Page 67 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 20

Food Health

meat and dairy. That means the
multinational companies that have
turned livestock into a global com-
modity, the food and retail chains
that market them, the government
subsidies that make them cheap and
the plethora of trade agreements
that (de)regulate the markets for
these companies.

As the group at PASTRES shows,
this distinction has been ignored.
Policymakers, celebrities, rich people
and activists are talking about meat
and dairy as the problem, not paying
attention to the difference between
industrial and the rest. Yet, the
difference is crucial. Worse still, the
demonisation of meat and dairy, in
general, has unleashed a new corpo-
rate and capitalist stampede to make
money from alternative proteins, uted, and who will produce it? to take action on the climate, they
be they plant-based or laboratory continue to plan for growth and to
creations. Here we are in complete agreement lobby hard against any measures that
with PASTRES that reductions in would curtail their production and
Wrong diagnosis, wrong remedy consumption must be made first sales. They are the biggest obsta-
and foremost by the small portion cles to actions that can effectively
The PASTRES researchers point out of the global population that is reduce emissions from livestock
that if you don’t frame the prob- over-consuming meat and dairy. But and that can get us to a place where
lem carefully, you won’t come up we also believe that the reduction consumption and production are
with the right solutions. They argue in consumption must correspond equitable and healthy for people and
convincingly that the livestock/cli- to a reduction in production in the planet.
mate debate is built on a biased and those parts of the world that are
imbalanced set of data that denies a over-producing meat and dairy, Moving forward
nuanced and complex understand- which tend to overlap. Countries like
ing of pastoral livestock systems. the US and the Netherlands need It is good that more and more
The problems with the data lead to to cut back on their meat and dairy people are paying attention to the
conclusions and policy options that consumption, and reorganise their role our food systems play in the
favour industrial livestock – which farming systems accordingly, not current climate crisis. But we have
only looks better through a hy- boost exports. Other countries, like to get smarter in seeing that the real
per-reductionist lens of “efficiency”, Kenya or Haiti, have some room to problem is corporate power and
where the unit of a single output grow their consumption – which the capitalist drive to overproduce
(methane) per a specific input (pro- should be supplied by local systems and over-consume. The problem is
tein) is all that matters. The multiple of meat and dairy production, not Tyson, JBS, Danone, Nestlé, WH
benefits that pastoral and extensive imports. Group, CP Foods and Cargill – and
livestock systems provide are left the banks, billionaires and pension
out of the equation, as are all the Global meat and dairy production is funds fuelling their operations.
negative externalities that flow from currently dominated by a handful of These are the real culprits, not cattle!
industrial livestock systems. So, too, corporations who have production
is the crucial question of consump- bases in a few surplus producing It’s high time we mount a concerted
tion: if the global supply of meat countries where livestock farms are fight to bring the industrial food
and dairy has to be reduced, how heavily industrialised and dependent system down and empower local
will the remaining supply be distrib- on fossil fuels. Despite their pledges producer communities instead.

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