That run in between the NFU and the BBC

I want to share some reflections on the run in - if that's not too strong a description - between Minette Batters, NFU President , and Evan Davis, presenter of BBC's Radio 4 "PM".  It all came about (and can be heard here about 35 minutes in to the program)  as a result of the government announcing its intention to develop a national food strategy. PM invited Minette and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi into the studio. 
The introduction to the discussion was bizarre! Evan introduced the item by asking if we are at a turning point in our attitude towards meat. "Is", he asked, eating less meat the "next anti smoking drive".  What makes that bizarre is the review the government is setting up has very broad terms of reference but in the 1,000 word document it makes no reference whatsoever to eating meat! It's as though Evan had decided what the outcome of the enquiry would be even before any evidence had been taken or considered! 
Having likened farming to the tobacco industry he then said that animal welfare standards are "not good" and that "you (the NFU) wouldn't want us going round showing pictures of what goes on" on farms. Minette pointed out that Open Farm Sunday has just happened when hundreds of farms opened to welcome visitors to see what happens and spoke of the animal welfare standards in which we are world leaders. Evan still couldn't let his vegetarian/vegan agenda go so he finished the discussion by asking Yotam for a suggestion for an evening meal if he didn't want "a slab of steak or a piece of chicken."
Sadly, Evan was voicing a  view that is being given increasing media attention, a view that assumes that meat and livestock production is bad and that human health and the planet's health would improve if we cut back on meat, or even gave it up altogether. But that is a view that shouldn't just be assumed and should be critiqued. 
Nine years ago (I found the Facebook post so know when it happened!) I was visiting a farm and was fascinated to see what was happening on the neighbouring farm. It was owned by the vegetarian daughter of an immensely rich rock star. Everything had to be organic and not involve meat production. Consequently cereals weren't grown as organic cereals rely on crop rotation and a year of the land being grazed by sheep to build up soil fertility. Vegetable production didn't work because of rabbits. When they tried growing fruit trees the neighbouring farmer (tongue in cheek I'm sure) offered to shoot the deer that were eating the tops out of the young trees. That farm produced no food and while the owner presumably felt morally justified in that, there is a moral question about keeping land as a rich person's playspace when world wide 462 million people are underweight, 52 million children under 5 years of age are wasted, 17 million are severely wasted and 155 million children are stunted (figures from World Health Organisation). Yes, of course there are questions about distribution and poverty and whether the market is working, but we need to remember people are hungry.
And there's the question of the environmental impact of vegetable production. A couple of years ago I was in the Spanish Sierra Nevada and as I was walking high in those hills and noticing how the sheep flocks undergraze the almond and olive groves, in the distance towards the coast I could see large areas of what I can only assume were miles and miles of poly tunnels growing vegetable with heaven alone knows what impact on local ecosystems. In the area where I live there has been concern about poly-tunnels for fruit production with some people feeling they spoil the view. 
Then there's the question of what should be done with land that isn't suitable for fruit and vegetable production. In the interview Minette said 62% of the UK is grassland. Most of it is grassland because it's not suitable for growing anything much else than grass. It's the wrong soil or too steep or too wet or too whatever to do anything other than let livestock eat the flourishing grass.  In a world where people go hungry and with a growing population is it morally justifiable to re-wild it?   
The question of what we eat is far more complex than the simplistic "meat bad, vegetables good" approach.
So I welcome the government review. I think there's something of a give away of government thinking (or perhaps lack of thinking) when the document can say, "The free market performs a million daily miracles to present us with an abundant choice of safe and reasonably priced food..." Without "a million daily miracles" from farmers, the free market would struggle!   
I note that, "The recently formed Food and Drink Sector Council will also be a source of close advice and counsel" and notice that the membership of that council is largely made up of large players in the food business - agribusinesses rather than agriculturalists - and hope that the voice of small producers and small family farms will be heard. 
Along with noticing that, "We subsidise food producers to an extent no other industry enjoys..." I hope the enquiry will consider who benefits from those subsidies. If farmers are paid subsidies to produce food which they sell for below production cost to large profitable supermarkets to sell cheaply to consumers then that raises the question of who actually benefits from those subsidies! I hope the wisdom of the Church of England Ethical Advisory Group "Fair Trade Begins at Home" is taken on board. 
The terms of reference of the enquiry starts by saying, "No part of our economy matters more than food ... no decisions have such a direct impact on our lives ... as ... what we eat. Food shapes our sense of ourselves... Cooking and eating together is perhaps the defining communal act." For Christians our identity is shaped by our eating together remembering the meal Jesus ate with his friends. May this enquiry result in better eating for the nation and, please God, not a simplistic approach.