1.British meat and dairy is destroying rainforests
2.UK could cut Amazon soy imports with home-grown peas and beans

NOTE: Report in full on sustainable meat and dairy farming: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/pastures_new.pdf
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1.British meat and dairy is destroying rainforests
Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/7900486/British-meat-and-dairy-is-destroying-rainforests.html

*Huge swathes of rainforest are being destroyed every year to grow animal feed for British factory farms, according to new research.

More than 350,000 hectares of rainforest, twice the size of the Yorkshire Dales, is being chopped down to grow soy beans, most of which are genetically modified (GM).

The animal feed is then imported to British factory farms to produce cheap meat and dairy for supermarkets.

Friends of the Earth said that consumers are indirectly destroying the rainforest by buying meat and dairy and urged people to switch to a more vegetarian diet.

The charity pointed to new research by the Royal Agricultural College that found if just eight per cent of agricultural land in the UK was used to grow crops for animal feeds, it would be possible to halve the amount of feed currently imported from South America.

Sandra Bell, Senior Food Campaigner at FOE, blamed the drive to produce cheap meat for the growth in imported feed.

She urged the Government to support farmers in grazing more animals and growing animal feed themselves rather than relying on GM animal feed from abroad.

"Many people choose British milk and meat without realising that the animals in our farms munch on feed produced by destroying wildlife and rainforests in South America,” she said.

"Animals should be born, bred and fed British but pressure from supermarkets and biased EU subsidies force farmers to rely on damaging imports.

"The Government must listen to growing calls for it to restore a thriving meat and dairy sector by helping farmers switch to planet-friendly practices."

However farmers insisted imported animal feed is an essential part of producing affordable and nutritious meat and dairy in Britain.
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2.UK could cut Amazon soy imports with home-grown peas and beans
The Ecologist, 21 July 2010
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/543570/uk_could_cut_amazon_soy_imports_with_homegrown_peas_and_beans.html

A solution to the livestock sector's reliance on soy animal feed, which is driving deforestation in Argentina and Brazil, could be found by incentivising home-grown alternatives

The UK could cut its dependency on imported soy in half by encouraging farmers to switch to home-grown alternative protein crops like oilseed rape meal, lupin, sunflower, linseed, beans and peas.

More than one million tonnes of soy is imported every year to feed animals in the pig, poultry and dairy sectors with 98 per cent of this coming from South America - where studies have linked the expanding number of soy plantations to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest - as well as the grassland regions of the Brazilian Cerrado, the Atlantic forest and the Chacos region.

However, an analysis by the Royal Agricultural College (RAC), commissioned by Friends of the Earth, estimated that replacing 50 per cent of imported soy with home-grown alternatives would be 'relatively straightforward' and require around 8 per cent of the currently available arable land.

Grass-fed alternatives

The RAC says extensive livestock systems used to rear cows and sheep could easily switch to higher proportions of forage and silage feed. It may be harder, says the RAC, to cut out soy imports in the intensive chicken and pig sectors but that a 'major reduction' was achievable by mixing soy with UK-grown alternatives, high in protein, such as field beans and peas.

In interviews with the feed industry and farming sector, the RAC found that the main obstacles were the lack of incentives to grow alternative crops and the relatively low price of imported soy. Advice to farmers on growing or mixing alternative feeds was also poor, while feed suppliers said a variety of feed crops would complicate the supply chain, since additional storage would be required for a mix of crops.

Soy-free labelling

Friends of the Earth said funds from the Common Agricultural Programme (CAP) should be used to incentivise farmers to grow alternative protein crops and reduce the growing dependence on imports. It also urged retailers to publicise and label soy-free meat and dairy produce to consumers.

'Many people choose British milk and meat without realising that the animals in our farms munch on feed produced by destroying wildlife and rainforests in South America.
 
'Animals should be born, bred and fed British but pressure from supermarkets and biased EU subsidies force farmers to rely on damaging imports,' said senior food campaigner Sandra Bell.