State-backed summit of global health experts warns against ‘zealotry’ demonising meat industry

The issue of livestock farming, meat and its impact on climate change is a highly contentious issue, not least in the Government as the Green Party recently arm-wrestled its partners in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the level of emission cuts that can be borne by the agriculture sector.

How interesting, then, to see a State agency this week hosting an international summit of high-profile scientists to discuss the positive role of meat, the production of which tends to blamed by many environmentalists for contributing towards climate change.

The Societal Role of Meat summit is being run in Ashtown in Dublin this week by Teagasc, the State agency for agriculture and food research. It is being attended by a slew of international scientists and experts on nutrition, who are being asked to sign a declaration that reads as a riposte of sorts to the anti-meat brigade.

‘Victim of simplification’

The Dublin Declaration, as it is being styled, warns against making the meat production industry the “victim of simplification, reduction or zealotry”, a pointed reference to those activists and politicians who want large-scale culling of the national herd to meet climate targets.

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Meat production may be abhorred by many environmental activists for its emissions, but the scientists signing the Dublin Declaration argue that meat, as well as related livestock products such as dairy and eggs, play a valuable role in health and nutrition. This is especially so in poorer countries, they argue. The scientists want a more “balanced view” of the benefits of meat and warn against “drastic reduction of livestock numbers”.

High-profile signatories of the Dublin Declaration include Alice Stanton of the Royal College of Surgeons, as well as senior Teagasc folks and scientists from the US, Australia and across Europe.

Given the recent tensions in Government over the climate obligations of agriculture, it is also notable that Fine Gael’s Martin Heydon, a Minister for State at the Department of Agriculture, opened the summit of scientists worried over the demonisation of meat. It is due to close on Thursday, following remarks from European Union commissioner Mairead McGuinness, another of Fine Gael’s rural brigade.