Meat sector considers meat-free days harmful to its image

Meat sector considers meat-free days harmful to its image

The Belgian meat federation Febev has said, “Harsh slogans, such as ‘meat-free days’, combined with the dissemination of erroneous information, serve to add weight to this particular campaign.” “This brings unnecessary prejudice to bear upon the Belgian meat sector and, even worse, feeds a negative perception.”

The view was given by the Belgian meat federation when reacting to the upcoming campaign “Meat-free Days.”

“Meat-free days" have taken place in Flanders since 2011 and will be launched this year in Wallonia and Brussels. This campaign wishes to raise consumer awareness to eat less meat and fish for 40 days (during Lent). Individuals might thus reduce their ecological footprint.

Febev considers, “Erroneous arguments and figures are, however, used to point out the impact of production or consumption of meat on people’s ecological footprint, water consumption and CO² emissions. Rainwater, and grasslands which are allocated for livestock, and which act as a carbon sink, are not for example taken into account in the calculation of the carbon footprint.”

Febev goes on, “The impact of livestock breeding upon the environment is therefore, as a consequence, considerably smaller than the press are saying at present. There is nowhere in the world that meat is produced as ecologically efficiently as in Belgium.”


The Brussels Times


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