Meat is yummy. We cannot deny it. Living in Liverpool for a
couple of weeks, we have found it hard to resist the British ‘delicacies’
gleaming at you in the shelves of Tesco or Sainsbury’s. Bacon, Cumberland sausages,
burgers – you name it, we’ve probably eaten and loved it (with the exception of
black pudding, which Harald loves, but which Alex finds disgusting).
Nevertheless, at the same time we have attempted to reduce our meat consumption
significantly over the past couple of years. Rather than eating meat every day,
we try to limit ourselves to smaller quantities, once or twice a week, although
we do occasionally give in to the local kebab shop. You could make this
decision for a number of reasons: the horsemeat scandal that is currently
reminding Europe of the way the meat industry works; the strong correlation
between intestinal cancer and meat consumption; or the vast amounts of
resources consumed for the production of meat. Each one of these reasons is probably
sufficient to either reduce one’s consumption of industrially-produced meat, or
to stop eating meat altogether. For us the most important reason is the abominable
treatment of animals. Rather than shocking you with statistics and images right
here, we will attach some graphs at the end of this post.
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| Not all cows are as happy as this one. |
Europeans must drastically reduce their meat consumption.
This is a moral responsibility. Halving out meat consumption of currently 82kg
per year will cause a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, a significant
improvement in cancer risk and thus life expectancy and it will hopefully cause
the meat industry to overthink its ways of treating animals. What we disagree
about is how this can be achieved. For that reason, rather than offering a single
solution, we will present three possible responses: 1. to introduce a meat tax;
2. to increase the regulation of the meat industry; 3. to raise public awareness
causing metanoia.
The first method of getting people to reduce their meat
consumption works via the price mechanism: if you increase the price of a product,
less people will buy it. Seems logical, right? After all it worked with
cigarettes. What you could do is to introduce a meat tax on all products
containing meat, either processed or fresh. A meat tax of 100% would double the
meat prices, and demand would plummet. People would still buy meat, but in
smaller quantities, and not out of principle, but because it is too expensive.
The revenue from this tax could be used to modestly subsidize organic meat,
making it only marginally more expensive than non-organic meat. It is likely
that demand for organic meat will skyrocket, which will again drive up the prices,
requiring further subsidies. In the long run, you could achieve that people will
eat more organic meat, which the overall meat consumption decreases. However,
there is of course a downside to all of this. The cattle farmers themselves
have been struggling for years with a trend that is driving prices down, and
sudden reduction in meat consumption would inevitably cause thousands of cattle
farms to close down. Perhaps this is inevitable if Europe is to reduce its meat
consumption. Nevertheless, some time should be allowed for farmers to
transition to the new food economy.
The second method that we have discussed in some detail is
heavier regulation of the meat industry. A meat tax would do little to improve
the living conditions of the animals involved. One could thus enforce a limitation
to farm sizes, allowing for example only 150 cows, 500 sheep, 300 pigs or 1000
chickens per farm. A modest meat tax could be introduced (5%?), allowing
subsidies to flow into the transition to the new farming system. One could
enforce that all animals have to be kept outside for at least 6 hours per day,
and that they have to have a sufficient amount of space, that is far greater
than what is currently allocated to them. The organic model could be adopted on
all farms within ten years. Again, meat prices would vastly increase as a
result, but revenues from the meat tax could be used to ensure farmers’
survival. The mechanism causing a reduction in meat consumption is the same as
in the first case, as prices would go up. However, the public debate resulting
from these regulations would also increase public awareness, allowing for more
responsible eating habits.
Finally, it could be argued that the planned approaches
mentioned so far would inevitably fail due to resistance from the European meat
industry, which is able to exert huge amounts of influence on governmental
institutions such as the European Commission. School curricula could for example
be adopted to educate pupils about the life of a cow or a chicken. Those
citizens who want to get involved could launch public awareness campaigns about
healthy eating and the living conditions of animals. The intention would not be
to turn everyone into vegetarians, but to get them to think about where they
purchase their meat. It is a thousand times better to get meat from a local
butcher than from the supermarket, be it Tesco, Kaufland, Carrefour or
Delhaize. What is certain is that this process would take a while to be
implemented, and until a true change of mind takes place. Despite one meat scandal
after the other, meat consumption in Europe remains high, or even goes up.
It’s up to you to decide now which method you favour. They
each have their pros and cons, and perhaps a combination of all three would get
the job done best. Next time you buy meat, which might be today, think about
where your meat comes from, and if possible, try to buy from your local
butcher.
Alexandra Athanasopoulou & Harald Köpping
PS: Here are the graphs we promised!
