Livestock and the environment are in the spotlight again, and the frustrating thing for anyone involved in food or farming is the one sided nature of the debate. All the media coverage boils down to one message – “meat and dairy environmentally bad so eat less”. We hear little about the food value of the products, the role that livestock plays in keeping Britain’s countryside beautiful, or the steps that agriculture is taking to reduce its environmental impact. The headlines are worrying because a cut back in consumption will eventually affect the price paid to farmers for their products, and it is difficult to understand why the industry seems voiceless and invisible.
Capturing most headlines is the proposal by the NHS to cut back on the amount of meat it serves to patients. This, they say, will help reduce their carbon footprint, and will be beneficial to the long term health of patients. Whilst those with sick loved ones might worry about whether recovery will be as quick without the benefit of a balanced diet, and the cynic might wonder whether the driving force is to reduce NHS costs, nonetheless the fact is that the NHS serves up millions of meals and such a move will impact meat sales.
Less headline grabbing is the report “Food Futures” by think tank Chatham House.
Read the detail and you see a real anti meat and dairy bias. Meat and dairy are blamed for health issues. Global agriculture is said to be responsible for 14% of non carbon greenhouse gas emissions, and that a third of this is due to livestock. And they quote an EU report which says that meat and dairy are the main source of green house gas emissions in the food and drink sector. They trot out the old statistic that a kilo of grain fed beef requires 15 cubic metres of water versus cereals which require between 0.3 and 4 cubic metres, forgetting to mention that most livestock in the UK is pasture fed. Most alarming of all, the Chatham House solution is for government to dictate what we can and cannot eat, saying “The food system will need to reflect society’s choices as much as individual preferences”.
Then last week at the Meat and Livestock Commission’s Outlook conference a speaker from the Food Climate Research Network said that eating meat had to become more environmentally viable either by the industry reducing emissions or people eating less meat. She said that a meat tax might help and that there were moves to add the cost of emissions to the price of a food in order to encourage consumers to rethink what they are buying.
Fortunately a more balanced view of things emerged at the same conference in the shape of Mike Coupe, trading director of Sainsbury who said that cutting carbon emissions by limiting food choice is a “form of communism”, and that a tax would be unlikely to change people’s meat consumption unless it was huge.
The key point is that the issue of agriculture and climate change is not going to go away.
Few will dispute the need to take climate change seriously. But the debate is totally one-sided. Consumers not getting a balanced message about the value of meat and dairy products and the livestock which supply them.
So what should be done?
In a nutshell, simple fact backed messages must be communicated regularly and by independent, respected sources as well as the industry itself. A one off burst of activity just will not work.
There are three messages to convey
1. Meat and dairy are high protein foods, containing vitamins and minerals essential to good health. As the Food Standards Agency says "Meat is a good source of protein and vitamins and minerals, such as iron, selenium, zinc, and B vitamins. It is one of the main sources of vitamin B12, which is only found in foods from animals, such as meat and milk.”
The FSA also says “ Milk and dairy products such as cheese, yoghurt and fromage frais are great sources of protein and vitamins A and B 12 . They're also an important source of calcium, which helps to keep our bones strong. The calcium in dairy foods are easy for the body to absorb”.
2. Without cattle and sheep grazing the hills and moors our countryside would become overgrown in just a few years
3. Livestock farming has a plan to reduce greenhouse gases. (Assuming it does have a plan of course. A trawl through websites from the NFU, Dairyco, the NBA and the NSA does not turn up an easy to read summary of how the industry is tackling climate change. Contrast this with the National Cattlemens' Beef Association of America page on beef cattle and the environment.)
Funding for the information campaign can be found from any number of places. For a start I’d suggest ditching the Red Tractor and redirecting the levy funds, on the grounds that the Tractor means no more to the average consumer than a Union Jack.
Then, what about forensically examining the evidence that Meaty and Lamby are persuading people to buy more meat. Would the funds be better spent supporting a targeted campaign.
