Recently, a statistical analysis of meat consumption was the catalyst for a spirited public debate on sustainable living and food production in Slovenia. Namely, according to the national statistical office, Slovenians on average consume almost 90 kilograms of meat every year. This far outpaces the EU average of 70 kilograms of meat per person per year.
Election changes food debate
To be fair, meat consumption numbers in Slovenia do not vary much across the years. What little has changed, was the composition of a meat-based diet, with poultry mostly catching up with pork as the premier meat of choice, while beef remained a distant third.
Also of note is the fact that 2001 was the last year Slovenia was self-sufficient in terms of meat production. Since then, the number has steadily decreased, bottoming out in 2016, when the country’s livestock and meat producers could meet only 76 percent of the national demand for meat. The percentage has picked up since then but was only at 85 percent in 2021.
Not entirely surprisingly, the lowest self-sufficiency rate is seen with pork meat (only 43 percent), whereas beef and poultry production both exceed national demand .
However, until 2022, meat production was mostly a concern in terms of farming policies and the agricultural economy. Even outside these circles, the debate on livestock production and meat consumption was mostly framed as a climate-change issue. Like elsewhere in the developed world, reducing bovine-generated methane (billed “cow flatulence” in media parlance) and thus helping save the environment was the overarching motivation behind calls to eat less meat.
The nature of the debate—in Slovenia at least—changed drastically in the 2022 election campaign. Consumption of meat, while still an environmental and sustainability issue, became a part of a larger debate on energy consumption and self-sufficiency. The reasons behind this change in the national conversation, however, are as unique as they are varied.
From vegetarianism to energy self-sufficiency
To cut a long story short, a mixture of super-election years (Slovenians went to the polls as many as eight times in 2022), a seismic shift in political direction, Russian aggression against Ukraine and a specific skill set of the new liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob have all contributed to moving the debate on consumption of meat from a “cow fart” issue to an “energy security” issue.
Especially the last two, war in Ukraine and Golob’s experience in the renewable energy sector have really moved the Overtone window on this debate. Namely, it just so happened that the 2022 parliamentary election campaign in Slovenia coincided with the first phase of Russian attacks on its neighbour. At the time, the world grappled with the sudden loss of reliable exports of Ukrainian grain and only started realising how far-reaching the knock-on effects of loss of Russian gas would be. Concurrently, Robert Golob—the left-liberal challenger to right-wing populist PM Janez Janša—was able to broach the subject of reducing meat consumption as a way of reducing energy demands.
Importantly, Golob’s years as the CEO of one of the country’s largest renewable energy companies established his credibility on the issue up-front. As a result, he could not be laughed out of the room as just yet another tree-hugging vegetarian environmentalist. Instead, he went on to win the parliamentary election in April and become the PM in June. With that, reducing meat consumption in the daily diet of an average Slovenian went from a campaign plank to resembling something of a government policy.
Echoes of Mission LiFE
While most likely unintentionally, with this Golob echoed Mission LiFe, one of the pillars of India’s G20 presidency in 2023.
Specifically, Mission LiFE democratises the fight against climate change by asking everyone to contribute according to their own abilities and capacities. Be it by reducing consumption, adapting supply, or amending policies, seemingly small individual steps can lead to great change when put together.
As an individual country of two million and a GDP of EUR 52.2 billion (US$ 56.6 billion),Slovenia, of course, does not have the clout nor the economy to merit a G20 membership. However, its voice can be heard indirectly, as a member of the European Union, an important G20 member.
And within the EU, the new Slovenian PM has a skill set that makes him uniquely adept at answering today’s challenges. Namely, Robert Golob is making excellent use of his experience in energy markets and renewables. So much so that he is apparently a sought-after interlocutor, even among EU leaders with much longer tenures.
This is why his recent address to the European Parliament is so important. While he devoted a large part of the speech to energy security and self-sufficiency, he underscored the need to change dietary habits and secure better access to healthier food. Within this, he explicitly called for lower meat consumption and increasing consumption of plant-based foods as an alternative. This, according to Golob, would expedite the EU’s green transition as well as help alleviate pressure on energy demands, as well as speed up the transition to renewable energy sources.
