It has been alleged that the UK government paid £150 million to the animal feed companies whose practices were responsible for the BSE epidemic.
As the number of vegetarians in western societies increases with the growing interest in environmental issues and factory farming, some government departments of agriculture are struggling not to publicly reveal their bias towards the meat industry. In certain instances local government may derive substantial and reliable income from annual hunting licences and are therefore reluctant to curtail hunting in any way even when it is damaging to local wildlife as in France and Italy.