We can consider applying taxes on meat somewhere in the category of a sin tax or valorem tax, basically taxing meat because it is not a necessity (as mentioned previously by the American Dietetic Association) and yet it is considered physically harmful (World Cancer Research Fund UK(1) and equally morally harmful (as recorded in a number of religious scriptures).
Quran 55 :10,13 Sacred scripture of Islam
He created the earth for all creatures.
In it there are fruits, and date palms with their hanging fruit.
Also grains and the spices. (O humans and jinns,) which of your Lord’s marvels can you deny?
Genesis 1:29 Bible
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
I undertake the precept to abstain from killing living beings
Ist precept Buddhism
You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal
Jewish Proverb
Professor Peter Singer of bioethics from Princeton University in United States argues in an article of the New York Times that by increasing the prices and placing heavier taxes on meat, purchases & consumption will decline, consequentially having multiple benefits, reminding us of the significant calculations livestock is held accountable regarding greenhouse gas emissions – estimates range from 18 percent (Food and Agriculture Organization), to 51 percent (World Watch Institute).In the United Kingdom and like minded organizations such as World Wildlife Fund and Food Ethics Council, have expressed the need for government to install taxes, based on a food’s carbon footprint with an emphasis on meat.(2)
36 percent of meat packing employees are injured on the job each year. The meat packing industry still has the highest injury rate of any U.S. industry.
In actuality the animal based food industry has high invisible costs starting from machines that replace individuals creating additional job displacement affecting the economy, the consumer’s health to the employee’s health and safety , environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources. The proposed taxes can assist in ensuring a safer work atmosphere and restoration of the ecology. (3)(4)
What types of dangers do workers face in Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFOs) and slaughter houses.
To understand dome of the direct dangers employees face, researcher Marlene Halverson of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy depicts the following 2 accounts taken from the report titled ,”The Price We Pay for Corporate Hogs”
On July 26, 1989, five farm workers in one family died after consecutively entering a 10-foot deep liquid manure pit on their Michigan farm….. The farm owner’s 28-year-old son descended into the pit on a ladder and made [a] repair. While climbing out, he was overcome by fumes and fell back into the pit. Subsequently, the owners’ 15-year-old grandson, his 63-year-old cousin, his 37-year-old son, and the 65-year-old farm owner himself entered the pit and collapsed, each one having intended to rescue the others. The medical examiner cited methane asphyxiation as the cause of their deaths.
On August 8, 1992, a 27-year-old employee of a Minnesota hog farm and his 46-year-old uncle, who co-owned the farm, died after entering an outdoor manure pit. The employee entered the pit to repair a pump and was overcome by fumes. The uncle died when he attempted to rescue his nephew. They were pronounced dead from hydrogen sulfide poisoning. (4) (5)
The dangerous fumes from manure pools or pits mentioned above are 2 of the toxic gasses produced by CAFOs that affect the workers, local communities, natural resources and the planet’s environment.
(1) http://www.wcrf-uk.org/preventing_cancer/recommendations/meat_and_cancer.php
(2) http://negotiationisover.com/?p=3301
(3) http://www.fao.org/docrep/w2598e/w2598e04.htm
(4) http://business.highbeam.com/industry-reports/food/meat-packing-plants
(5) http://www.iatp.org/hogreport/indextoc.html
