COLUMBUS, Ohio — Misinformation online may lead you to believe the Biden administration will restrict meat consumption in the United States. That is false.
In April, President Joe Biden hosted world leaders during a virtual summit to address climate change. The event took place on Earth Day.
Shortly after the event, rumors began circulating online claiming the Biden administration’s climate agenda would require Americans to restrict their intake of red meat.
Spectrum News 1 agriculture expert dispelled that rumor.
“The administration puts out this climate plan and makes no mention of meat whatsoever, but an outlet out of the UK, The Daily Mail, basically the equivalent of the National Enquirer on this side of the pond, writes this story that suggests that the Biden plan would cause us to eat something like four pounds of meat per year and you’d be banning hamburgers on the Fourth of July and all of this sort of thing,” Vance said.
That claim quickly spread throughout social media.
“That gets picked up, of course. A number of news outlets on this side of the pond, particularly those that cater to more Republican-leaning or far-right political ideologies and you had actually some farm-state legislators. I’m thinking of Governor of Texas Greg Abbott take a graphic from Fox News that shows this Daily Mail story in bullet point form and it gets spread around the internet and suddenly it’s a viral thing (that) Biden wants to do away with eating beef, which as you noted is not actually in the plan at all and it’s just a really unfortunate thing that happens when pieces of misinformation get amplified through social media today.”
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was even asked about the issue.
“My colleague at Feedstuffs, Jacqui Fatka, actually talked with the secretary this week,” Vance said. “And he was very clear that this was not part of the administration’s plans. There is no discussion being had about any sort of regulation or mandate on meat consumption. That is just simply not on the table.”
Vance also discussed an initiative by the Biden administration that does involve agriculture in combatting climate change.
The plan does involve farms to utilize carbon sequestration.
“Because of the things farmers do to manage the soil, manage nutrients; agriculture has a powerful way of capturing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in the soil. Things like corn, soybeans and other plants that we raise on the farm do very, very well. The farmers are going to be part of that solution. And the work is trying to figure out how we incentivize farmers to do those kinds of activities. How do we create a market where folks who put out a lot of emissions, think like the airline industry can purchase credits or other things from farmers to offset their own emissions.”
Biden said the United States will aim to reduce carbon emissions by 50-52% by 2030. You can find the administration’s breakdown of the climate plan here.
