• At least in the U.S. taxation wouldn’t be needed for animal product prices to reflect their true costs.

    Just remove the large government subsidies the animal product industry enjoys and let the free market raise the prices.

    I doubt it would happen.

    Those subsidies exist because the Nixon administration created them after Americans complained about high food prices. It would be political suicide to remove those subsidies, especially with inflation and price gouging disguised as inflation driving up food prices.

    • I agree with everything you said, but also it’d be super interesting to cancel the factory farming subsidies and see whole foods flourish. Theoretically this would raise the cost of burgers and lower the cost of vegetables and other healthy products.

      I agree it’ll never happen, but it would probably move US closer to European diets.

      •  Kiki   ( @Kiki@feddit.nl ) OP
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        410 months ago

        European diet can be very much centered around meat too unfortunately, farmers also have a lot of power here. Guess it is still better than the US, but we are part of the problem too.

        I agree that just stopping subsidies and let everything in the hands of market forces won’t do. We cannot juste expect things to work better in the current system, it would need many other forces and institutions to develop another type of agriculture and scale down meat production and consumption and make other products more affordable for everyone, it cannot come only from making meat a luxury good.

      • I don’t think produce would go down in price, just that their price would seems so much more appealing over non-subsidized meat.

        Yah, it will never happen.

        Kind of frustrating since you can see it fitting in with the “Tax me less, don’t use my tax money to subsidize someone else!” mentality.

  •  AutoTL;DR   ( @autotldr@lemmings.world ) B
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    10 months ago

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    Click here to see the summary

    The “gigantic” power of the meat and dairy industries in the EU and US is blocking the development of the greener alternatives needed to tackle the climate crisis, a study has found.

    Cutting meat and dairy consumption also slashes pollution, land and water use, and the destruction of forests, with scientists saying it is the single biggest way for people to reduce their impact on the planet.

    “The power of the animal farming sector, both in the US and in Europe, and the political influence they have is just gigantic,” said Prof Eric Lambin, who conducted the study with Dr Simona Vallone, both at Stanford University, US.

    The researchers concluded that “powerful vested interests exerted their political influence to maintain the system unchanged and to obstruct competition created by technological innovations”.

    Lambin said: “We found that the amazing obstacles to the upscaling of the alternative technologies relates to public policies that still massively fund the incumbent system, when we know it’s really part of the problem in terms of climate change, biodiversity loss and some health issues.”

    Alex Holst, at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “While European investment in sustainable proteins has increased in recent years, this study shows the sector is still only picking the crumbs off the EU’s table.


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