Ending of milk quotas will harm our health and environment

Meath IFA chairman, Eddie Bannon, says that we need 300,000 more cows to fulfill our emerging milk markets.

That means 300,000 more calves per year, and, over 10 years, three million creatures reared to be slaughtered. It means more methane, pollution, problems with our waters, and fewer woods, lanes and wild places.

This means less wildlife, beauty, nature and tourism.

Ireland already looks shabby and spent; our mangled hedges, our littered roads, our boil-water notices and our one off-housing are proof of all the wrong turns our farmers have taken.

International health authorities warn us against dairy foods, against increasing a meat diet, and almost all science warns us of the coming climate chaos, but we still push on.

John Farrelly

Ballybough Road,

Dublin 3