A recommendation to serve 50 per cent of plant-based food at Torridge District Council’s catering events and promote a plant-based diet has been rejected, writes Alison Stephenson.

One member of the council’s community resources committee described the call from the climate change working group as “really really bad timing” for local farmers.

Last week an estimated 40,000 farmers, including many from North Devon and Okehampton area, travelled to Westminster to protest over the Labour government’s plans to introduce inheritance tax on farm assets over £1 million, a move which they say will spell the end of family farms.

But the recommendation to serve more plant-based food at internal and external council events was put forward over concerns that farming practices and current patterns in the consumption of animal products were accelerating climate change.

The council is one of many in Devon who have committed to reaching net zero by 2030 although North Devon admitted recently that it would not be able to achieve it.

Cllr Peter Hames (Green, Appledore) said ten per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions were from agriculture, with 68 per cent of that from livestock and animal feed.

He said if the UK was serious about reducing its carbon footprint it needed to find a more efficient use of the land as farming it was unsustainable.

However council leader Ken James (Ind, Milton and Tamarside) said he was disappointed this item was even on the agenda. “Promoting this means we aren’t really understanding what this community is about,’ he said.

Cllr Anna Dart (Ind, Hartland) said it was stated in reports that there would be no measurable effect on the council’s carbon footprint given its very limited spend on catering if this proposal went ahead.

“All this does is proves that we stand against our entire countryside and the economic activity and all the business activity relating to it,” she said.

The committee was told that more than 75 per cent of Devon farmland was grassland and its landscape was well-suited to dairy, sheep and beef farming and was “low density” farming compared to the more intensive methods.

Cllr Rosemary Lock (Con, Two Rivers and Three Moors) said 60 per cent of the country’s land was not suitable for growing arable crops.

And she added the UK as a whole was responsible for just one per cent of global gas emissions with agriculture accounting for half of that.

Councillors suggested the authority should be working with the farming community as farmers were pretty “forward thinking” and a member of the NFU should be invited to talk to the council.

Cllr Teresa Tinsley (Lib Dem, Bideford North) said this was the wrong time to be implementing a policy like this.

“I just think this is really really bad timing from the farming point of view and could send a really bad message. Can you imagine ‘Devon council bans cream teas?’ – I do not want to go anywhere near that at the moment.”