[ad_1]
Regardless of its personal elevated local weather ambitions and net-zero emissions dedication, the EU has spent some €143m to advertise European meat merchandise up to now 5 years alone.
That is in response to information supplied by the European Fee and analysed by EUobserver.
But calls to cease selling meat consumption, each throughout the bloc and overseas, have solely elevated because the fee began revising the EU’s agricultural promotion coverage — anticipated within the subsequent few months.
The EU’s promotion coverage is funding campaigns run both by commerce associations or the EU itself to advertise agricultural merchandise in member states and additional afield.
One-third of the money for the interval 2017-2021 (€271.4m) was spent on the promotion of “baskets” of merchandise — of which nearly all included meat merchandise.
By comparability, round €117m was used for adverts of fruit and veggies.
The €3.6m ‘Pleased with Beef’ marketing campaign from 2019, for instance, helps the thought of turning into a “Beefatarian” to advertise “balanced, wholesome diets”.
However lowering or abandoning meat consumption has grow to be one of many touchstone problems with the local weather disaster in Europe, because the influence of a excessive meat-intake and livestock farming on local weather change turns into ever extra obvious.
“With out lowering and slicing down on meat consumption and the related high-intensity agriculture techniques, we won’t be able to maintain international warming to 1.5 levels. That could be very clear,” the scientist and co-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change, Hans Poertner, advised a gaggle of MEPs in March.
Total, crimson meat consumption within the EU is estimated to be twice as excessive because the really helpful ranges for the surroundings.
In 2020, the EU introduced a revision of the agri-food promotion coverage below the Farm to Fork technique to shift in the direction of a extra plant-based food regimen that might be useful for each human well being and the planet.
One choice can be to cease utilizing EU funds to advertise meals merchandise that aren’t produced sustainably — with wine and meat particularly below the highlight.
However 11 EU member states have been lobbying towards a extra climate-oriented coverage, arguing that the promotion coverage ought to above all help trade competitiveness.
Earlier this 12 months, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Eire, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Spain mentioned that the promotion coverage mustn’t exclude any merchandise, or sectors reminiscent of meat or wine.
“If we cease selling EU merchandise reminiscent of for instance meat or wine, customers will attain for related merchandise exterior the EU of considerably decrease requirements,” they mentioned.
The identical message was additionally echoed by the agriculture ministers of 19 EU member states shortly after. And EU agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski not too long ago mentioned that the EU isn’t planning to scale back meat manufacturing within the bloc.
“Dietary selections stay a private matter,” Wojciechowski mentioned in a tweet that was deleted shortly after — with none rationalization.
In the meantime, inner paperwork present that 80-percent of residents and organisations collaborating within the public session run by the fee on its coverage evaluate requested to exclude merchandise not in step with sustainability targets or plant-based diets.
Reality and figures
The EU’s promotional programmes are divided into two classes: ‘easy’, which means they have been requested from a number of organisations in a single EU member state, and ‘multi’, i.e. cross-border.
In 2017, some €15m from the EU funds for easy initiatives have been allotted to meat programmes yearly. That elevated to €22m in 2018 and €20m in 2019, earlier than being decreased to €14m in 2020 and €10m in 2021.
For cross-border initiatives, some €17m have been granted to meat programmes yearly. That decreased to €8m in 2018 however jumped to €18m in 2019, earlier than being decreased to €5m in 2020 and €8m in 2021.
Among the many EU funds for easy initiatives, campaigns selling fruit and greens in 2018 (€30m) and 2019 (€22m) acquired barely extra funding than every other class. In 2017, cross-border campaigns selling solely meat additionally acquired barely extra funding than every other class.
Total, the EU is spending extra on campaigns focusing on nations exterior its borders — a development that additionally applies to campaigns selling European meat.
Easy and cross border meat-eating campaigns focusing on non-EU nations exterior the interior market acquired €77m up to now 5 years, whereas these focusing on the EU market acquired solely €66m.
A few of the most-targeted nations embody China, the US, Canada and Japan.
‘No subsidies for meat consumption’
Consultants and campaigners argue that funding meat consumption is incompatible with EU local weather targets, since livestock is estimated to supply 14.5 p.c of world greenhouse fuel emissions.
“There is no such thing as a justification for utilizing EU funds to prop up meat gross sales,” Nick Jacobs, head of the Worldwide Panel of Consultants on Sustainable Meals Methods, advised EUobserver.
The EU, Jacobs mentioned, ought to cease sending “blended messages” and as an alternative speed up the transition towards much less however higher meat consumption in Europe.
“What’s wanted is focused help for sustainable livestock farming — not blunt instruments like meat promotion,” he added.
For his half, Linus Mattauch from the Institute for New Financial Considering on the Oxford Martin Faculty and the Technical College of Berlin says that “there isn’t any rationale to make use of subsidies for meat consumption in 2022”.
He argues that the trajectory of meat manufacturing and consumption in high-income nations is unsustainable and options reminiscent of a ‘meat tax’ may assist cut back consumption.
Double requirements?
The EU’s promotion coverage plan for 2022 for the primary time makes a reference to plant-based diets as a criterion for awarding promotional grants contained in the EU.
This innovation got here after the EU most cancers plan acknowledged that crimson and processed meat is linked to most cancers dangers.
Nonetheless, this solely applies inside the EU, which implies that campaigns focusing on non-EU nations are nonetheless not subjected to this standards — which campaigners for animal welfare dubbed “double requirements”.
“Totally different standards appear to run the chance of making loopholes and a double customary which appears obscure,” mentioned Camilla Björkbom, a campaigner from Eurogroup for Animals.
She added that requirements ought to be aligned for merchandise on the interior market and past the EU borders.
Björkbom mentioned the revision of the promotion coverage ought to be used to spice up adverts for plant-based protein for human consumption in addition to meat and dairy options.
9 million tonnes of meat
The PR campaigns appear to attain tangible outcomes. The EU ranks first within the international export of pork, eighth within the international export of beef and third within the international export of poultry. These exports have been steadily growing over the past decade, however particularly within the final two years.
The EU yearly exported greater than 9m tonnes of beef, pork and poultry, in addition to meat from sheep and goats in 2020 and 2021 — over a 30 p.c enhance in exports in contrast with 2019, in response to information supplied by the fee and analysed by EUobserver.
That is particularly the case for pigmeat, the EU’s bestseller, representing greater than 60 p.c of all EU meat exports. Exports of pigmeat reached an all-time excessive in 2021, with virtually 6m tonnes being bought to the remainder of the world.
China is among the most tasty markets for European meat-exporters, though nations reminiscent of Ukraine, Ghana, Japan and the Philippines are additionally among the many most vital patrons of EU meat.
These exports have been value virtually €23bn in 2021.
That income additionally exceeds spendings on imported meat — by far. Final 12 months, the EU achieved an export surplus of virtually 520 p.c, exhibiting the facility of European livestock producers within the international market.
This has extreme penalties for the local weather as a result of the manufacturing of meat is rather more carbon-intensive than different meals merchandise.
Pigmeat exports from European nations in 2021 induced greenhouse fuel emissions equal to about 72.2 million tonnes of CO₂. The entire metropolis of Paris had a carbon footprint of 78 million tonnes in 2013.
[ad_2]
Source link