WHILE I appreciate that everyone is entitled to follow their individual beliefs and lifestyle, as per the recent ‘Meet the Couple who invented Veganuary’ article (The Press, January 11), I question some of their reasoning behind this choice.

As a livestock farmer, my overriding concern is for the welfare of my animals and I dispute the comment regarding the ‘suffering of animals’. Good animal husbandry is imperative in livestock farming practice, not only to enable the best return on outlay but also because most farmers have empathy with their animals.

With regard to the comment ‘inflicting damage on the environment’ - people need to realise that if animals were not bred for milk or meat, they would not be born in the first instance and the ‘environment’, devoid of farm animals, would not be managed and would revert to scrub. All land in the UK is managed and has become the countryside people treasure.

Much of the land in the UK is unsuitable for arable cropping therefore livestock play an important part of the management of these isles. They produce manure for arable cropping and reduce farmer’s reliance on artificial fertiliser.

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