Consumer and food science researcher and PhD student Garrett Lentz said research shows many NZ consumers are unaware of the environmental impact of meat production, which could lead to high rates of consumption and accentuate the cost to the environment.
A team of researchers found retail cost and potential health benefits are the greatest motivation for reducing meat intake, with the environmental impact of production one of the weakest.
Lentz said the introduction of a meat tax should reflect the relative environmental cost of producing red meat, chicken, pork and fish.
Beef + Lamb NZ chief executive Rod Slater said the research reiterates findings the organisation already knows.
“With all due respect, we are constantly researching consumers and agree with what they have found.”
He described talk of a food tax as ludicrous, saying the high price of meat is already a significant deterrent to buyers.
“People, particularly academics, seem to think that if we have a problem tax is the way to fix it.”
Slater said the playing field is shifting more dramatically than it has for many decades with millennials having a totally different attitude to food than older generations.
They prefer to graze and don’t treat meals as an occasion. Connecting with that demographic is a major challenge for producers.
While Lentz doubted a meat tax will be introduced in the immediate future, he expects discussion on it to become more prominent in the next decade or so as policy makers address environmental issues.
An individual’s freedom of choice should be secondary to the global impact of an activity, he said.
“The study tried to bridge the individual’s choice and issues that are so large that they require larger, overarching policies because they affect everyone.”
According to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2016 New Zealanders ate less red meat per capita than they did in 2006.
In 2006 per capita consumption was 32kg of chicken, 16kg of pork, 17kg of beef and veal and 19kg of lamb and mutton. In 2016 it was 40kg of chicken, 18kg of pork, 10kg of beef and veal and just 1kg of lamb and mutton.
Lentz acknowledged environmental issues from meat production highlighted in the report such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity and environmental cost of growing grain to feed livestock are not totally relevant to NZ even though the report was written about factors impacting NZ attitudes to eating red meat.
But he said they could be factors if meat is imported from South and North America.
Water quality and greenhouse gas emissions are environmental factors in NZ meat production.
