{"id":1240,"date":"2019-01-23T02:18:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T00:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2019-01-23T03:01:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T01:01:06","slug":"the-eat-lancet-report-pastoralism-and-artificial-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/?p=1240","title":{"rendered":"The EAT- Lancet Report, pastoralism and artificial meat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The livestock world is up in arms about the EAT-Lancet<\/em> Report<\/a>\u00a0 that was launched on 18th<\/sup> January in Oslo and recommends drastic reductions in the consumption of meat, especially red meat. It is the outcome of a committee of \u201cmore than 30 world-leading scientists from across the globe to reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet\u201d and recommends a plant based diet and almost complete elimination of red meat from our menues. The initiative goes back to a Norwegian billionaire with engagement in the animal rights movement, and one of its collaborators is FRESH<\/a>, a consortium of global food giants. This includes even those who currently build their riches on the meat economy, such as Cargill and Tyson.<\/p>\n

The report is being savaged and ridiculed on social media, with the pack being led by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Leroy<\/a>, a Belgian professor who has untangled the special interests involved behind the initiative in an article published by the European Food Agency: A powerful action against meat?<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Many livestock people have been in a frenzy, enumerating the significant nutritional benefits of red meat and pointing out errors in the report. And the EAT-Lancet report definitely has major weaknesses. It is prescriptive and top down, western centric, and promotes a diet that is not feasible for most citizens in the world.<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, \u00a0the fact that the EAT-Lancet Report draws attention to the planetary boundaries of our food system is most welcome, the more so as these are being pretty much ignored in on-going UN processes and not tackled anywhere else, although GASL, the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock <\/a>, is making an attempt.<\/p>\n

What I miss on the part of the “livestock lobby” is a more nuanced consideration of how meat is produced, instead of its blanket endorsement. \u00a0Some introspection and \u00a0analysis of how we got to the current vegan assault would be very much in order. \u00a0Because it MATTERS how animals are kept \u2013 whether confined and pumped full with concentrate, or moving, foraging on their own, in a herd! <\/strong>It matters to the animals, to the consumer, to animal and human health, and to the planet!<\/p>\n

For too long, the large majority of animal scientists \u2013 with a few notable exceptions \u2013 have subscribed to what I term the \u201cefficiency paradigm\u201d, the belief in \u201csustainable intensification\u201d that reduces animals to input-output models and basically leaves no room for animal welfare, besides ignoring the need for a circular livestock economy. The FAO has had a big part in this, on one hand raising awareness about livestock\u2019s long shadow (good), but on the other hand uncritically promoting the stance that \u201cwe need to double livestock production by 2050,\u201d and spreading the mantra that this has to be achieved through higher natural resource use efficiency.<\/p>\n

While the ILRI white paper<\/a> for the World Economic Forum in Davos makes many good points by emphasizing the crucial role of livestock for the poor, it talks about industrial systems as option. In the long term, these systems will be phased out and be replaced with artificial meat\/clean meat \u2013 or at least this is the future that the food companies are preparing for<\/a>, and maybe one of the reasons for them supporting “plant-based” diets.\u00a0 There are of course\u00a0 still many question marks about “clean meat”, as summarized in another paper about alternative protein sources<\/a> prepared for the World Economic Forum in Davos.<\/p>\n

In all this clamour, some seminal new research is not getting the attention it deserves.\u00a0\u00a0 A team of reputed researchers led by a scientist from Wageningen University in a paper entitled “Defining a land boundary for sustainable livestock consumption<\/a>” points at a solution\u00a0 that challenges the beliefs of both vegans and FAO:\u00a0 They propose that if we stop industrial livestock farming and feed cultivation, replacing it with \u201clow-cost livestock\u201d that is fed with either waste food or with biomass from non-arable land, while at the same time reducing consumption in western countries, there would still be scope for raising protein consumption in Africa and Asia. Their conclusion is that trying to sustain the human population on plant food alone would actually require MORE land, as without livestock\u00a0 crop by-products would not be utilized for food.<\/p>\n

This conclusion is a clear endorsement of pastoralism and damning to the “efficiency paradigm”. The direction for the future of livestock is clear: Support pastoralists with their humane livestock production systems to continue managing non-arable zones for food production, biodiversity conservation and as carbon sinks. In arable areas, limit livestock to what can be sustained with local crop waste. Eliminate industrial systems and replace them with artificial or clean meat – if it works. Perfect!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The livestock world is up in arms about the EAT-Lancet Report\u00a0 that was launched on 18th January in Oslo and recommends drastic reductions in the consumption of meat, especially red meat. It is the outcome of a committee of \u201cmore than 30 world-leading scientists from across the globe to reach a scientific consensus that defines … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The EAT- Lancet Report, pastoralism and artificial meat”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1247,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/1247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilse-koehler-rollefson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}