FARMERS in Cumbria have reacted with anger at a report calling for major cuts in livestock numbers to tackle climate change and health problems.

Three senior cabinet members, including health secretary Andy Burnham, have supported the report, which says the number of farm animals in Britain needs to be cut by 30 per cent to reduce carbon emmisions.

But the NFU says this will alienate farmers.

William Case, whose family farms at Plumpton Cottage, near Ulverston, said: “It’s nonsense. My first thought was ‘easy target’.

"Agriculture is pretty easy to pick on. It’s a joke really.

"The report hasn’t taken a serious look at the geography or topography.

“It is not realistic to say that you could reduce 30 per cent of livestock with a magic wand.”

The report, part-funded by the Department of Health, has not involved Defra but follows comm-ents made by UN climate scientist Rajendra Pach-auri, who said that ‘among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider’.

The report, published in medical journal The Lancet, also says cutting meat intake would imp-rove human health through reductions in heart disease.

The NFU says agri-cultural production is responsible for seven per cent of the UK's green-house gas emissions and methane emissions from the sector have fallen by 17 per cent since 1990.

President Peter Kendall said: "Farmers will be angry that yet again we have an ill informed and simplistic report which appears to completely misunderstand agricul-ture's emissions and its role in climate change.”

Meanwhile, the Soil Association has claimed that converting the UK to organic farming would massively reduce green-house gas emissions, with at least 3.2 million tonnes of carbon taken up by the soil each year – equivalent to taking almost a million cars off the road.

Andrew Park, of Low Sizergh Barn, near Kendal, said: “I don’t think a switch to organic farming could happen, but some of the things we do as organic farmers have a lot to offer in terms of gas reductions, particularly the fact we don’t use nitrogen fertilisers.”