Cattle farmers blast school plans to turn kids vegetarian

‘My son came home from school devastated because he was told cows were ruining the planet.’ Why cattle farmers are upset over the new school curriculum.

The cattle industry says it has cut greenhouse emissions.

Graziers have branded the new school curriculum “disappointing’’ for encouraging kids to shun red meat.

“For hundreds of thousands of years we’ve been eating red meat,’’ Australian Beef Sustainability Framework chairman Mark Davie said on Tuesday.

“I find it disappointing that kids are spun this story about going vegetarian. Iron deficiency in young developing women is a huge issue.

“I would want to understand how the curriculum is educating children on potential vitamin and mineral deficiencies, given it is recommending a vegetarian or vegan diet over vitamin and mineral-rich red meat.’’

The new national curriculum, released by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority on Monday, extols the virtues of a vegetarian diet. One physical education assignment is for students to study “serving and eating food that has been prepared sustainably’’.

“For example, using local ingredients to cut down on emissions, using vegetables and/or meat that is more sustainable (vegetarian/vegan dishes or kangaroo) and not using single-use plastic for serving,’’ the document states.

Mr Davie said the beef industry had set a challenge in 2017 to be carbon neutral by 2030, and had offset its emissions by 57 per cent, against a 2005 baseline.

He said livestock farmers helped care for the environment by reducing the fuel load for bushfires, managing weeds and feral animals, and improving biodiversity. Meat was important to stop world hunger.

“People can have the choice (not to eat meat) but the idea of schools pushing this, I find a bit upsetting,’’ he said.

Queensland cattle farmer Adam Coffey, who is on the ­cattle board of AgForce, said his six-year-old son “came home from school devastated because he was told cows were ruining the planet’’.

Queensland cattle farmers, from left, Will, Jacynta, Adam and Sam Coffey..

Bella d’Abrera, director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program at the ­Institute of Public Affairs, said the new curriculum was turning children into “eco warriors’’.

“The welcome news is that English and maths have improved,’’ she said.

“(But) the education bureaucrats have managed to make this version even more ideological than before by incorporating green-left ideology.’’

Maths teachers welcomed the curriculum changes, which require students to learn their times tables, tell the time and add and subtract without a calculator in the first three years of school.

In high school, maths and ­science content has been aligned with exam questions for the ­Program for International Student Assessment, which measures the reading, mathematics and ­science knowledge of 600,000 15-year-old students across 79 OECD industrialised nations every three years.

Australia has plunged to 29th place in mathematics – down from 11th in 2003.

Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers chief executive Allan Dougan said the new syllabus would require “significant investment” in training for current teachers.