Meat or mitigation? That's the question: Storylines in the Norwegian agricultural policy discourse on meat reduction

Abstract

Ruminant meat (beef and lamb) is recognised as the food with the largest environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet reducing meat consumption and production is controversial. Resistance to change has been linked to policy lock-ins and asymmetries in power favouring the agri-food industry. At the same time, agricultural policy has been described as moving towards a post-exceptional, less compartmentalized field where food production is balanced against issues like climate and animal welfare. In this article, we explore how the discourse on meat reduction and greenhouse gas emissions are related to various other agricultural policy issues, using Norway as a case. Investigating the stakeholder submissions to the Norwegian government's ambitious proposal to reduce meat consumption and production in Climate Cure 2030, we identify three storylines in the discursive landscape. The first storyline is ‘It is time to increase production – not reduce it’ which we see as an exceptionalist storyline where arguments for the unique position of the sector contributing to national goals of food security and value creation should prevail. Another dominant storyline is ‘In our country, animal farming is sustainable’, which has typical post-exceptionalist features where nonproducer concerns, such as biodiversity and cultural landscapes, are seen as a net positive result of the grazing animals in Norway. The third storyline ‘The voices of consumers, animals and nature need to be included in policy networks’ also has strong post-exceptionalist viewpoints, but it calls for a radical restructuring of the sector, therefore, we see this as a radical post-exceptionalism. Our findings find little support for radical change, and for now, meat beats mitigation.