WEBVTT - S14, Ep7 | How the Animal Ag Industry Obstructs Climate Policy 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:06.920 Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. In 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:11.319 this season, we are going chapter by chapter of a 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.880 new but very readable academic book that has gathered together 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:20.960 all of the peer viewed research on climate obstruction globally, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:26.119 so really digging into the research and everything we know 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.040 about how this works. Because as much as inaction on 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.599 climate often gets framed as lack of science or perhaps 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.800 the wrong messaging framework, this, that, and the other, it's 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:43.600 important to remember that we're here because of various acts 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:48.320 of sabotage, that certain industries and certain individuals spend a 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.680 lot of money and a lot of time to block 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:57.560 any kind of government policy, to warp the information ecosystem, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.400 and to convince the eighty nine percent of people globally, 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:07.880 eighty nine percent who want to see action on climate change, 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.119 that nobody else cares and so they shouldn't talk about it. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:16.000 This isn't just a thing that happened organically, and it's 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.360 also not a thing that just the fossil fuel industry did. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.520 Lots of other industries see regulation of emissions as an 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.039 existential threat, and we're going to talk about a big 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:33.080 one today, the animal agriculture industry, the meat, gez and dairy. 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.400 They spend a lot of money and a lot of 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:42.240 time to convince people that excessive consumption of meat and 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:47.480 dairy are healthy, that they are part of various cultural identities, 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.120 all sorts of other things. I'm joined today by Catherine 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.000 Labber from the University of Edinburgh and Sylvia Seki from 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.600 the University of Iowa. They had a fascinating conversation. They 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.760 blew my mind multiple times throughout, so I hope you enjoy 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.440 it as much as I did. And for those of 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.600 you who prefer to consume your podcasts on YouTube, I 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.080 don't understand you, but we are trying to reach out. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:18.360 So this is actually our first entire episode that also 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.799 has a video component. You can check that out on YouTube. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.040 Just look for Drilled you'll find us. Actually, maybe don't 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:32.600 search drilled on too, Drilled podcast, drilled Media, try that 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:35.440 check it out. Let us know what you think. We 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.560 are trying to work on doing more video content, so 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.960 very open to suggestions there as well. Hope you enjoyed 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:51.600 this conversation, so very like basic kind of one on 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.280 one question to start, I would love to have you 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.600 just talk briefly about you know, what are the ways 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.120 that animal agriculture impacts climate change. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.440 So briefly, one of the ways in which animal egg 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:09.080 influences climate change is through queenascas emissions. So food production 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.080 is responsible for but one third of anthropodonny queen as 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.560 gas emissions, and a huge amount of that is from 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.000 animal egg. So there's must really vary, but it's between 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.639 twelve and nineteen percent of all queen as gas emissions 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.760 come from animalag and that's methane, but also nitro oxide 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:26.359 doesn't see it. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.920 Too, okay. So I know in conversations I've had with 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.760 various folks about animal egg that one of the recurring 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.160 themes is that for the fossil fuel guys, they love 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.480 the idea of individual responsibility and individual action, but the 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.880 animal egg guys really hate this. And I would love 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.080 to have you guys kind of explain why that is. 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.680 I think to me it's really interesting, And having worked 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:54.640 in other industries like soft drinks as well, I do 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.400 wonder if this is a kind of reflection of the 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.560 stage at which animal egg is obviously has been under 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.480 radia for climate scientists a little bit later, came under radia. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.640 A little bit later than phossil fuels. 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.040 And so I do feel like we're still in quite 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.040 an early stage where public awareness isn't as high, and 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.159 one of the few things that is happening at the 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.360 moment is individual action and it does do something, obviously, 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.279 but we are never going to get, you know, get 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.600 to a point where we're addressing animal agadmissions in any 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.640 meaningful way without government action. 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.000 We do need policy. We need to. 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.520 Change the environments in which people make food decisions. And 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.039 I feel what we've seen with other industries is that 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:42.200 they kind of once regulation and policy came onto the 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.080 agenda and started happening, like taxes, for example, and marketing restrictions, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.360 that's when they started pivoting to, oh, yeah, actually we're 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.240 quite happy with individual action, why don't we do that instead? 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.279 So I do wonder, if, you know, be really interested 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.720 to see if that happens as regulation becomes more of 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.080 a concrete option. But yeah, I do think individual action 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.600 is really important, but overall between legislation and I think 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:04.680 animal like does know that, and that's why they also 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:05.880 do push really hard against that. