Court action challenging the government's failure to act on meat consumption in the UK - taking place today (Friday 16 June) - is backed by the Soil Association.

The food and farming charity is calling on government to take action on industrial meat, as lawyers representing the campaign group Feedback head to the Court of Appeal to argue that the government's Food Strategy was unlawful.

They will be disputing the failure to adopt measures to reduce meat and dairy production and consumption, which was advised in Henry Dimbleby's National Food Strategy that the Soil Association was a key advisor for.

Soil Association Head of Food Policy Rob Percival said: "The Climate Change Committee has called for government action on diet change, supporting people to reduce consumption of all meat. While the spotlight often falls on red meat, we seriously need to talk about intensively farmed poultry and pork.

"Chicken makes up almost half of all meat consumed in the UK, and demand is still rising. Not only is industrial chicken a climate issue - due to chemical fertiliser use and habitat destruction abroad driven by production of chicken feed - our appetite for white meat is also placing a terrible strain on British nature, especially our rivers.

"We support this legal action from Feedback and urge the government to act on diets with less but better meat, while also ensuring that farmers are paid properly for nature-friendly production like organic."

The Soil Association calls for a ban on new intensive poultry units in the UK to put a halt to the damage being caused to rivers including the Wye.