Stuart Meikle

@fleroy1974 @redpilldispensr It all must begin with plant nutrition & sourcing/cycling those nutrients naturally. It creates 'emissions' as plants only take up inorganic nutrients - so during cyclical decomposition they must be separated from carbon releasing it either as CH4 or CO2.

@redpilldispensr So if you cut your animal foods, you'll have to eat more plants, which will also cause emissions. There will be some gains, but for a typical Western carbon footprint this is only a few % (somewhere betwee 1-6% savings). And again, ignoring the above-mentioned complexities.

Meanwhile at the UN... "Eating meat and dairy is causing 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions." "So the producers of meat and dairy should pay for the damage they cause."

@REGENETARIANISM That still misses the essential point of what regenerative should be about!

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@PeteGDunne Simply pig & poultry feed is based on maize/soya while barley for cattle feed is supplying an input into a system where the end beef/dairy product is an undifferentiated commodity that generates no premium to pass onto the barley growers. A failed system that nobody addresses.

If people only knew, or even cared...

@PeteGDunne "Gorbachev famously credited the BBC for providing him with accurate news while he was held captive during the 1991 coup attempt". From an era when the BBC was respected by World leaders. Sad that it no longer seems to be the case.

This is all gloriously funny. And karmic.

@Ketogranny @fleroy1974 @ChrisMartzWX @JamesMelville It is about the way they are kept & understanding the biology of how genuinely sustainable agricultural systems work, & the first thing to do is ditch the reductionist carbon myopia. Food systems have to work with Nature & that starts with understanding how Nature actually works.

Help! We need your help to dispel MiSInFORmachON @fleroy1974 @ChrisMartzWX @JamesMelville We’ve just bn thru this argument in US and UK and now they’re trying it on in Aus🇦🇺 as tho it’s factual. Please 🙏 Show these chancers that cows are part of the solution.

@natalieben Natalie, it all comes down to naturally sourcing & cycling plant nutrients, & that needs a healthy soil biome living in an equally healthy soil habitat. The 1st rule of adding anything [I mean everything] into an agricultural system is, will this negatively impact the soil biome?

The horrors just keep emerging on this #PoisonedPlanet. "The toxic chemical load … passing through those sites and then directly into our food chain” #PublicHealth #OneHealth theguardian.com/environment/20…

@GrassBased Someone needs to look ice cream making. It is about balancing fat and sugar. As low-fat has trended up fat % has gone down, 'balanced' by more sugar, & sugar has got very high. Real ice cream has more fat & much less sugar. It also has real dairy fat & not palm or coconut oil.

OfFS ... *sigh*

OFfFS MBFM

@vickihird @WildlifeTrusts Many issues well deflected by the focus on carbon emissions rather than P, K, fossil fuels, novel entities etc. These industries also have massive impacts in, especially, South America. They are neither sustainable, nor are they 'farming', they bring the word into disrepute.

Huge impacts of UK pig and poultry farming revealed for first time. The work commissioned by @WildlifeTrusts illustrate a big systemic race to the bottom. Needs action asap wildlifetrusts.org/news/huge-impa…

@PeteGDunne @fleroy1974 @FatEmperor @GrassBased @ireland_farming @JoannaBlythman @zoeharcombe @bigfatsurprise @SusFoodTrust @PastureForLife Butter should come with a nutrient complexity that confers health benefits & it can only come from milk that originated from a high degree of plant diversity that, in turn, was able to access a broad nutrient diversity. It is Nature & way beyond mimicking in an industrial process

@PeteGDunne @fleroy1974 @FatEmperor @GrassBased @ireland_farming @JoannaBlythman @zoeharcombe @bigfatsurprise @SusFoodTrust @PastureForLife Do people actually believe this 'itis made from carbon' nonsense? To do so must first require a total absence of biological systems knowledge.

@fleroy1974 @FatEmperor @GrassBased @StuartMMeikle @ireland_farming @JoannaBlythman @zoeharcombe @bigfatsurprise @SusFoodTrust @PastureForLife It isn’t really about ’climate’, it’s really about control, IP creation & corporate profit growth.

@JayneReesBuxton @bigfatsurprise It should be about a lot more physiology and a lot less epidemiology. Same in evaluating agricultural systems, more thought into understanding physiology and natural systems, and a lot less reliance on 'data'.

@bigfatsurprise Exactly. We really need health and nutrition researchers to concentrate on clinical studies and understanding the mechanisms of benefit rather than putting so much of their ( and our) energy into generating headlines with broad brush epidemiology

Reduces risk of death by half! Do you realize how many studies find X (eg, eating nuts, lifting weights, whatever) reduces risk of death by 20%, 30%, etc. If all those things were true, we'd all be immortal.

@vickihird Not sure about aging beef in containers on a container ship, seems a bit hands-off! But ultimately this again comes back to using a single-metric 'carbon' lens to evaluate systems and not wider, holistic appraisals.

