Beef and Lamb NZ have taken exception to the teaching resource, mainly its recommendation to reduce beef and dairy intake. Meanwhile, Federated Farmers have since launched a petition against it.

The curriculum is just one more voice in the growing threat against the sector with plant based diets proving more and move popular.

So what would a reduction or removal of meat, and a growing plant based society mean for New Zealand’s economy?

Future food specialist Dr Rosie Bosworth told Andrew Dickens that the industry will be in trouble if they don’t look ahead. Fonterra has already slipped down the value chain in recent years, she says, and education should not be their major concern.

Dr Bosworth says that there is a growing number of millennial and Gen-Z consumers that are not as concerned with eating meat, and once they are the major consumer group, the meat and dairy industry won’t have a leg to stand on.

“What’s happening now with fermentation and cell-culture foods and plant-based protein, there’s new technology that allows us to grow these proteins outside of the animals, they are forecast to grow.”