Influence
The food system of every western country relies almost entirely on the sale and promotion of animal products. Despite attempts to change the narratives, very few intrusions have been made into the dominant ‘meat is best’ promotions.
In Europe, a study of public money spent on food industries found that livestock farmers received 1,200 times more public funding than plant-based alternatives, and receive 50% of their income from directly from subsidies. In Australia, subsidies we officially removed but were then replaced by “less visible and publicly palatable” methods such as drought aid and research and development funding.
Less than 17% of Australian agriculture subsidies are used by fruit and vegetable farmers, compared to almost 44% which is used by meat and dairy farmers. Animal agriculture lobby groups receive money from farmers through their representative organisations by way of memberships. These groups then advocate on behalf of farmers, including through advertising, research, and involvement in the development of nutritional and environmental guides and standards.
The Australian Dietary Guidelines, published by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), have significant and residual influence from meat and dairy industries. Author David Robinson Simon says the Australian government is “engaged in a campaign to support industry and bombard us with messages to get us to consume more meat, eggs and dairy”. The primary industry body, Meat and Livestock Australia, says their interest is “ultimately delivering improved profitability to those farmers”.
This is why we see meat and dairy products recommended even for health management where those products were the cause of the health issue in the first place, such as diabetes, obesity, or heart condition management.
The influence is wide-ranging, even impacting the language used to describe food. The French government has supported a campaign by the meat and dairy industry to restrict the use of certain terms to meat products only. Terms such as ‘steak’ and ‘grill’ will no longer be able to be used when describing a plant product, even though ‘steak’ comes from the Scandinavian word steik which means ‘to roast’, and ‘grill’ is a method or tool for cooking food, not the food itself. Both terms have simply been appropriated by the meat and diary industries.
In Ireland, the Irish Farmers’ Association and Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association reacted strongly to a tweet sent by the government’s Environmental Protection Agency advising people to reduce their red meat consumption. The group’s reaction led to the EPA removing the tweet, saying they are “engaging with agricultural groups”, despite the tweet being accurate and in support of vegetable and fruit farmers, farmers which the Irish Farmer’s Association are supposed to also be representing.
While not directly related to animals and farming, similar industry influence has seen results in Australia, with oil and gas company Woodside being successful in having violence restraining orders placed on environmental protesters, which restricts them from “using the internet and any social network application (such as “facebook”) to depict or refer in any offensive manner to the Person Protected.” Acting Legal Director for the Human Rights Law Centre, Alice Drury, said, “the multi-billion dollar fossil fuel industry are trying to send a chilling message to anyone who dares to speak out: you will be intimidated and silenced.”
Once precedent has been set, there is nothing stopping meat and dairy industries from requesting the same restraining orders for animal activists.
Australian’s have expressed their distrust in these industry groups, with 76% saying they have no or moderate trust in them regarding animal welfare, with the same being said of retail and food companies (84%) and political parties (84%). The public sentiment for these companies does not reflect their influence, and interestingly does not reflect the public’s engagement with them, given that it is the public who buy their products, the public who shop at their stores, and the public who vote in favour of the political parties.
