'CLIMATE CHANGE' is being used as a driver for colossal disruptions to our daily working lives – some are justified and some are not, but none has been more insidious than this week's BBC programme 'Meat: A threat to our planet?'

It was a very clever documentary in that it achieved what it set out to achieve and that was to tar the entire global meat industry with the same brush. To those who are clued up on UK agriculture, there were many throw your welly at the telly in disgust unanswered questions, but for those who are not, we can only fear that they have been taken in by this one-sided piece of tosh.

Not once did it mention the fact that Scotland, the UK and, indeed, much of Europe, does not operate the huge factory-style feedlots where, corn, soya and fishmeal are the staple diet of choice. There was no attempt to discriminate between the vast US and South American-style finishing feedlots and the grass-based systems that we have. Indeed, the programme implied that meat is produced in that way everywhere.

No one pretends that the production of meat is a bucolic and heart-warming affair from beginning to end, but much of it is just that within these isles. In fact, it is one of our unique selling points – and perhaps one we should trade more on? I dare say that many countries around the world would like to be able to boast a track record like ours on health and welfare – so perhaps we should boast more about it ourselves?

Sometimes really important statistics slip under the radar. They slip by unnoticed because we are too busy harping on about Brexit, or the weather, or the dirty fuel crisis ... or vegans! But one which we highlight this week – see page 35 for the result of our columnist, Alasdair Macnab's research on the subject – is the massive reduction in the use of antibiotics in farm animals. In five years, we have reduced the use of them in this country by 50% and if that's not something we can shout from the rooftops to assuage this never-ending stream of vitriol from our public broadcaster, then I don't know what is.

Let's be clear about this. You can walk in to almost any 'drug store' in livestock areas of the US and ask for antibiotics for your livestock. No vet prescription and no questions asked – and over there, they have been cheap.

Now, if the programme had set out to damn the industry for over-use of antibiotics and hormones, then that would have been fine. These are real threats to the palatability of meat eating that the general public might, quite rightly, be worried about – but then, we would have to trust the BBC's judgement to deliver a balance of the other side of the story, ie what we have here. At the moment, we do not have that trust – and that is a sad indictment of 'our BBC'.