The ineffectiveness of Government efforts to cut carbon emissions by curtailing Irish livestock numbers has been exposed by forecasts of an explosion in Brazil’s cattle herd.

Projections by Brazil’s beef exporters’ association, ABIEC, predict that cattle numbers in the South American country will expand by an unprecedented 24m head by 2030.

This increase in Brazil’s cattle numbers, which is equivalent to 25 times the size of Ireland’s total suckler cow population, will see the country’s national herd swell to over 210m by the end of the decade.

The latest surge in Brazil’s cattle numbers comes as recent deforestation activity in the Amazon has reached alarming levels.

Destruction of the Amazon hit a 12-year high in 2020, with an area the size of counties Mayo and Galway stripped of tree cover.

Carbon leakage

Irish farm organisations have continuously warned that cutting cattle numbers here will result in significant carbon leakage by shifting production to regions that are less carbon efficient. This tallies with the findings of the EU’s Farm to Fork impact assessment.

According to the UN, the average greenhouse gas footprint of beef produced in western Europe is 2.5 times less than the global average and over three times less than beef produced in Latin American countries such as Brazil.