A former adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has sparked anger after saying sheep “have got to go” from the UK’s hillsides.
Ben Goldsmith, brother of ex Tory MP Zac Goldsmith, said the animals are “the principal obstacle standing in the way of meaningful nature recovery in Britain’s national parks and other agriculturally marginal landscapes”.
Mr Goldsmith, 42, believes sheep should not be subsidised, and claimed the UK is “impoverished of wildflowers, birdsong, wildlife” due to the “forensic grazing by tens of millions of sheep”.
“The sheep have got to go”, he said in a Tweet that sparked backlash on Tuesday.
The animals are to blame for objection to the reintroduction of lynx and wolves, he also claimed.
“Sheep have a brutal impact on the hydrology of our landscapes, compacting the soil and expunging vegetation, thereby making soil erosion, flooding and seasonal drought ever more frequent and ever more severe and costing the country billions each year,” he wrote.
“Sheep are not native to Britain. They come from the arid hills of Asia Minor. They must suffer terribly soaked through and exposed on our windy, wet hillsides year-round. The fact that even English acorns are toxic to sheep says it all.”
The number of sheep and lambs in England increased by 2 per cent to Nearly 15 million in 2022, according to government statistics.
The post divided opinion, with one Twitter user replying: “That is a load of nonsense. Agricultural history would strongly disagree with you”. Another user described the post as “very out of touch”.
“Britons certainly do eat lots of lamb!” another replied. “Coming from near the Lake District and being a frequent visitor to Wales I can vouch for the fact that both the meat and the wool is not only crucial to the local economy but very much in demand by both locals and visitors.”
Mr Goldsmith responded to the backlash to his initial post, later tweetinging: “I don’t mean to criticise or offend anyone. I certainly don’t mean to propose that anyone should be told how or how not to farm.
“I’m simply saying that public money should be exchanged for public good. And I don’t see much public good in the farming of sheep. Native cattle on the other hand deliver multiple public goods.”
Mr Goldsmith, who is CEO of investment firm Menhaden, also claimed: “Britons don’t eat much lamb or mutton. So why are our landscapes stuffed with sheep?”.
He said sheep farming is, in economic terms, “hopelessly non-viable” and “propped up solely with taxpayer subsidies”.
Mr Goldsmith said he does not buy lamb or mutton any more, claiming: “It’s not right. If people want to keep sheep, of course that’s their absolute right, but they should not be subsidised with public money for doing so.”
He described the importance of sheep farming to national food security as “nonsense”.
“There’s a strong argument to suggest that, if you take into account winter feed and the negative hydrological impact on more productive farmland further down the catchments, much sheep farming is likely to be net negative in terms of actual food production”, he said.
The UK’s annual per capita lamb consumption is 4.7kg, according to the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook for 2016, compared to the largest per capita consumer Mongolia, with 45.1 kg.
