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Simmonds, Philippa 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3929-4934
(2025)
Ruminant livestock and climate change: UK
livestock sector discourses and practices.
PhD thesis, University of Gloucestershire.
doi:10.46289/OCXE2966
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Abstract
Within the context of highly publicised calls to reduce UK meat production and consumption, there is a need to investigate livestock farmer discourses and social practices. This PhD investigates how the UK livestock sector was responding to public debates about methane emissions from ruminant livestock in the early 2020s, identifying discourses of climate delay that were underpinned by livestock farming ontology, epistemology, and identity. The research methods incorporate critical discourse analysis of news media, qualitative interviews with livestock farmers and other livestock sector stakeholders, and a participatory Photovoice project. The PhD develops existing theory by combining concepts pertaining to ontology, epistemology, and identity, to show how these interact with “methane discourses”. Findings show strong themes of climate delay and a livestock sector-specific form of climate scepticism. However, practices with side effects of reducing methane (such as efficiency gains) and sequestering carbon (such as regenerative agriculture) were often embraced, and did not trouble sectoral norms around the position of livestock in the UK’s food system. This illustrates how farm-level discourses interacted with broader societal discourses around climate change, and may have promoted lock-in to existing practices. The research also identifies how methane discourses calcify boundaries between livestock farmers and nonfarmers, and livestock farmers and policymakers, linking this with increasing polarisation in broader society. Contestation around methane emissions from ruminant livestock echoes comparable controversies around topics such as non-point pollution of waterways and approaches to dealing with bovine tuberculosis, with some new features. The PhD identifies a role for improved communication strategies and delivery of processes that facilitate connection between diverse groups: to reduce perceived polarisation and advance societal action on climate change.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | |||||||||
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| Additional Information: | Funded by the ESRC and DEFRA. | |||||||||
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Ruminant livestock, farming, climate change | |||||||||
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| Subjects: | S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) > S589.75 Agriculture and the environment S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) > S589.7 Agricultural ecology (General) S Agriculture > SF Animal culture > SF 191 Cattle S Agriculture > SF Animal culture > SF 371 Sheep. Wool |
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| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education, Health and Sciences | |||||||||
| Depositing User: | Kate Rea | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 22 Sep 2026 15:41 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 23 Sep 2026 12:00 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/16536 |
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