With many turning to vegetarian or vegan diets, this year’s Kim Hill debate entitled Peak Meat, held last night on campus, looked at the impact of this change on our environment, health, farmers, animal welfare and economy.
An audience of over 300 people listened to broadcaster Kim Hill and panellists Ronan Phelan (vegan and environmentalist), Nick Pyke (Director, Ag Innovate), Jocelyn Eason (Plant and Food Research) and Kevin Marshall (Chairman, Riddet Institute).
Ronan emphasised the need to reduce meat and milk in our diet for health, environmental and ethical reasons, while Kevin pointed out that while some western countries were reducing their meat and milk consumption, other countries were increasing their consumption.
He said if we did not produce it, it would be produced in areas where the production was more environmentally damaging.
Jocelyn commented there was a lot of research on new plant foods and these would come on the market soon, and Nick suggested that we should be diversifying and growing more crops.
The consensus seemed to be that peak meat production had probably been reached, and that there was a need to diversify to produce more plant based food, but this would be led by consumer demand.