New reports tell us cattle and sheep farming can be sustainable – don’t believe them, it’s all bull | George Monbiot

Sheep, cattle and ponies have made Dartmoor a fire-prone landscape.

They selectively browse out tree seedlings, preventing return of temperate rainforest.

Beef and lamb are the most land-hungry and climate-damaging of all farm products.

Their climate impacts range from the methane and nitrous oxide the animals produce.

How much land would be needed under this system to produce the crops we eat? Would we become even more dependent on imports, taking grain from hungrier people overseas or commissioning the destruction of forests, savannahs and wetlands? Given that cattle and sheep in almost all systems require supplementary feeding, would this proposal really ensure that less grain was needed? And what would it do to the price of food?.