In his speech to the European Parliament, Golob emphasised that while he advocated less meat consumption, he is not advocating no meat consumption. He also underscored that while these sorts of changes must be made on an individual basis, they must be voluntary and gradual.
Taking all of this together, PM Golob has all but echoed India PM Modi’s Mission LiFe. He advocates for small individual steps in meat consumption, pushes for changes in energy production and supply, and is drafting policies to support the above.
Backlash
It would not even be a stretch to say that priorities of the new Slovenian government align with the priorities of India’s G20 presidency even more broadly. To wit, there is a focus on solar energy as a way to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. But also the realisation, that Green Transition represents much more than just switching one source of energy for another, albeit cleaner one.
Green Transition is about nothing less than deliberately changing societal and cultural patterns, one step at the time.
With this in mind, it is no longer insignificant that the new president of the republic decided to set an example by removing meat from her daily menu at least once a week. A consummate meat eater, President Nataša Pirc Musar supported Golob’s initiative in a recent interview and noted that the move would reduce her personal meat consumption by more than 10 percent per week.
But even as he was describing his vision of “less meat equals more energy savings”, PM Golob faced backlash that was as immediate as it was brutal.
Namely, it turned out yet again that in today’s world, even the most well-meaning and science-based assessment can be turned into a culture-war issue. Doubly so when the execution of the initial policy steps is less than stellar.
The plot thickens
Which is precisely what happened to Robert Golob. Just days before his European Parliament address, his government launched a Strategic council on Nutrition, tasked with updating national dietary guidelines. But as most appointed council members are overt advocates of vegetarianism and/or veganism, it did not take long for the PM’s political adversaries to claim that “the liberals are coming to take your meat.”
More to the point, however, agriculture experts and scientists lamented the fact that no representatives of livestock farmers and meat producers were appointed to the council, giving the appearance of a lobbying group rather than of an expert panel.
Days later, Golob’s government corrected the oversight and the views in the strategic council are now much more balanced. But the damage was already done. Even the PM himself left non-council experts unimpressed with his jumping the gun on plant-based foods. According to agrarian economists, the Prime Minister’s instincts regarding nutrition are correct, but Slovenia has a much bigger problem with food waste in general than just a simple meat/plant dichotomy.
Slovenians still waste too much food, and the amount keeps increasing . Experts believe that this presents an important, long-term and yet relatively easily rectified cause of waste of energy and other resources. If Slovenians let less food spoil and would have opted for more nutritious and less processed food, this would not only decrease energy demands in this particular sector, it would also increase self-sufficiency and food security.
Communication and cooperation
That said, one of the major factors contributing to Slovenia’s shaky food security is the unsustainability of resources. Not only does livestock farming use by an order of magnitude more water and other resources than plant farming, it also turned out that Slovenian livestock farmers import a third of animal feed, mostly Brazilian-grown soy. This means that on the whole, Slovenian livestock farming is even less sustainable and less self-sufficient than it seems at a first glance.
And while this may seem as an argument in Robert Golob’s favour, experts warn against any quick policy shifts, as livestock farming in Slovenia not only plays a role in the system of domestic food security, but also carries a cultural significance.
This makes bringing about change all the more demanding. This is why some researchers believe that a wide-reaching information campaign espousing locally grown and seasonal food is a pre-requisite to any policy changes. Additionally, because these policy changes need to win the hearts and minds of both consumers as well as producers, experts advocate a gentle and gradual approach to reducing food waste and meat consumption.
This brings us to the final point: No matter the pace of change, communication and cooperation will be the key. If Slovenia really intends to change its dietary habits, decrease energy consumption and live healthier, all stakeholders must understand the benefits of reducing meat consumption and work towards a common goal.
And as it happens, these are also key tenants of India’s G20 presidency.
(This essay is a part of the commentary series on G20-Think20 Task Force 3: LiFE, Resilience, and Values for Wellbeing)
