Our latitude and climate is one of the best in the world for producing grass. As we cannot eat grass ourselves we have to eat the animals that do. We always have, since we migrated here. It is all very well saying we should be vegetarian, but we cannot produce enough proteins for our population to survive. It is environmentally damaging to fly or ship in foods taken from countries hungrier than us.
Nobody likes to kill animals, but it is a reality that mature people have to accept.
This country has the highest animal welfare in the world due to demands by the public. Because it is cheaper than anything we can produce here. If we decide that our countryside is more valuable as parkland and we import more food from less valuable countries as previously suggested by others, this will make our overpopulated island very vulnerable if we fall out with our suppliers. We will be held to ransom and milked dry. Promote the movement of people out of cities into rural areas by letting farmers develop their land how they see fit.