Sir, – In this week Meath Chronicle, Meath IFA chairman Eddie Bannon says that we need 300,000 more cows to fulfil our emerging milk markets.
That then means 300,000 more calves per year and over the 10 years or so of these unfortunate cows, it means 3 million more of these creatures, born and reared to be slaughtered.
It means more methane, more pollution, more problems with our waters, it means less woods, less scrub, fewer lanes and less wild places.
This in turn means less wildlife, less beauty, less nature and dare I say it; less tourism.
Ireland already looks shabby and spent; our mangled hedges, our littered roads, our boil water notices and our one off- housed landscape is proof of all the wrong turns our farmers have taken; so in reply they take ever more.
International health authorities warn us more and more against dairy foods, against increasing a meat diet, almost all science warns us of the coming climate chaos but we push on and on but towards what? – Yours, etc, JOHN FARRELLY Ballybough, Dublin 3.