The House of Representatives was in turmoil last week when agriculture minister Henk Staghouwer announced an investigation into a meat levy, with a return to the agricultural sector. The House of Representatives was in an uproar last week when Minister Henk Staghouwer (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) announced an investigation into a meat tax, with a return to the agricultural sector.
The minister also positioned this higher meat price incorrectly, it seemed like a punishment for eating meat. The higher price, for which there is indeed support, is based on including all the real costs of meat production in the price that the consumer pays. Because a fair farmer’s wages, the reduction of animal suffering and the impact of meat consumption on the climate, environment and loss of biodiversity are currently not included in the price, but do belong there.
A survey found that 63 percent of the Dutch would agree to ‘a fair real meat price’ if the proceeds are used to offset the purchasing power of lower incomes, make fruit and vegetables cheaper and provide farmers with sustainability support. This support is even 72 percent among VVD voters and 67 percent among CDA voters. The reactions of MPs from VVD and CDA therefore seem to be based mainly on the wrong positioning by the minister, and not on the wishes of their voters.
UN summit on biodiversity
Lower meat consumption has even more advantages: for example, to combat the global loss of biodiversity. Negotiations took place last week in Geneva on the text for the UN Biodiversity Summit (CBD) to be held in China in September. This summit must become as important as the Paris climate summit. The hope is that the CBD will save biodiversity, with 30 percent protected Earth’s surface by 2030.
The United Nations’ ten-year-old plan to halt ecosystem loss by 2020 has failed. Most of the twenty targets – better known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets – have not been met. This is partly due to the fact that the biodiversity targets did not address the biggest cause of global biodiversity loss: the hunger for more meat, dairy and animal feed. Misanalysis continues to be made and effective policies to address the root cause of biodiversity loss are lacking.
Emphasis should be placed on reduction policies for meat and dairy consumption in high-income countries and China. Reducing the consumption of meat and dairy products and thereby reducing production could help to counteract the loss of biodiversity they cause. If such policies are again missing from the new Global Biodiversity Framework, which foresees a set of milestones and targets to be achieved by 2030, the biodiversity targets will again be missed.
Deforestation in South America
Let’s look at the facts first. In 2020, research commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, FAO, found that the expansion of agriculture nearly 90 percent of global deforestation Caused: 52 percent by cropland (largely used for animal feed such as soy and maize) and almost 40 percent by cattle grazing on grasslands. According to the same FAO report, grazing livestock accounts for nearly 75 percent of deforestation in South America and more than 40 percent of it in North and Central America.
These insights are confirmed in reports that conclude that animal products such as meat and dairy are responsible for 67 percent of global deforestation and 40 percent of biodiversity loss within the EU. In addition, meat and dairy are responsible for nearly 60 percent of food-related GHG emissions and 20 percent of all global GHG emissions. Climate change also causes loss of biodiversity, for example when species cannot adapt to warmer climates.
Meat production has quadrupled since the mid-1960s. By 2050, global meat consumption is expected to double again. It goes without saying that achieving biodiversity targets and the Paris climate agreement will become impossible as a result. Fifty countries with the highest incomes and the highest meat consumption should reduce their meat consumption to levels consistent with dietary guidelines and planetary boundaries.
Climate policy costs
Introducing a separate tax, known as a meat tax, would be the best way to do that. According to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, international policy to cut meat consumption by half would halve the costs of climate policy in high-income countries. This could save many countries billions of euros annually. In that case, the Dutch climate fund could have done with less than the 60 billion euros that is now provided.
But such a separate tax also turned out to be controversial in the negotiations in Geneva. Many paragraphs are still in brackets, which means that not all UN member states involved are in agreement. For example, there was a dispute about the word ‘fiscal’ in objective 14, which is about including biodiversity values in all forms of policy. The European Union supported the use of the word, Russia opposed. Objective 16 refers in brackets to the current over-consumption of animal products: ‘Where relevant, to eliminate the over-consumption of food and other materials.’ Also in brackets is: ‘Half the footprint of eating patterns, in line with the health of people and the planet.’
We hope that at the next round of negotiations in Nairobi in June such texts, which are still in brackets, will be embraced by all countries. And that it is also explicitly stated that fiscal policy is necessary to reduce meat and dairy consumption in fifty often richer countries, in order to really tackle the main cause of global biodiversity loss. And to make our piece of meat future-proof through a fair, realistic price.
Zhou Jinfeng is secretary general of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, Kees Vendrik is Triodos Bank’s chief economist, Amy Halpern-Laff is director of Policy and External Relations, Factory Farming Awareness Coalition (US), Jeroom Remmers is director of True Animal Protein Price (TAPP) Coalition