farming. Like Graham Harvey in his book ‘Grass-Fed Nation’ they have been seduced by the claims of Allan Savory; but these have been thoroughly debunked by the Food Climate Research Network
oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/repo… 2/

The fallacy rests on a confusion between fast and slow carbon cycles, between carbon stocks and flows, which with a little bit of naive maths creates a myth that now permeates the NFU’s PR on the future of farming. We need better soil health to stop carbon release … 3/

But it is no good using this as a ploy to retain high levels of meat consumption; and we need a massive reduction in the consumption trend. Good soil health will help have sustainable arable farming, but not as a silver bullet to cancel our fossil fuel emissions 4/

Livestock reduce the efficiency of calories produced per hectare (Cassidy et al Environ. Res. Lett. 8 (2013)) in addition, livestock makes a high and increasing contribution to our carbon emissions (Godfray et al., Science 361, eaam5324 (2018)). 5/

It is such a shame that the NFU are promulgating junk science to advance their meat-first agenda, and it seems that Prince Charles is also on board. 6/6