Breeders feel as a “real wound” the recommendation of the Court of Auditors to “define a reduction strategy” of the cattle herd to reduce France’s carbon footprint, the president of the agricultural union FNSEA told AFP on Tuesday. . “We are particularly annoyed by the lawsuit that is being made to French breeding,” says Arnaud Rousseau.
On Monday, while Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne presented the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to be achieved in all sectors by 2030, the Court of Auditors recommended in a report to “define and make public a strategy reduction” of the cattle herd to meet France’s climate commitments. “Reading that your activity must cease or greatly decrease, it is very complicated for breeders” already fewer and fewer, believes Arnaud Rousseau, assuring that this measure was “experienced as a real injury”.
He also criticizes the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire for a “devastating tweet”, on May 17, during a factory visit to the Happyvore company, which markets meat substitutes. The Minister had written: “Did you know? 100g of vegetable protein generates 60 to 90% less greenhouse gases than 100g of animal protein. Breeders have, according to the president of the FNSEA, “a feeling of abandonment (…) of stigmatization” on the altar of decarbonization.
Cattle farming accounts for 11.8% of France’s emissions. Cows, while digesting, naturally produce methane, a gas with very warming power. The majority union FNSEA defends “breeding correlated to the market, to consumption needs and at this stage there is little or no decline”. At the same time, the national production of red meat has already fallen due to stoppages of activity (-10% of dairy and meat cows in six years), and imports are increasing.
For Arnaud Rousseau, French breeding can reduce its emissions through innovation – additives in the ration of cows promise to reduce the production of methane – and without the need to push breeders to stop. The “age pyramid” naturally predicts a lower number of breeders and therefore fewer heads of cattle. He also recalls that grasslands grazed by cows capture carbon. But “no one will keep grasslands if we don’t have cows to put on them,” he warns.
