Environment Agency denies trying to convert the public to switch to vegetarian diet

A leaked e-mail from the Environment Agency was reported to have advised that if the public switched to a vegan diet it would be better for the environment. It allegedly added that this would have to be introduced gradually so as not to alienate the public.

However, the agency said this week that it had no intentions of stopping the British public from eating meat.

“Promoting the potential benefits of a vegan diet in tackling climate change was a suggestion offered by a member of the public,” said a spokeswoman.

“The Environment Agency believes this is a matter of personal choice, but it would be wrong of us to dismiss the already very public research showing the benefits that reducing the consumption of animal protein, and therefore methane emissions from farm animals, can have on tackling emissions,” she said.

She said the email was in response to a public enquiry about last year’s World Environment Day – this year’s takes place on June 5 – and advised the public what they could do to help tackle climate change.

Another Government department, Defra, was forced to backtrack on similar comments back in February after a Government website, launched to advise people how to be greener, said livestock production was bad for the environment.

Defra attempted to clarify the comments and said at the time that they were ‘not by any means telling people to cut out meat, this would be a personal decision’.

The Soil Association backed the latest alleged comments from the Environment Agency. Policy manager Gundula Azeez said: “We welcome Defra’s acknowledgement that eating less meat is better for the environment. For a truly climate friendly diet we recommend that consumers eat a fresh, seasonal, local organic diet, with less but better quality meat.”

However, the NFU said the claims were ‘rather dubious’. A spokeswoman said: “Hopefully Ministers will have more sense than to suggest simplistic and, quite possibly, counter productive responses to what is a highly complex equation.

“Meat and dairy products are an essential part of a balanced diet and the NFU is committed to finding solutions to reducing methane emissions for livestock by changing diets, using anaerobic digestion and capturing methane and ammonia emissions, and considerable reductions in agricultural greenhouse gas emissions have already been achieved.”

To read the Government’s advice yourself, go to the link below and click on the ‘greener food a drink’ section.