Whilst we welcome this report, the reduction needs to be much quicker than 2050. If we each decided to change our diet rather than wait for governments to stand against vested interests, it could easily be achieved.
Europe’s meat and dairy production must halve by 2050, expert warns
Policymakers, farmers and consumers face ‘deeply uncomfortable choices’, says author of report advising urgent reduction of unsustainable livestock sector
Study advises that the livestock industry needs to achieve a 74% drop in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Europe’s animal farming sector has exceeded safe bounds for greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient flows and biodiversity loss, and urgently needs to be scaled back, according to a major report. Pressure on livestock farmers is set to intensify this century as global population and income growth raises demand for meat-based products beyond the planet’s capacity to supply it.
The paper’s co-author, Professor Allan Buckwell, endorses a Greenpeace call for halving meat and dairy production by 2050, and his report’s broadside is squarely aimed at the heart of the EU’s policy establishment. Launching the report, the EU’s former environment commissioner Janez Potocnik said: “Unless policymakers face up to this now, livestock farmers will pay the price of their inactivity. ‘Protecting the status quo’ is providing a disservice to the sector.” The study calls for the European commission to urgently set up a formal inquiry mandated to propose measures – including taxes and subsidies – that “discourage livestock products harmful to health, climate or the environment”.
Livestock has the world’s largest land footprint and is growing fast, with close to 80% of the planet’s agricultural land now used for grazing and animal feed production, even though meat delivers just 18% of our calories. Europeans already eat more than twice as much meat as national dietary authorities recommend – far beyond a “safe operating space” within environmental limits, says the Rise foundation study. As a result, huge sectoral “adjustments” will be needed by 2050 to rebalance the sector, including a 74% drop in greenhouse gas emissions and a 60% cut in nitrate-based fertiliser use, it finds.
Long before then, policymakers, farmers and society as a whole face “deeply uncomfortable choices”, according to Buckwell.
“We’re talking about fewer meat meals, less meat portions and moving to flexitarian diets without being dogmatic about it,” he said. “There is a role for softer public health messaging but harder messages are necessary too.” Such a transformation “won’t happen spontaneously”, he added. “It requires strong signals from government so the policy proposal must include measures to discourage consumption of livestock products harmful to public health and the environment.”
Buckwell called for targeted taxes on harmful practices, with subsidised meat for low-income consumers, and a realignment of funding regimes to advise, retrain and hire more farmers for work in rural landscape management and animal welfare. The hope is that consumers will eventually pay more for high quality meat produced in environmentally safe conditions, where countryside protection and animal welfare have been guaranteed.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/15/europe-meat-dairy-production-2050-expert-warns