The big question is why the industry is not doing more about an issue which has been on the table for years, and which is growing in importance.
Capturing most headlines is the proposal by the NHS to cut back on the amount of meat it serves to patients. This, they say, will help reduce their carbon footprint, and will be beneficial to the long term health of patients. Whilst those with sick loved ones might worry about whether recovery will be as quick without the benefit of a balanced diet, and the cynic might wonder whether the driving force is to reduce NHS costs, nonetheless the fact is that the NHS serves up millions of meals and such a move will impact meat sales.
Less headline grabbing is the report “Food Futures” by think tank Chatham House.
Read the detail and you see a real anti meat and dairy bias. Meat and dairy are blamed for health issues. Global agriculture is said to be responsible for 14% of non carbon greenhouse gas emissions, and that a third of this is due to livestock. And they quote an EU report which says that meat and dairy are the main source of green house gas emissions in the food and drink sector. They trot out the old statistic that a kilo of grain fed beef requires 15 cubic metres of water versus cereals which require between 0.3 and 4 cubic metres, forgetting to mention that most livestock in the UK is pasture fed. Most alarming of all, the Chatham House solution is for government to dictate what we can and cannot eat, saying “The food system will need to reflect society’s choices as much as individual preferences”.
Then last week at the Meat and Livestock Commission’s Outlook conference a speaker from the Food Climate Research Network said that eating meat had to become more environmentally viable either by the industry reducing emissions or people eating less meat. She said that a meat tax might help and that there were moves to add the cost of emissions to the price of a food in order to encourage consumers to rethink what they are buying.
Fortunately a more balanced view of things emerged at the same conference in the shape of Mike Coupe, trading director of Sainsbury who said that cutting carbon emissions by limiting food choice is a “form of communism”, and that a tax would be unlikely to change people’s meat consumption unless it was huge.
The key point is that the issue of agriculture and climate change is not going to go away.
Few will dispute the need to take climate change seriously. But the debate is totally one-sided. Consumers not getting a balanced message about the value of meat and dairy products and the livestock which supply them.
So what should be done?
In a nutshell, simple fact backed messages must be communicated regularly and by independent, respected sources as well as the industry itself. A one off burst of activity just will not work.
There are three messages to convey
1. Meat and dairy are high protein foods, containing vitamins and minerals essential to good health. As the Food Standards Agency says "Meat is a good source of protein and vitamins and minerals, such as iron, selenium, zinc, and B vitamins. It is one of the main sources of vitamin B12, which is only found in foods from animals, such as meat and milk.”
The FSA also says “ Milk and dairy products such as cheese, yoghurt and fromage frais are great sources of protein and vitamins A and B 12 . They're also an important source of calcium, which helps to keep our bones strong. The calcium in dairy foods are easy for the body to absorb”.
2. Without cattle and sheep grazing the hills and moors our countryside would become overgrown in just a few years
3. Livestock farming has a plan to reduce greenhouse gases. (Assuming it does have a plan of course. A trawl through websites from the NFU, Dairyco, the NBA and the NSA does not turn up an easy to read summary of how the industry is tackling climate change. Contrast this with the National Cattlemens' Beef Association of America page on beef cattle and the environment.)
Funding for the information campaign can be found from any number of places. For a start I’d suggest ditching the Red Tractor and redirecting the levy funds, on the grounds that the Tractor means no more to the average consumer than a Union Jack.
Then, what about forensically examining the evidence that Meaty and Lamby are persuading people to buy more meat. Would the funds be better spent supporting a targeted campaign.
The big question is why the industry is not doing more about an issue which has been on the table for years, and which is growing in importance.
2 comments:
Bravo Colette, an excellent article and gets right to the heart of the matter. Where is the voice of farming and where is the public information on our plan for tackling climate change in the agriculture sector? NZ have an entire department devoted to this subject now and we have .. erm ?? Have just come across your blog and am so impressed by your content and passion for the subject. Shall be a regular visitor from now on.
Sally, thank you for the encouraging comment. Much appreciated.Colette
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