A growing absurdity, slowly taking hold of councils in the most unlikely of places, is a move towards compulsory veganism.
Several councils, including Oxfordshire County Council, Enfield and Calderdale have all voted to ditch meat and dairy products provided in internal catering.
The justification they claim, to ‘tackle climate change’ and lead by example.
No more ham sandwiches for hungry councillors, but instead, lavish platters of exotic fruit and vegetables.
All taxpayer funded of course. The decisions have sparked major backlash, with livestock farmers rightly taking umbrage at having a gaggle of councillors peddle tropes about their livelihoods.
When put into action, the policies have often been farcical.
In Oxfordshire, one Liberal Democrat councillor- who had originally supported the ban on meat and dairy- became the butt of jokes after admitting she had been sneaking milk for her tea into the council chamber to swerve the dairy-free alternatives provided by in-house catering.
Elsewhere, the Leader of Calderdale council was forced to clarify that nosy council enforcement officers would not be ‘sneaking into people’s houses to steal away their wafer-thin ham’.
It would be wrong however to dismiss these examples simply as puerile, political posturing. It matters not because there is any problem with people adopting plant-based diets, but because of the somewhat lazy assumption that moving from meat to a non-meat diet always provides a benefit for the environment. How does an avocado flown in from South America retain eco-superiority over a humble piece of grass-fed beef from a farm just outside Oxford, for example? Approximately two thirds (65%) of UK farmland is better suited to growing grass than other crops. If we did not graze livestock, we could not use it to produce food.
What then becomes of this land if livestock farming is eradicated? This vital question is one that proponents of meat-bans struggle to answer convincingly.
Our livestock farmers produce sustainable, seasonal produce while managing the countryside we love.
Without a buoyant market for their produce, fuelled by an orchestrated campaign by local councils and animal rights groups with no experience of agriculture, the countryside slowly risks being turned into an unmanaged wasteland.
Councils that are serious about cutting emissions, should be offering up produce from local growers and farmers.
Unless we stand up and challenge the anti-meat agenda plaguing these local councils, we will wake up and find that what was once a niche cause has become the new normal.
