Government Fails to Meet the Meat Challenge

 Intensive and excessive animal agriculture leads to carbon emissions as well as pollution and the degradation of nature. It also uses an amount of land found by experts to be unsustainable.

 Eighty-five per cent of the land that feeds the UK is committed to animal agriculture. A government-commissioned food strategy by Henry Dimbleby last year found that for a sustainable future, this has to be reduced, leading to a 30% cut in the average amount of meat consumption. 

 The government’s upcoming land use strategy will not include a reduction in area used for animal agriculture in England. The government has been accused of being “pathetically nervous” about encouraging the public to eat less meat after excluding the aim from a key strategy. Climate groups are now accusing ministers of “worsening the cost of living crisis and continuing to lead us towards climate and ecological catastrophe”.

Craig Bennett, the chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said: “How on Earth can you have a land use strategy that totally fails to look at the largest single driver of land use change in this country and one of the quickest easiest options to reduce emissions? The government is happy to tell people to eat less salt and sugar but it is pathetically nervous about encouraging people to eat less but better meat. It has a complete and utter blind spot on this issue and is running scared of certain lobby groups. Its own climate change committee says that reducing meat consumption is crucial for meeting net zero.”

Megan Randles, a Greenpeace UK policy adviser, said: “Climate scientists the world over have warned that unless meat and dairy production is reduced, we could end fossil fuel use tomorrow and still be heading towards catastrophic levels of climate change... the government is wilfully ignoring the truth about the role of meat production in climate change. It omitted a crucial meat reduction target from its food strategy last year, despite advice from its own experts..."

Ministers ‘run scared’ of targeting meat consumption in land use strategy | Farming | The Guardian