Princess Royal warns of meat industry challenges

The Princess Royal, who admitted she is not a commercial farmer, said she does keep cattle, pigs and chickens.

“All of them have various issues to manage and deal with. Despite the fact I have got so few of them some of those rules and regulations we have just been hearing about drive me nuts,”​ she said.  

She admitted that the sector was facing a range of challenges from consumption, production to the environmental impact of meat.

“It may be true that meat consumption and cattle in their various forms may have a detrimental effect but you cannot apply a simple statistic overall to bovines across the globe,”​ she added.

The Princess Royal also said that there needed to be a wider debate around the issues of meat and livestock.

She said: “Not least of all where that food comes from and how it is done.”​

The Princess Royal also said that she believed that meat in the UK market was “probably too cheap”​ which was causing too much waste. The result that the industry would be facing a challenge going forward to find meat that is “truly affordable”​.

She also highlighted the issue of unintended consequences with the rules and directives of the European Union and the outbreak of BSE in the UK. She said that its regulation that reduced the temperature in the rendering process “may well have caused the outbreak. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”​

However, she said that one of the biggest challenges would be getting the message out about meat and women in the sector.

“You have a real challenge ahead of you but you have a well-educated and knowledgeable group of people that can do that,”​ she said.