AgForce farmers have gone in to battle for red meat, following a push by schools to turn kids vegetarian.
The new national curriculum, released by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, extols the virtues of a vegetarian diet, and includes one assignment for students to study “serving and eating food that has been prepared sustainably”.
Australian Beef Sustainability Framework chairman and AgForce Cattle Board Director Mark Davie is disappointed.
“For hundreds of thousands of years we’ve been eating red meat,” he said.
“People can have the choice not to eat meat but the idea of schools pushing this, I find a bit upsetting.”
Mr Davie said the beef industry had set a challenge in 2017 to be carbon neutral by 2030, and had offset its emissions by 57 per cent, against a 2005 baseline.
He said livestock farmers helped care for the environment by reducing the fuel load for bushfires, managing weeds and feral animals, and improving biodiversity.
Queensland cattle farmer Adam Coffey, who is also on the cattle board of AgForce, said his six-year-old son “came home from school devastated because he was told cows were ruining the planet” – a claim that is simply not true.
“On my own property we are constantly investing in and working on reducing erosion and runoff, sequestering carbon, conserving soil moisture, and increasing bio-diversity,” said Adam.
“We’re doing everything we can to not only protect, but actually improve the land. And we believe we can have positive environmental impacts on everything we do.”
AgForce congratulates Mark and Adam in their efforts to fly the flag for red meat and Queensland’s graziers.
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