Food Policy on Trial: Meat tax in the dock
On 23 May 2019 the Food Ethics Council kicked off its first Food Policy on Trial event where meat tax was put 'in the dock'. Expert witnesses provided evidence and were questioned by both a Food Ethics Council jury panel and members of the audience to decide whether a meat tax is likely to contribute to or hinder progress towards healthy, fair, environmentally sustainable humane food and farming.
The verdict is in: "A simplistic tax on all meat is 'too blunt a policy tool.' Instead we should consider a tax on all ultra-processed foods, including processed meatproducts, alongside fiscal measures to incentivise climate-friendly livestock production and penalise those that contribute to global warming." Those were the findings of the jury.
The Tapp Coalition has the opinion a simple meat tax (as the public audience advised too in the UK trial) is preferred over the proposal of the jury to have a tax only on all (ultra) processed foods (including plant based meat alternatives) which will not help to replace meat.
To learn more about the event, hear the evidence and the jury's verdict follow the links below.