Australian Trade deal by last gov having an impact...? the fact that considerable deforestation is associated with Australian beef is not mentioned here.. as its an industry promo. Is this really food security? no The growing appeal of Australian red meat thegrocer.co.uk/promotional-fe…

@vickihird A touch confusing to talk about 'hotspots' given that these fungal networks should be functioning across 100% of the land area, bar that under tarmac etc. I also suspect that the Regenerative Ag. community is already onto this with a serious intent.

💯 Agree - these huge fungal networks are ecosystem glue - vital in so many ways. And extraordinary theguardian.com/science/2025/j…

@KarenLorre @samdknowlton So what happens when all of the okra and fenugreek biomass degrades, or is it dried and incinerated? Sounds like a way to remove microplastics from water but beyond that? Another business-as-usual 'solution' to avoid the issue of how to stop creating them in the first place?

@samdknowlton So this removes it from water but does not make it go away, so it will end up where? In soil? Or recycled? I am so curious! Thank you!

Fenugreek and okra can remove up to 89% of microplastics from water. These everyday food plants outperformed the synthetic chemicals currently used in water treatment facilities. It's increasingly evident that microplastics are everywhere. These tiny plastic fragments contaminate our drinking water, oceans, groundwater and even our agricultural soils and crops. They accumulate toxins and work their way up the food chain. Current removal methods rely on synthetic chemicals that create their own environmental problems. Researchers extracted natural polymers from fenugreek seeds and okra fruits, then tested them on real water samples from wells, rivers, and the ocean. The plants' long molecular chains physically capture microplastic particles, causing them to clump together and settle out. The results varied by water type. Fenugreek excelled at cleaning groundwater with 89% removal efficiency. A fenugreek-okra combination worked best for river water at 77%. For ocean water, okra alone achieved 80% removal. All at just 1 gram per liter of water. What makes this significant? These plant-based flocculants are biodegradable, non-toxic, and come from renewable sources. They work within 30-60 minutes. Most importantly, they performed better than polyacrylamide, the industry standard synthetic flocculant. The mechanism is elegantly simple. The plants' polysaccharide chains create bridges between microplastic particles. No complex chemistry, no harmful byproducts. Just the same natural polymers that make okra slimy and give fenugreek its thickening properties. Instead of fighting plastic pollution with more synthetic chemicals, we can harness the properties of plants humans have safely consumed for thousands of years. Nature truly is healing.

@charlespaynter A very human-centric approach! Sadly the damage these forever chemicals is likely to go far beyond that to human health. I would start by asking what impact will they have on functioning of the soil biome and plants. They may also make recycling many nutrients nigh on impossible.

👍As we’re increasingly seeing, microbial life tends to hold answers for our health & well being bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@fleroy1974 Limited if the comparison is with PRG and not a highly diverse sward. The latter is the future, the former the past. There will be value in grazing willow, but unlikely as a silver bullet to reduce CH4 [could ask how much CH4 from leaf fall given wet conditions willow favours].

"integrating willow fodder into beef production systems can help meet emissions reduction targets, improve overall sustainability, paving the way for more environmentally responsible and resource-efficient production methods."

@HPG_Farmer @AlexiaCRobinson @AnnaLongthorp @NoFarmsNoFoods @LoveBritishFood Just how 'British' is it? Surely there should be a minimum of British feed used. And Ian is right, more industrial chicken is not the answer when looked at holistically, neither is more grain-fed meat. Look past the carbon counting, and consider all the factors involved.

@AlexiaCRobinson @AnnaLongthorp @NoFarmsNoFoods @LoveBritishFood I may be a lone voice on this one 🪖 We eat too much chicken these days It used to be a luxury meat IMHO, it should still be It's less nutritious than beef and lamb, global production conditions are often poor and most of it depends on soya in feed

We don’t produce enough chicken in Britain to meet demand. Fact. Where is the incentive to encourage farmers to either start producing chickens or go back into it if they have given up? @NoFarmsNoFoods @LoveBritishFood

@JulianMellentin Worth adding the own brand alternative into the mix before making broad conclusions, the graphic is about the branded version and switching to own brand must be happening more as incomes get squeezed.

For more than a decade, people have increasingly been turning to protein (such as eggs) for breakfast. They have also been edging away from carbs. As a result Nestlé's breakfast cereal business in Europe (where the UK is the single-biggest market) stands on the edge of collapse. Nestlé ignored the reality of a changing world and now pay the price. bit.ly/4kGKarK The article should be on open access. If it's behind the paywall still, I apologise.

@GrowersGrain Updating the emission factors for peatland soils worked even better a 2/3rds reduction last year, and what remains was not all CO2 but >50% methane. It is all in the EPA inventory. No surprise as waterlogged soil does not breathe & is anaerobic. This needs nuance not Gamma rays.

Gamma rays could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions here on earth irishtimes.com/environment/cl…

@farm_wheeler Maybe that is the problem, that schemes are seen as the only solution. They are not sustainable because they are schemes. The actual long-term solution lies in encouraging system changes that also restore Nature.

Farmers are rational economic actors, and the depletion of nature in this country from the intensification of agriculture is the predictable result of policy & financial incentives. Gutting our agri-environment system removes the only bulwark we had to slow or reverse that trend.