Legislative efforts need more support
Advocates for changing the food system have for years placed a lot of effort into urging people to engage in individual diet changes. But what is often neglected is the tremendous power of government that influences at all levels what is available to eat and at what cost.
Government actions could include:
Voter initiatives in states that allow them
Direct lobbying of elected officials at all levels to affect laws or policy that supports more research into animal product alternatives, or otherwise supports the alternative protein industry and stops favoring the animal industry
Political organizing of supportive voters to pressure legislators
Campaigning for and donating to the election campaigns of supportive politicians
Legal challenges to combat bad legislation, establish new legal precedents, or force enforcement of existing regulations.
Understanding that the food system is a market ultimately driven by the choices of consumers, governments hugely distort market forces in a number of ways. Governments give direct support to animal agriculture in the form of direct subsidies, free insurance, price guarantees, and a myriad of other actions, all of which artificially deflate the cost of animal products that reach consumers and prop up the industry to make it less responsive to true market forces.
Governments also provide indirect subsidies, such as actions that hold down the cost of animal feed, and footing the bill for environmental cleanups or health care for people dealing with the effects of diet related illnesses.
Governments (national and local) also influence what is taught in schools, and what food is provided to people in schools, and other government-run institutions such as prisons and the military. Governments also set nutritional guidelines that influence food choices and availability.
Governments provide research funding that supports the needs of the animal agriculture industry, and do not provide commensurate funding into research that might lead to alternative proteins.
The most fundamental issue is that animal agriculture interests are business interests and so by their very nature, generate money for political activities/lobbying through their trade organizations. This translates into campaign donations and lobbyists who are able to get messages to political officials in a way casual donations from food system reform advocates just cannot match. This may however start to change at least a bit as the plant-based foods industry grows in size, and trade groups like the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), the European Plant-based Foods Association (ENSA), and European Alliance for Plant Based Foods (EAPF) have more funding to hire more lobbyists to directly represent them.
So what can regular people do? People should contact their representatives at all levels and let them know that reforming the food system is a priority. People should become members of advocacy groups and support those groups’ political efforts with phone calls, letters, and donations. The most foundational forms of political organizing are direct donations to political campaigns and grassroots organizing. Ideally, legislators with the power to effect positive change should be supported and nurtured from the start of their political career, and not approached about these issues for the first time once in high office and potentially indebted to animal agriculture political donations. There is a new PAC, Food Solutions Action, which is working to change that.
It is challenging, however, to get environmental, health or animal welfare advocates to both understand the value of political donations and organizing, and especially to engage in it. Advocates tend to be very passionate, and like all of us, like to see immediate results. It is very motivating to contribute money or time to rescue an individual abused animal, or a forest restoration project for example. But contributing money to the campaign of a politician who may not be elected, and even if elected, may work for years before having an impact on a critical issue is many steps removed. It is essentially a gamble of time and money. And while many people are to some extent single-issue voters (think abortion or gun rights), most people who support reforming the food system are not so narrowly focussed.
Additionally, political donations are not tax deductible, and this can discourage campaign contributions.
But there is no question that activities to affect government policy are among the most important things someone can do to support the changes needed to create a sustainable and humane food system.