I do not think I have actually seen that figure, but if it is to be taken as the correct figure, that is half our arable land. So the increase in imports of all the crops that would be displaced by that crop would obviously be dramatic and would have other implications; we would probably have another Bill trying to stop that.
On top of the research that I referred to, we are committed to tackling the deforestation that the Bill rightly aims to reduce, and which has accompanied some soya production. But we must recognise that soya consumption is not all about livestock. DEFRA is leading a programme of work, with businesses and non-governmental organisations, on another major food ingredient that has not been debated this morning—palm oil. We want to support production without the forest footprint of replacing rain forest with palm oil production.
We are also working closely with our European and other international partners. Much has been made of Brazil; in particular we are working with that country to tackle the drivers of deforestation. We are also working with EU partners to tackle illegal logging, which destroys forests and biodiversity and contributes, as we know, to CO2 emissions.
Sustainable Livestock Bill
Proceeding contribution from
James Paice
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Friday, 12 November 2010.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Sustainable Livestock Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
518 c594 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2023-12-15 13:42:28 +0000
URI
http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_680776
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_680776
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_680776