In its messaging, industry also heavily references the role of meat in relieving hunger and in the Global South, claiming that it “plays a key role in reducing food insecurity and malnutrition”.

The meat of yesterday — wrought with ethical, economical, and ecological issues is facing extinction. In the documents, trade groups also reveal their plans to influence the pavilions run by observer groups. The US beef industry is creating an army of influencers and citizen activists to help amplify a message that will be key to its future success: that you shouldn’t be too worried about the growing attention around the environmental impacts of its production. As well as plans to present meat as “positive for the environment”, it will promote the Dublin Declaration, a document signed by over 1,000 scientists, which has been criticised as meat “propaganda” by climate experts. First, that Mitloehner’s widely shared remarks didn’t actually prove his assertions about the ineffectiveness of dietary change.

Members of the Alliance are encouraged to stick to key comms messages, including the idea that meat is beneficial to the environment and will help to “feed the world”. The 1948 short documentary film “ The Chicken of Tomorrow” explores the history of the factory-farmed egg and poultry industries. The meat industry is planning a concerted PR push at the summit, which it describes as a “notoriously challenging environment”.

She was listed as an attendee at COP28 in an earlier version of the documents, but has since been removed).The meat industry has long used lobbying and marketing to improve the business climate for its products. In 2015 ABP became the first European meat company to secure a long-term beef contract in the United States. Its remaining two partners are global lobby groups representing large companies and multiple countries.

That story – which ran with the subhead “Why cutting meat from the menu (or magazine) is misguided”, ran in LA Weekly – and was plugged repeatedly on Twitter by NCBA (and other industry accounts) as if it had no connection to the story. The Guardian’s review of strategy and funding documents from the past decade shows that the cattle business sees itself as perpetually under attack by a variety of hostile forces – with environmental issues of increasing concern. Becoming a leader of the global meat complex has come with a stark increase in the concentration of power to a handful of transnational corporations (TNCs) at every step of the Brazilian meat production chain. A similar law passed in Arkansas and is already receiving push-back from groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for being unconstitutional. One study released in the academic journal Nature in 2018, found that Western countries would have to reduce their meat intake by 90 percent to limit climate change to acceptable levels.From an economic development perspective, there is no compelling evidence that the capital used to acquire meat processing companies abroad and the resulting profits has benefited Brazilian citizens. Just because it’s difficult to reduce antibiotics in beef and pork production doesn’t mean it’s impossible, as the story of Iowa pig farmers Tim and Deleana Roseland demonstrates. It encourages other meat sector groups to “plug” Frank into other events at the summit, describing him as a “top expert in animal ag GHG emissions”.