Helpfully, they offer solutions including a tax on red meat while the EAT-Lancet report on sustainable diets suggests a weekly intake of 740 grams of meat, poultry and eggs and 500g a day of dairy products.
Interestingly, it suggests total daily sugar consumption of 31g, about 7.5 teaspoons, double the suggested 14g a day consumption of red meat which, the authors say, is not an essential source of vitamins and minerals.
This is an interesting conclusion given sugar has been considered the root of dietary ills such as obesity.
An Oxford University paper suggested a red meat tax would reduce consumption by benefiting people’s health and reduce a cause of climate change.
For an industry built on the basis of feeding people natural, healthy and nutritious food being told you are destroying the planet and killing those who eat your produce is tough to stomach. To be told your produce should be taxed in a similar vein to tobacco and alcohol, with their obvious health implications, is outright offensive.
These reports make several bold assumptions. They assume people have the knowledge, desire and discipline to switch to what is in effect a plant-based diet without suffering nutritional deficiencies they now get from their balanced diet. They also unfairly lump livestock farming systems into one pot – grain-fed feedlot and free range, once again ignoring the fact New Zealand farmers produce nutritious, grass-fed food, are reducing their environmental footprint and mitigating climate change as they can.
It appears NZ Inc needs to do a better job of telling this to the world and of differentiating our grass-fed produce.
Unfortunately, the sectors do not have a great track record of working together but given the proliferation of attacks on livestock sector, they might have little choice.
Neal Wallace
