If you are a beef / sheep / chicken farmer, are you noticing a fall in demand?

[anotherotherone]

I was just travelling back down to London by train and there seem to be a lot less sheep and cows in the fields than normal. Am I imagining things?

There are so many meat / dairy alternatives in the shops now. AIBU to think (well, hope) that as people are eating less meat these days and this trend looks set to continue,
are farmers reacting by reducing their stocks?

@GoodJanetBadJanet it was because I love food and enjoy eating. And for 6 months I didn't enjoy it. I was miserable.

My hands and feet tingled. My iron was low. My vitamin b was low. I just felt like shit.

Went back to my old diet and I was fine again. All that changed was no meat, eggs or dairy. I wasn't supplementing my diet before.

@Fixyourself

It’s mostly people 40+ who are still drink cow tit milk. Luckily the newer generations have realised that I drinking milk from another species is weird!

Of course there is a decline but the meat/dairy industry won’t easily admit it.

@Fixyourself

No, most people still drink cows milk - 70 odd % of under 24s. Per capita consumption has dropped 50% since the 1970s, so most of the decline is significant across all age groups.

However, diary cheese and yogurt consumption is growing, which will be part of the reason uk livestock levels haven’t changed in 50 years (I just looked it up).

Global meat consumption consistently grows by at least 1% each year (I just looked that up too) and that’s expected to continue as the world gets wealthier overall.

I’m not expressing an opinion about any of this, but by making things up you are not serving any useful purpose.

Milk

@Oysterbabe

A quick Google suggests meat consumption has gone down 17% in the last 10 years.

I'm looking at UN data. Per capita meat consumption in the UK hit a high of 85.71kg in 2006, and in 2017 (the most recent figures) stood at 79.9kg which is still historically very high (higher than any year before 2003, data goes back to the 1960s). I only make that a 7% drop.

Milk consumption per capita has remained constant for 57 years at ~230kg per person per year. Egg consumption per capita dropped during the 70s/80s from 15.70kg in 1970 to 9.62kg in 1990, but it has gradually risen back to 11.23kg in 2017

The OP wanted to know about production too. in 2018 4.09 million tonnes of meat were produced in the UK, the first time ever that figures had gone over 4 million tonnes, having risen from 2.20 million in 1961.

If consumption really has fallen by 17%, you're looking at similar levels to 1976. To be honest though, having broken down those annual figures into weekly averages, that's still more than I - an unapologetic carnivore - was consuming. If portion sizes in general follow the same pattern, I'm not surprised that we have an obesity epidemic.

@anotherotherone ignorant then. Get rid of all the sheep and you’ll find it much more difficult to get your oat milk and muffins. The carbon cycle is pretty basic if nothing else.

I’ll go back to managing thousands of acres of farmland though to keep you in oat milk though.

@Luredbyapomegranate
Are you 40+?

Wouldn’t 1% growth a year be a decline seeing is the population growth each year is higher than that?

Do you know the percentage of pus allowed in milk? It’s even higher in organic milk because the cows mastitis goes untreated.

Milk (is that how boomers are signing off now?!)

Interesting stats DdraigGoch, thanks. I wonder how much of the 4 MILLION TONNES of dead animals go to waste?

[quote elbea]@anotherotherone ignorant then. Get rid of all the sheep and you’ll find it much more difficult to get your oat milk and muffins. The carbon cycle is pretty basic if nothing else.

I’ll go back to managing thousands of acres of farmland though to keep you in oat milk though.[/quote]
What do you think the animals eat?! Do you know how much land is farmed for animal feed?

Livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land, yet produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories.

@Fixyourself what are you talking about? Organic cows are allowed antibiotics if they are ill. Have you ever even been in a milking parlour - cows with mastitis have their milk disposed.

Where I live, we lost the small dairy farms 30-40 years ago. Other than that, livestock numbers haven't changed all that much. Even the farmer who gave up sheep has started again.

Livestock and arable farming should be intertwined. Some of the local sheep have just been moved off the stubble turnips, and the field has now been drilled for cereals. It's a regular rotation on that particular farm.

The soil gets a break from cereals, which kills off various cereal-killing nasties (reducing the need to spray), and the sheep shit all over it, providing nice manure and helping to restructure the soil (reducing the need for artificial fertiliser, and improving soil quality).

If the current nightmarish price of artificial fertiliser lasts, I can see a lot more farmers going down this route in future.

The snag with sheep (well, one of the snags with sheep) is that they have to be sheared, and wool is currently worth bugger all. So could all the keen meat-eaters please start buying woollen clothing?