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.279 I would also add that if you compare agriculture and 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:16.440 food production with fossil fuels, people have more agency when 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.040 it comes to the food we eat. Right, if you 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.960 live in rural Iowa and there is no public transport, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.919 you can't really say, hey, I'm going to you know, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:30.480 not use your agency in terms of what you eat, 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:32.840 what you buy, and what you eat. And so I 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:37.120 think the industry is running all these campaigns basically against 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:42.480 individual action, because individual action here has potentially more leverage 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.440 than it would in the case of fossil fuel and 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.640 transportation and things like that. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:48.240 Yeah. 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.839 Yeah, but as you kind of cover in this book chapter, 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:58.160 they are starting to campaign against any sort of systemic 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.599 efforts or the person of maybe the beginning of systemic efforts. 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.080 Even so, can you talk a little bit about what 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.159 are some of the more regulatory efforts that have been 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.320 made and how is industry responding to those? 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.640 Well, from the US perspective, I can tell you that 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:21.440 basically they've been extremely successful. So and I would say 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:26.440 that they've been extremely successful at curtailing activity against pollution 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.599 that they cause. It goes beyond greenhouse gas emissions and 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.960 think about water quality, think about air quality, right, and 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.560 so we have seen, for example, that there's been a 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.160 lot of activity regarding the reporting of where these facilities 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.599 are because I'm going to try not to use the 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.920 term confined animal feeding operation or KEFO, which was what 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.680 we use in the United States. But basically, we have 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.320 these very very large entities that I hesitate to call 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:59.080 farms where you have millions of chickens, you know, thousands 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.560 of pigs or thousands of dairy cows, for example, and 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.400 so we know where they are. But the EPA in 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.160 twenty seventeen basically said, but we're not going to disclose 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:14.400 it right to anybody. And in twenty twenty three there 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:19.280 was this draft Strategy for Monitoring, measurement, monitoring, reporting, and 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.040 verification that also kind of like didn't even talk about 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.280 combined animal feeding operations. It was all about soil organic carbon. 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:31.160 So they're being very successful. The industry has been very 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:38.240 successful at kind of like diverting attention away from their contribution. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.520 It's almost like, oh, look, there's all these other things 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.440 we can do, don't look here. And the regulatory environment 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:51.000 has been very favorable to them in this respect. Across 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:56.800 both parties in the United States, this is a bipartisan issue. 0:07:57.720 --> 0:07:59.760 Yeah, And just kind of add to that to zoom 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:02.800 out from the United States, I can't over stress how 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.560 the most important success that they've had is actually to 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.560 keep proper legislative action of the agenda. Even so in 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.760 a lot of countries, even speaking about saying meat taxes 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.560 or anything to regulate herd sizes or to regulate consumption 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.680 is really really controversial, and I think that that's why 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.400 we actually haven't observed a lot of concrete pushback against 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.720 policy measures. But what example would be what happened in 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.320 New Zealand a couple of years ago. They proposed the 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.880 first tax on cattle emissions in two thousand and two, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.400 and then first the delayed and then after the changing government, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.280 the tax has been completely scrapped. So that's kind of 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.440 one really concrete example of something they've managed to off 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.000 the agenda and it gets scrapped. But generally kind of 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.360 keeping things quiet and keeping the threats away has worked 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:47.920 really well. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.720 I think Catherine's point is kind of like the cracks here, 0:08:53.640 --> 0:09:00.119 there is absolutely no discussion of consumption issues, everything everything 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.120 else they might talk about, you know, the tech fixes, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.680 but the real cracks of the matter, particularly in the 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.560 global North, in places like Europe, in places like Australia, 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.240 in places like the United States, is consumption and how 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:20.720 policy facilitates consumption and pushes for consumption. This is not 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.320 like a free market kind of situation, right, So that's 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.720 off the table in so many places. You know, we'll 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.800 talk about this more, But it's not just legislature. Is 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:35.559 the science, is the education everything. 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.360 Yeah, and like DIFI guidance is really boring to most people, 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.800 but that actually gets a lot more heated than you 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.040 think around animal products and. 