Next year, the European Commission will introduce a new proposal regarding subsidies for advertising meat and dairy products. A consultation round on this has already begun.
In initial draft versions of the Green Deal, Commissioners Timmermans (Environment) and Kyriakides (Food Safety) planned to abolish these subsidies, but following protests from Agriculture Commissioner Wojciechowski and the Agriculture Committee, the proposal was softened.
According to a report presented Thursday by Greenpeace, the EU currently spends one-third of its agricultural product promotion budget on advertising meat and dairy (32% of €777 million over five years). The research also showed that the Commission spent about €146 million on campaigns for fruits and vegetables; 19 percent of the advertising expenses.
Greenpeace calls on the EU to stop advertising meat and dairy and to use that money to support ecological, small-scale farmers in Europe, as well as to help conventional farmers transition to organic farming.
The current spending is “contrary to scientists’ warnings about the disastrous consequences of industrial livestock farming for nature, the climate, and our health” and is an irresponsible use of taxpayers' money, Greenpeace stated.
More than 70 percent of agricultural land in the EU is used for livestock or to produce animal feed. Europeans consume about twice as much meat as the world average and approximately three times as many dairy products.