Go veggie 'to save the planet'
Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, urged people to become vegetarian to help beat global warming.
He said methane emissions from cows and pigs were putting "enormous pressure" on the world and people needed to think about what they ate.
He told The Times: "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."
The National Farmers' Union hit back, saying the remarks as quoted suggested "he does not fully understand livestock production" and that an "over-simplified message" does not "take account of the complex interactions within the food and farming system".
NFU president Peter Kendall said: "British farmers and growers take their environmental responsibilities very seriously and understand the crucial role they have to play in producing more food, while impacting less.
"As such, livestock and dairy sectors have a range of initiatives aimed at reducing their impact on the environment."
For example, he sited Defra's Milk Roadmap, produced with the industry, which sets out how dairy farmers are expected to reduce carbon emissions by up to 30 per cent by 2020. Mr Kendall also pointed to the fact the sector only accounts for around one per cent of the UK's total carbon emissions.
Practical measures to further reduce emissions from livestock are being looked at, including changing diets, improving productivity and using anaerobic digestion to produce biogas as a source of green energy.
Mr Kendall went on: "Focusing on a single issue as way of saving the planet is extremely irresponsible and likely to be counterproductive.
"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock in the UK by a contraction of the industry, in order to reduce output and livestock numbers, would simply 'export' our emissions to other countries.
"This could also lead to an increase in the amount of UK food which we would be forced to import."
In the interview, Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, predicted that people's attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable.
"I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating," he said.
"I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student.
"People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food."
