The Insitute’s executive director, Mick Keogh, points to some flaws in the way livestock emissions are accounted for in several life-cycle analyses (LCAs) that have been used to make cases against red meat production.

A WorldWatch report released last year attributed 51 per cent of all man-made greenhouse emissions to livestock production, but did so partly by including the carbon dioxide breathed out by livestock in its life-cycle analysis (LCA).

“As a large number of other authorities (including the FAO, the IPCC, and more recently Pitesky et al. 2009) have pointed out, carbon-dioxide exhaled by livestock is derived from plant matter that has grown by fixing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and is therefore effectively emissions-neutral and should not be counted as a source of emissions,” Mr Keogh wrote in the latest edition of the AFI publication Farm Institute Insights.

“Even leaving aside this argument, if these emissions are to be counted then the sequestration that occurs annually in growing pastures and livestock feed production should also be counted.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2006 released a widely-quoted report, 'Livestock’s Long Shadow', which attributed 18pc of man-made emissions to livestock.

Part of the report’s charge against livestock production is that it is the cause for virtually all forest clearing, particularly in South America.

But Mr Keogh points to recent studies that suggest 20-40pc of Brazilian forest clearing is now driven by the desire to create cropping land.

“Reinforcing this, the area used for soybean production in that country has increased from 11.7 million hectares in 1994 to more than 23 million hectares in 2009,” he wrote.

“In addition, the expansion of other cropping activities, such as sugar production for ethanol, on already cleared land is indirectly resulting in forest clearing by forcing smaller-scale farmers to move to new areas and to clear trees to provide grazing areas for livestock.”