Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-18-Speech-3-442"
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"en.20080618.30.3-442"2
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"Mr President, thank you. Well, Mr Martinez, I knew that New Zealand sheep were guilty of many things, but I did not realise they ate other sheep, especially European ones!
But, to be serious, I thank the rapporteur for a very good report. Can I echo the words of Mr Nicholson that it is great to see you here, Commissioner, and I am glad to see that you come from a sheep-keeping area of Italy, so I am sure you will be able to shed light on this whole project.
Sheep farming is extremely good, not only for farming but for the environment, and we talk a great deal today about a great environment for agriculture. But it is in the high-landscape areas, the mountainous areas, the hilly areas in my own area that I represent – Exmoor and Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor – that the green landscape is kept by sheep farming.
Sheep meat and lamb meat is a very healthy red meat. It is also a meat that is fed on grass, and when we now are living in an age where people are saying it takes eight kilos of grain to create one kilo of protein, then do not forget grass-fed meat is extremely valuable.
We must go out and market this, because it is a healthy meat but it needs to be marketed, and that is where I say to the rapporteur in his report: marketing is extremely important.
I actually want to see a form of grassland payment paid to sheep farmers to keep the sheep on the hillside. I do not want a coupled payment, because I believe all that may do is maintain more sheep than the landscape needs to keep. We have got to have the right number there to keep the landscape but have a good quality sheep that can then be marketed properly.
Electronic tagging: we are not ready for it. And when you are halfway up a mountain in driving rain, you try to read these new-fangled monitors and the answer is you will not be able to do it. There is no system yet that properly stops the collision of the numbers on the different sheep. And do not forget you are talking about millions and millions of sheep in the European Union. We are just not ready, and I would say: leave it to 2012 or beyond."@en1
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