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:50.320 Towards Yeah, no, I know, I don't know. I randomly 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.520 had a window into just the way that the industry 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.840 uses like health influencers too, and has really been involved 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.680 in this pushing of like more meat, more meat is 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.880 actually good for you, and butter is actually really good 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.640 for you, and all of this stuff. So yeah, anyway, Okay, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.120 I wanted to ask you about this two thousand and 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.160 six Long Shadow Report. You have a little call out 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.199 on this in the chapter, and I think it's really interesting, 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.280 But like people outside of the sort of food and 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.240 egg universe don't necessarily know what this report is, and 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.960 it was so important that I'd love to have you 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.559 kind of say what was this report and why did 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:33.120 it spark so much concern from the animal egg industry, lifetock. 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.720 So Long Shadow is really really important to people like 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.120 us because essentially it was the first estimate of the 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:43.200 life stock sectors contribution to global anthropogenic climate change. So 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.720 this is the first time at least a authority of 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.680 agency like the UN agency, Food, an alcopult organization that 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.719 published it put a number and how much of our 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.880 quenascus emissions comes from livestock, and they put that at 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.040 eighteen percent. Again, that's been contested since and the number 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.920 is varied, but we're not that far off that now. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.120 But essentially that was the first time that there's been 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.079 a really concrete warning of the environmental consequences of business 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.120 as usual in the life sect sector. If say, we 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.520 keep growing a media dairy consumption as we are doing 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.720 right now. They put a really clear warning up that 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:16.960 this is not going to be tenable in environmental and 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.560 climate twins. And when that initially landed the report, it 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:22.360 was pretty quiet. It took a couple of years to 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.840 probably gain traction. But as the report itself gained more 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.240 traction among people interested in climate and themal welfare for example, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.240 the pushback also started to develop a lot. And you 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.720 could tell that particularly the beef industry that had been 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.360 highlighted as a major source of emissions in the report, 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.120 got pretty nervous and there was a more concerted effort 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.760 to discredit the report's message that kind of emerged around 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.360 two thousand and nine twenty ten, alongside the kind of 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:49.600 growing positive attention. 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:51.960 One of the things that happened that. 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.800 We addressed in the chapter is that the beef industry 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.120 awarded some funding to someone called Commit Learner, who was 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.120 a scientist with a bant background in animal science and 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.440 UC Davis, and he was essentially funded to assess Livestock 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.120 song Shadow. What came out of that process is essentially 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.480 a article that he could published with other academics, where, 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.200 among other things, an argument that he makes is that 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.760 the comparison between livestock emissions and transport emissions that's made 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.960 in the executive summary of Livestock Song Shadow, where the 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.360 authors say something along the lines of life stock submissions 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.520 are greater than transport. He says that essentially that that's 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:32.720 flawed because the lifetecle emissions calculation included full life cycle 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.040 assessments where the transport one didn't. So on this tiny 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.839 tiny point that was not really something that came out 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.400 of the formal analysis of the authors. That was just 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.120 kind of a point that was picked up in the 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.320 executive summary for and was picked up in a lot 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.240 of media reporting actually, but that's what he really lashed onto, 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.360 and one of the authors of life Stocks Some Shadow 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.920 even acknowledged that, yeah, he has a point, But essentially 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.959 the meat of the report wasn't really in question. Ever, 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.680 the main analysis of how much emissions does lifet contribute 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.480 was never really in question. But the problem is afterwards, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.360 the way that this was reported in the media and 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.200 also by a lot of industry groups is essentially the 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.960 link between animal agriculture and climate change and quenascas emissions 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.680 had been debunked. And there's also kind of I think 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.680 one someone described Midlearner as the scientist who debunked livestock shadow. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.040 So this is a really interesting example, and it wasn't 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.199 just him. There was a lot of other noise around 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:28.880 the report, and there was a lot of other pushback. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.560 But that's a really really interesting example of how something 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.920 really small essentially led to the discrediting in the eyes 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.480 of some of this really really important report. And I 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.600 note that also picked off a lot of complaints that 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.840 the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization got internally from 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.920 some member states and some of the industry groups that 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.520 they work with, and that's kind of picked off a 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.120 lot of discussions internally within their fail but how they 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.559 deal with livestock and climate change. 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.079 And we should note that Midliner receives quite a bit 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.239 of funding from the industry. 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.840 Yeah, still very involved in interesting discussions that are going 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:06.640 on at the moment about how we measure. 