It’s not the government’s place to “lecture” people on what to eat, is it? This is the justification ministers have offered to explain why the government’s new Food Strategy fails to include any measures to cut national meat consumption in line with recommendations from Henry Dimbleby’s government-commissioned review of the UK’s food system last year. Dimbleby’s review called for a modest 30 per cent reduction by 2030 to tackle the UK’s agricultural emissions and free up more of our land, the majority of which is used for grazing sheep and cows, for rewilding. 

It’s surely a coincidence that the government’s commitment to not telling people what to eat happens to align so nicely with what the meat industry wants, and has nothing to do with how the industry, according to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, promotes messages “that minimise the potential environmental and health harms of red and processed meat consumption” in a way that “could affect the perceived urgency of this issue on the policy agenda.”

There is one area that the government clearly does exert control on people’s food choices, and that is in public procurement - the catering for services such as schools and hospitals. On that front, the government aspires to channel half of the procurement spending towards “food produced locally or to higher environmental production standards such as organic”. While groups like the Soil Association have welcomed this ambition, the use of “or” here should give us pause. Intensively farmed pigs and chickens fed on destructive imported soya can be locally produced, after all. And with no commitments in the Food Strategy to avoid factory-farmed meat, we have no reason to believe that such products won’t continue to be served in the public sector.

In place of a real plan to reduce emissions from the meat and dairy industries, there is to be support for more land-gobbling ‘regenerative’ animal farming, and a Call for Evidence on using feed additives and other useless techno-fixes to reduce livestock methane emissions. Hunting deer for venison may be encouraged - certainly without shrinking the livestock sector, reintroducing predators that could regulate deer populations will remain politically unpopular - and millions of pounds are going to be invested in further developing the polluting aquaculture sector and helping the fishing industry to empty the seas even faster.

The Food Strategy will also do little to help animals already in the food system. Campaigners and British farmers both hoped that post-Brexit international free trade agreements would insist on imported animal products being produced to at least the same standards as those in Britain, but the Strategy makes clear that animal welfare is not a priority. “This soft policy approach will make the UK a doormat in negotiations with major trading partners like the US, and in practice UK animal welfare trade barriers will be junked at the first sign of any objection,” Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International, told the Guardian.

A new Food Data Transparency Partnership is supposed to provide people with “the information they need to make more sustainable, ethical, and healthier food choices, and incentivise industry to produce healthier and more ethical and sustainable food.” The government will consult on getting food producers to report on animal welfare standards and making labelling on food items more consistent. Essentially, the hope seems to be that consumers will do the work for the government on raising welfare standards by voting with their wallets.

Among the few positives in the Food Strategy is a pledge of £120 million for research into alternative proteins including domestically produced beans and pulses. But even this comes with a caveat, being seen as “complementing traditional livestock sectors” rather than a way to shift the ratio of meat and plant-based food production.

It’s not as though there aren’t any real options for making British food production more sustainable and less brutal to animals. Mandating more plant-based options in public sector catering, as in the Vegan Society’s campaign to get daily plant-based options in school canteens; introducing a moratorium on any new intensive animal farms; pledging support for farmers who wish to transition from animal to plant-based food production. These would all make it easier for people to make the healthier, more ethical and sustainable choices the government claims it wants them to be able to make.

Unsurprisingly, president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) Minette Batters has been almost a lone voice in her overall positive appraisal of the Strategy, due to its support of domestic food production. By contrast, Kath Dalmeny, chief executive of farming group Sustain, pointed out that nothing in the Strategy “is underpinned by legislation” and described it as not a strategy, but “a feeble to-do list, that may or may not get ticked.” Indeed, it gives off strong vibes of being an exercise in Boris Johnson being able to claim he was the first Prime Minister to introduce a national Food Strategy without committing himself to seeing any of it through.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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