Minister for Rural Affairs Peter Kullgren (KD) wants to increase Swedish animal production, despite new nutritional advice urging people to eat less meat.
– Cows are walking, living emergency stocks, he says.
On Tuesday, the Nordic Council of Ministers was presented with new nutritional recommendations, which are the scientific basis for the Swedish dietary advice.
One of the pieces of advice is that we need to eat less red meat, for both health and environmental reasons.
– This research group has been given the task of producing recommendations based on both health and the environment, and no shadow should be thrown over them because they did what they were asked to do, Peter Kullgren begins.
Increase meat production
But according to the minister, the group has not considered preparedness – how the countries can manage to secure food in crisis and war.
– Animal production in a Swedish context is important for the food supply. It is important for our agriculture. It is that aspect that both we and others have highlighted, says Kullgren.
– Cows eat grass, they are walking, living standby stock and something that we have very good conditions for producing in Sweden. Where we have hedgerows, it is usually difficult to grow anything else.
The collected research points to the fact that the Western world needs to eat less meat in order to reach climate and environmental goals, but Kullgren rather points to the fact that animal production in Sweden should be increased.
– I think it is better that we increase production in Sweden and in such cases export more of our meat, which is doing very well in terms of climate in comparison. We have the lowest use of antibiotics in our animal production in Europe and we have the conditions to be an animal protein producing country.
“I am no exception”
The government has given the Swedish Food Agency the task of updating the Swedish dietary advice based on the Nordic recommendations.
In an interview in connection with Kullgren taking office as minister in October, he replied that he eats meat almost every day.
TT: Have you reflected on your own meat consumption from a climate and environmental perspective
– The protein on my plate is usually animal, it can be meat, it can be poultry, it can be fish, and it still is. But I think I’m roughly like the Swede in general. Swedes eat five percent more meat than the current recommendation says, according to the Swedish Agency for Agriculture. So even there we are relatively close to the dietary guidelines that exist in Sweden today. I am no exception there.