The impacts of a reduction in British meat and dairy consumption on Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector

Alastair Greig and Ziping Wu
Additional contact information
Alastair Greig: 85187Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, UK
Ziping Wu: 85187Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, UK

Local Economy, 2021, vol. 36, issue 2, 133-148

Abstract: In 2020, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommended that British consumers reduce their beef, lamb and dairy consumption by 20% for both environmental and health reasons. For a region like Northern Ireland, this presents a significant challenge. Northern Ireland, considered to be performing poorly local economy within the United Kingdom and Ireland, has an export-orientated agri-food sector with an extensive domestic supply chain. This study shows the likely trade-offs required for a small regional economy with a large, established cattle herd to sustainably transition from one agri-food system to another. In so doing, the study uses the most comprehensive agricultural data collections to rebalance Northern Irish input–output tables, to better account for the nature of NI intermediate consumption within an agri-food system. The results show that a large-scale transition from beef, lamb and dairy to fruit and vegetable production would create a more emission efficient agricultural sector. The worst economic effects could be offset within current NI policy parameters, although there would still likely be some economic costs.

Keywords: economic policy; input–output modelling; regional economics; policy impact; environmental economics; regional policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02690942211032516 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:loceco:v:36:y:2021:i:2:p:133-148

DOI: 10.1177/02690942211032516

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Local Economy from London South Bank University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().