Elizabeth Allison (Mailbox, February 9), makes some correct points about the need to reduce our consumption of meat and dairy products.

We need to make these changes if we are to be able to feed a world population of nine million people.

Ms Allison implies, however, that this is an issue that is being ignored by all those opposing the Pennbury development, when arguing that we need to preserve greenfield land for growing food. This is not the case with Friends of the Earth (FoE).

Leicester FoE have opposed Pennbury, among other reasons, because we believe that we should be making maximum use of empty properties and brownfield sites, before even considering further greenfield development.

We have adopted this position because of both the extra greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the change in land use and because we believe that we cannot afford to further reduce the land area available for food production.

We are also just launching a major campaign about the need to reduce our consumption of meat and dairy products.

Friends of the Earth are not arguing that we should stop meat and dairy production altogether, since some production uses land unsuitable for growing crops, or exploits resources that would otherwise be wasted; however, we cannot afford to continue devoting larger and larger areas of land to growing crops to feed animals, when the same area of land could support far more people if used to grow crops for direct human consumption.

The same applies to the diversion of much of the catch from overexploited fisheries to the production of fishmeal, for animal feed.

Malcolm Hunter, Leicester Friends of the Earth.