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.040 Methane that could have major implications for what we. 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.880 Do about animal agriculture, So he remains very relevant. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.439 Yeah, Okay, I want to make sure we talk about 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:20.760 some of the early days too, because actually, for me 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:22.800 ben as a climate reporter, and I think a lot 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.080 of other people too, there's this tendency to think that 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.600 the industry just started pushing back on stuff around climate 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:36.080 and emissions, you know, and in response to livestock's long shadow. 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.680 But they were working on things in the nineties too, 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.080 So can I have you talk a little bit about 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.400 what that what the industry obstruction looked like in the 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:45.400 nineties as well. 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:50.360 Actually it starts before the nineties. So there's a paper 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.400 that Jennifer Duquet and Vivicamores, who are also co author 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.320 of this chapter, wrote this year where they trace back 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.480 some of the early efforts to nineteen eighty nine, because 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.040 in nineteen eighty nine EPA held this workshop and then 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:12.040 published a report on reducing methane emissions from livestock, and 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.520 that kind of like triggers some of the early strategies 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.680 that we see that you know, that Catherine was talking about, 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.800 that they're using today. So we have the National Cattleman Association, 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.800 with which is today the National Cattleman's Beef Association, basically 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:35.280 hiring public relation firms, forming coalitions with other industry members, 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:41.040 coming up with campaigns and slogans that are pro beef production. 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.400 And again I want to emphasize that this is all 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:51.840 part of an overall strategy to gut any possible regulatory 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.520 action beyond greenhouse gases too, because at that point we 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.400 have more and more concentration of livestock production, and so 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.920 the industry realizes that they need to overcome the facts 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.440 right with Actually, in my house, my kid came up 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.480 with this term propaganda, you know, with a message that 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:22.240 basically goes counter to all the evidence, where whether it's climate, water, air, labor, conditions, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.240 you know, all the issues associated with agriculture. And I 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.280 think that's why they've been so successful. It's because they've 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.920 had this history that's now you know, decades long of 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.880 campaigns and the co opting, as Katherine was saying, co 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.400 opting parts of the scientific community too. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.880 Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating. Okay, we're going to come back 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.440 to the US for like a lot, because it you know, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.480 it does so much, always doing the most. But I 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.600 would love to talk about what this looks like in 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.520 some other places too. So let's start with the European Union. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.440 What does climate obstruction look like coming from the Animal 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:01.800 act guys in the EU. 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.280 Yes, So we looked at the EU because they are 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.240 parfterward that consumes and produces a lot of animal protein, 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.320 and that's why they have arguably more responsibility in other 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.320 parts of the world for addressing the missions that come 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.800 from food production through animals. So the situation that we 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.240 have in the European Union that will start with essentially 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.879 is that the European Union spends its largest the largest 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.560 part of his budget on agriculture actually, so they have 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.640 a huge agriculture policy program called the Common Agricultural Policy 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.199 that goes back to the nineteen sixties and actually in 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.000 the same year as the Agricultural Policy was founded launched. 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.560 Initially we have seen the start of the most powerful 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.840 and still active agricultural lobby group that they have in 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:46.840 the European Union. 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:47.760 That's called Coppakajeca. 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.440 So that was established in nineteen sixty two, the same 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.640 year as the policy, and so a lot of these 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.160 kind of this interest representation around agriculture goes a really 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.160 really long way back, and agricul cultural interests are really 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.240 entrined and have a huge amount of political sway in 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.120 the European Union context. And obviously this looks really different 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.440 at national context that you know, in all the member states. 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.399 But essentially at the EU level that's always a huge debate. 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.480 And in more recent years what we've seen is that 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.680 as climate change becomes a bigger issue and it's really 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.280 acknowledged by the European Union through strategies like the Eogreen 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.840 Deal for example, we've seen this clash between this really 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.879 entrined agricultural kind of workstream and the Common Agricultural Policy 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.560 and everything around it. They have an Agricultural Ministry department 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.119 as well. Do do you agree within the European Union, 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.320 we've seen this clash between those entried interests kind of 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:42.080 promote agricultural production. Again, this is more about quantity than 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.480 about what we produce. And then at the same time, 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.840 the main aim has always been to generate livelihoods for farmers. 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.840 So it's like there's an economic and there's a production element. