Food campaigners are taking legal action against the government for failing to support the transition to a low-carbon diet by encouraging people to eat less meat.
Global Feedback, which campaigns for regenerative food production, says the government’s food strategy does not take into account advice that cutting levels of meat and dairy consumption is crucial to achieving the country’s net zero goals.
The food strategy was published in June to a chorus of criticism, including from the experts the government had commissioned to help formulate it.
In a letter before claim, which is required to seek judicial review, Feedback points to advice from Henry Dimbleby, the businessman behind the Leon chain of fast-food restaurants, who called in a government-commissioned report for a 30% reduction in meat and dairy consumption by 2032.
It also highlights advice from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an independent public body, that a shift in diet is “particularly important”, and calls for a 20% cut in consumption of meat and dairy by 2030 as part of its “balanced net zero pathway” scenario.
Feedback’s letter says: “The food strategy made no mention of, and showed no consideration of, the clear advice on meat and dairy reduction coming from both the CCC and [Dimbleby’s] independent review; or even any consideration of the issue they had raised.”
Agricultural production of meat – particularly ruminants such as cattle and sheep – and dairy is a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It is eliminated from the atmosphere much more quickly than CO2, making measures to cut methane one of the more effective short-term actions that can be taken to mitigate climate breakdown.
Carina Millstone, the executive director of Feedback, said: “By failing to take any action whatsoever to support the reduction of meat and dairy, against the advice of Henry Dimbleby and the Committee on Climate Change, the government is committing to vast agricultural methane emissions.
“Rather than signing us all up for climate chaos, we want the government to go back to the drawing board and produce the strategy we were promised: one that actually delivers for the climate and nature.”
Rob Percival, the head of food policy at the Soil Association, said his organisation was broadly supportive of the legal action, despite having no formal role in it. But alongside the focus on methane emissions from ruminants, Percival said action also needed to be taken on industrial production of pork and chicken, which account for the majority of the meat consumed in the UK.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs declined to comment.
