Squashing Our Beef: We need a Meat Tax, and we need one now

Before we start, cards on the table: meat is delicious, and I love it. I am not about to try to make people feel bad for eating meat when a rare steak in a country pub is one of my greatest pleasures. Smashing burgers for friends at the weekend and imagining myself quitting my office job to sling hot beef from a hip food truck are both things that get me through the demoralising days sat staring at a screen. However, the Western diet – which, as rapidly developing countries in the far East and elsewhere attain greater levels of disposable income and consume more and more meat, is becoming ever more popular – is leading us quicker and further down the path to climate crisis, with the environmental impacts of the production methods of our industrialised meat and dairy industries becoming ever more noticeable.

Global livestock accounts for 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions (more than transport, by comparison), of which 65% comes from beef. I propose taxing beef, and other meats, heavily, to encourage healthier levels of meat consumption, reduce damaging industrialised production practices, and encourage people to move to healthier and more responsibly produced alternatives.

The investor network Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (FAIRR) are warning that – as both the health risks associated with eating meat at the level and increasing number of us now do, and the environmental damage wrought by the industrialised scale of our current meat addiction become more apparent – meat taxes are increasingly looking like an inevitability, in the same way as has happened with alcohol, tobacco and sugar in recent years. We should have a meat tax in the UK, and pretty much everywhere else, and we should have it as soon as possible. 

Such taxes are never popular, in the short term, but in the long term they are effective – tobacco and alcohol consumption are in historic decline, with the associated health benefits becoming increasingly tangible.

Recent research from Chatham House and Glasgow University has shown that, when framed as a matter of public interest, people are strongly supportive of a some form of increased meat tax. This could take the form of a tax relative to the amount of CO₂ used in production (disincentivising the worst offenders, like beef, over less impactful meat, like chicken), or the implementation of the full 20% VAT on meat products, with the proceeds being used to both contribute to the health service and combatting climate change, and implementing pricing incentives for traditionally more expensive meat-free alternatives. There are likely other ideas that could raise revenue and reduce environmental harm outside of these two proposals, and it’d be great to hear them – there are (almost) no bad ideas; but we need a meat tax, and we need one now.

Meat-free alternatives are becoming increasingly impressive – I myself recently made my favourite smash burgers with meat-free mince and, while not quite the same, the burgers were good, with so much more room for R&D to keep improving the analogue. Meat taxes have already had serious consideration in Germany and Denmark, and the Chinese government recently revised its recommended level of meat consumption down 60%. There is a growing recognition that we cannot go on as we are, and as with everything, making it more expensive to do so will be the quickest and most efficient way to change behaviours, and reduce demand.

I am not arguing for veganism – meat can be an important contributing part to a healthy diet, and an entirely plant based agricultural sector would come with its own problems in terms of undermining biodiversity and soil quality. Responsible, localised farming has clear benefits, and should be encouraged. A meat tax would also lead, ultimately, to disruptive change to existing agricultural industries, and this would be a concern in terms of jobs and communities - however, a gradual localisation of meat, reducing imports, and allowing for transitions to new farming methods would help to mitigate this. Ultimately, the change needs to happen for the continued health and wellbeing of the global population, and the viability of the planet. There may be economic casualties, but with planning and support, we can help those affected to cope with the transition.

The planet was never set up to sustain the industrialised number of livestock being raised, slaughtered, butchered and shipped globally that currently exists, and the associated emissions involved in this process. We need tax incentives to move away from the damaging orthodoxy we're currently locked into, and we need these as soon as possible.