The fight against food dictators

This article, written by Scottish Countryside Alliance Director, Jake Swindells, was originally published in Farming Scotland magazine.

For over a year now, the Countryside Alliance has been at the forefront of a major fight-back against councils banning meat and dairy, encouraging them to, instead, champion local sourcing and freedom of choice. It’s not a campaign we should have had to begin, but sadly not a month goes by where it has not become essential.

Edinburgh City Council, to name just one, felt the need to sign up to a “plant-based treaty”. The origin of this treaty seems unclear, but one can only suspect that pressures from external activist groups, and quite possibly with some support of some internal campaigners, helped decision-makers sign on the dotted line. What isn’t taken into consideration is the vast majority of people who enjoy a healthy, balanced diet, which regularly includes meat and dairy products.

We have seen a number of councils and Universities (Edinburgh University being another guilty party) either switch to a plant-based menu or attempt to force such decisions onto their students and staff, which has kept the Countryside Alliance busy given that we have tackled these individual instances at source and have fought to ensure the choice to eat meat and dairy products remains just that, a choice!

When a council introduces such a ban, it often means that any public buildings, such as council offices, schools, care homes and hospitals are also included. Living in rural Scotland I know what the narrative would be in my daughters’ school and parent council meeting should this even be attempted. There is much being said about the far right in the news these days, but the far left is equally as damaging with some astonishing decisions and opinions being forced upon those who simply don’t want them, and those who remain somewhere in the middle seem to have less of a say as time goes on.

At this years’ Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, my daughter's school had a really fun and educational day out as part of their curriculum. The Army had a stand, with anything from small arms for people to learn about to jeeps and trucks with mounted weapons on them. When the school newsletter came out it had a picture of some students on the stand, and some were even allowed to hold a gun. A fantastic, educational opportunity. One parent (who’s child was not in the picture, so I understand) hit the roof and officially complained about the advocating of guns. This is what we have to deal with in this cotton wool society, and sadly, this deluded opinion spills over to the food we choose to eat.

The Herald newspaper recently published “Scottish Government research has defined 86% of Scotland’s agricultural land as ‘Less Favourable’, meaning it is only really suitable for livestock farming and, sparsely, harvestable animal fodder. Such land cannot be given over to arable farming because the crops will not grow”. So where does this leave us? Avocados from central and South America, lentils from Canada, Asia and Southern Europe, Asparagus from China – the list goes on. In an attempt to make the world a better place we are massively increasing food miles and burning thousands of tonnes of fossil fuels to get what we think we need when we have the ability to self-sustain, and even prosper here in the UK. We have the opportunity to grow our economy, strengthen our land-based sector and create more stable and rewarding professions in rural Scotland. Instead, we entertain nonsensical opinion and, worse still, allow it to be implemented so it affects those who really don’t want it in the first place.

Thankfully, the campaigns against many council and university decisions to vote for or implement a plant-based diet across the board have been stopped in their tracks, with the help of the Countryside Alliance. The support for our campaign against these proposals has attracted many local authorities’ signatures, including our Highland Council, as more and more see sense and stand up against food dictators.

They say to know a person first you must walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I did. My freezer is full of self-shot venison and game and self-caught fish. My six-year-old daughter loves to help me vacuum pack the humanely sourced, organic and sustainable produce and absolutely adores meat and fish. In the home gym one evening in 2023, I clicked on a programme called “The Game Changers”. It followed professional athletes on their plant-based journey, and, in a moment of weakness, I thought that I would give it a go. For over six months I put my body, and my family (their choice), through a process that saw no meat or fish consumed in my house. Initially, we looked for supermarket food and found that unless satisfied with highly processed food then we were going to have to make our food from scratch each day. I will be completely honest and say some of the concoctions were really very good, but we are a very busy household, and it took hours and hours of meal planning, prep and cooking each week. Time we really couldn’t spare. The cost of our food shop rocketed too and, bluntly, none of us felt much benefit from it so, after six months, we gave up and broke open the meat freezer in the garage. It was an interesting experiment, but I wouldn’t do it again.

In short, live your own life. If meat, fish or dairy isn’t for you then fine. You do you, as some would say. Just don’t force your choices and beliefs onto others by enacting change where the vast majority don’t want it. Support our farmers and our fishermen. Hold our government to account so that they make the right decisions and look towards growth and strength in our land-based sector.