Meatless diets will decimate global food security - documentary

The prevailing narrative that cattle are bad for the planet does not take into account the full picture, said Ruth O'Reilly, technical marketing manager at Alltech South Africa.

She was speaking at the screening of a new documentary produced by agribusiness Alltech, A World Without Cows, which investigates the effect on both people and plants if cattle farming was halted and protein obtained from plant sources instead.

With several recent films that frame livestock farming in a negative light due to the methane emissions produced by livestock, Alltech sought to provide a balanced, science-based perspective. O'Reilly said that the documentary aimed to empower the agriculture sector to tell its side of the story.

MORE THAN FOOD

“What farmers experience through cattle farming is very different to what the public perceives and it is important to tell the whole story that cattle are more than food. They produce a host of products including milk, leather, plastic, soap and insulin. Removing them from farming systems has far-reaching consequences,” she said.