Well look at the end of the day, if people go vegetarian and in particular vegan then what's the incentive to keep cows, sheep, pigs etc so essentially they will become extinct. Or is it that the farmers will keep the animals in fields so the airy fairy brigade can look out train windows or whilst on holidays 'in the country', look out windows and oooh and aaaah at the lovely animals. 'ohhh Look Johnny at the moo moos except there won't be any more freakin moo moos.
Jesus wept. Spare me the veggie nonsense

I think your vegetarianism is just colouring your perception. Tons of animals in the field and meat on plates round here.

People don’t think “look at the lovely animals...” They’re only there to be slaughtered. Nothing “oooh or aaah” about it.

I think the reduction in meat consumption is due to money. Many people having meat free days just because of cost of living.
My local supermarket reduced fridge is full of the fake meat stuff, real meat and fish snapped up instantly if it makes it to a price cut.

[quote Fixyourself]@Luredbyapomegranate
Are you 40+?

Wouldn’t 1% growth a year be a decline seeing is the population growth each year is higher than that?

Do you know the percentage of pus allowed in milk? It’s even higher in organic milk because the cows mastitis goes untreated.

Milk (is that how boomers are signing off now?!)[/quote]
No - a 1% growth in meat consumption is a growth. People need a certain income level to eat meat, so it will not relate to population growth in some areas.

These are just facts. Neither of our personal opinions about animal products are relevant.

You chippy doesn’t serve a purpose any more than you making up facts does.

OP I would venture that most people were already aware that meat comes from dead animals before you started this thread. I think you need to understand that most omnivores do not relate to your feelings towards butchers shops, dairy etc. Sneering, overuse of uppercase and clear ignorance of the British food industry are unlikely to draw people towards your cause.

Probably not in the fields but millions of chickens etc. hidden away in factory farms!

@anotherotherone

Interesting stats DdraigGoch, thanks. I wonder how much of the 4 MILLION TONNES of dead animals go to waste?

The total food waste by supermarkets and their suppliers is 200,000 tonnes per year (remember that this total covers all food groups, not just meat). I've been unable to find out exactly what products get wasted, though I'm sure that milk and bread are near the top. I'm sure that someone who works in a supermarket will tell us what they see being yellow-stickered and thrown.

In my household it's only milk that I struggle to ensure that it doesn't go off before it's used, but I'm getting better organised. Nothing else goes off in my house, the contents of the kitchen bucket are purely peelings and apple cores.

The snag with sheep (well, one of the snags with sheep) is that they have to be sheared, and wool is currently worth bugger all. So could all the keen meat-eaters please start buying woollen clothing?

Lots of other uses for wool too. Dags are great at keeping weeds down in your veg patch.

@MythicalBiologicalFennel

OP I would venture that most people were already aware that meat comes from dead animals before you started this thread. I think you need to understand that most omnivores do not relate to your feelings towards butchers shops, dairy etc. Sneering, overuse of uppercase and clear ignorance of the British food industry are unlikely to draw people towards your cause.

Not does the use of hysterical language. We eat very little meat, especially when vegetarian DD is home. I respect people's right to a food lifestyle choice as long as they respect mine.

Not in our house, we still eat meat higher where and no processed crappy nuggets etc, plenty of fish, have milk delivered by a milkman and I do not live rurally. Quorn makes me projectile vomit and we've discovered has the same impact on DS after he was given it by a well meaning vegetarian friend , who despite me asking said there was definitely no Quorn (we both threw up at her house and DS shat himself - he's 3). We eat veggie a couple of dinners a week with actual vegetables, pulses etc as we always have, because that's what a balanced diet is and often vegetarian meals are quick to prepare.

Okay, have I missed a few posts as can't see where OP is being hysterical?!

@anotherotherone

People don’t think “look at the lovely animals...” They’re only there to be slaughtered. Nothing “oooh or aaah” about it.

If god didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them taste so good.

Most of the milk alternatives are significantly more expensive than dairy

@Patented

Probably not in the fields but millions of chickens etc. hidden away in factory farms!

I think all chickens are being kept inside at the moment, even free range ones, because of bird flu.

@anotherotherone

It is true though that the vast majority of people live in urban environments in the U.K. and they don’t have time to go pootling off to independent butchers when there’s generally nowhere to park and it smells so bad and it’s a hassle.

In any coffee shop now, there are all sorts of milk alternatives and it’s as common to hear someone ordering soy or oat or almond as a dairy milk cappuccino or whatever. I’m not vegan, but even I have switched to oat milk in my lattes because it just tastes better.

Not true where I live, it's a 50 min commute into London to give a rough location idea.

Lots of large supermarkets and lots of butchers, I go to a local butcher for my meat and still do my big shop in Tesco.