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.520 There's never been an environmental element to it. And as 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.840 this environmental aim has kind of come in a bit more, 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:58.679 we've seen a lot of issues essentially. So one of 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:02.639 the most ambitious kind of pieces of strategy that EU 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:04.200 is published in the last couple of years is the 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.040 Founder Folk Strategy, which I'm. 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:07.160 Sure you've heard about as well. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:12.000 That was really ambitious in combining not just production but 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.479 also kind of bringing in the consumption element. And they 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.760 were saying, which is exactly what we need particularly and 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.479 I'm just talking about livestock and animal agriculture here, but 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.399 if we just do one or the other, that's not 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.119 really going to fix the problem. We do need both, 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.080 and the fund of Folk Strategy addressed that really nicely, 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.280 and it was quite an abitious piece of strategy. But strategy 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.399 alone doesn't do anything we needs to happen in the 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.720 European Unions that this needs to be turned into legislation, 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.800 and very sadly, what we've seen with almost all of 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:41.960 the files at the consumption end is that they've not 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.040 gone anywhere, So a lot of these have been abandoned, 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.480 and at least to some extent, this can be traced 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.199 back to the power that agricultural lobbies have in the 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.480 European Union. And we're also so kind of around a 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.160 similar time of the fund folk strategy, we also sort 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.880 of kind of emergence of groups specifically focused on livestock. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.000 So we have something called the European Livestock that was 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:05.560 formed by Corbacajaca and some other groups representing meat, feed, leather, 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.600 kind of meat production and any allied industries, and they're 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.320 specifically aiming to promote pro life of messaging. 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.120 So it's not only they're doing, but. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.840 Essentially, you know that emergence of those kind of groups 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.920 really illustrates a level of concern that came about emergence 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:20.800 of farmer fork. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.240 Here's a little clip from European Livestock Voices video on 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.480 the farm to fork strategy, just to give your little 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.480 taste of what they do. 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.800 The nine paradoxes of farm to Fork. At this time, 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:38.359 Europe is reviewing its food system and proposing a strategy 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.280 for transitioning to more sustainable production. It is called farm 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.800 to Fork and it is part of a larger and 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.880 more complex plan called the Green Deal. This project contains 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.280 ambitious and far reaching targets, but there are also a 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:56.120 few paradoxes steming from the preconception that meat is not 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.879 sustainable to the environment nor our health. 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.080 And yeah, because of this, and because of you know, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:03.760 for all of other reasons, we've had a right shift 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.040 in European Parliament, for example, and we've had a lot 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.600 of farms protests that will get back to later. That's 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.800 why a lot of these files have sadly not not 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:13.840 manifested into actual legislation. 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.960 Interesting, Okay, let's talk about China, which I don't feel 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.200 like we talk about enough around animal agriculture, but it's 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.200 very interesting. So, yeah, what is happening in China? Run 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:25.800 this topic? 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.840 Well, in China, you know, and more generally, I would say, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.399 in all the brick countries, so Brazil, Russia, China, and India. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.639 Would India being a little bit of an exception because 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.399 of their you know, cultural differences in terms of eating meat, 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.040 meat consumption, and the consumption of red meat. As the 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:51.280 country became has become richer, was actually promoted by the government, 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:57.919 and in general, environmental regulations associated with agriculture have lagged 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.440 behind all sorts of other environmental regulations. 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:01.720 Right. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.919 We know that China is really exploded in terms of 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:11.600 green energy and the production and consumption of solar panels 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:13.880 and things like that, but it's not the same thing 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.480 in the case of animal agriculture, because there's still this 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.440 kind of, you know, traditional role that food and the 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.280 promotion of certain types of food has had. In terms 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:30.040 of internal policies, China is very driven by internal needs. 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.240 They are a big player on the world market in 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.159 terms of I mean, they're the biggest consumers of meat now, 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.280 but they also need a lot of imports and they're 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:43.760 not really that concerned with environmental regulations and environmental issues. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.879 We're starting to see some movements there, but I would 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:51.320 say the Chinese meat production industry doesn't have the same 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:55.960 kind of you know, threats to their footprint that we 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.119 have seen in places like the European Union and the US. 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.439 In Brazil, you know, because Brazil is a completely different 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:05.080 story compared to China. 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.200 Yeah, so actually, yeah, let's talk about Brazil because it's 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.400