Is meat a luxury that is becoming increasingly difficult to afford with Paul Behrens, Oxford University

Over human history animal protein has always been a luxury food. Meat is the first thing people generally chose to buy when they rise from lower to middle income.  With the current cost of living crises across the world, further food price inflation predicted due to climate change, geopolitical instability, and biodiversity loss, increasing impacts on productivity due to climate change, as well as the growing impact of dietary related disease, the big question is how much longer will we be able to afford this luxury. 

The answer is it’s complex. 

Today we are joined by Paul Behrens from Oxford University where he is working on systems to reduce the environmental harm and increase the resilience of our food systems. The three things we can change are what we eat, the amount of food wasted, and how we produce our food. Paul sees all three as being necessary for the future health of ourselves and the environment.

You can listen to our conversation here.

Transcript

Ash Sweeting 0:07

Welcome to the Ash Cloud. I'm Ash Sweeting. Over human history, animal protein has always been a luxury food. Meat is the first thing people generally choose to buy when they rise from lower to middle income. With the current cost of living crises across the world, further food price inflation predicted due to climate change, geopolitical instability, and biodiversity loss, as well as the growing impact of dietary-related disease. The big question is how much longer will we be able to afford this luxury? The answer is it's complex. Today we are joined by Paul Behrens from Oxford University, where he is working on systems to reduce the environmental harm and increase the resilience of our food systems. The three things we can change are what we eat, the amount of food wasted, and how we produce our food. Paul sees all three as being necessary for the future health of our cells and the environment. Paul, thank you very much for joining me today. Great to join you, Ash. Paul, could you outline what you see in your work in terms of the sustainability of our food systems under current kind of you know business as usual management practices and where you see the need for things to evolve and adapt or change?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Well, we work on uh the entire food system. So we work right from production through to consumption. Uh, and so we can look at interventions on both of those sides. And if you look into the literature, um, if you want to fit agriculture on the planet, you are really looking at three main interventions. Uh, one is on the production side, and so that's how you actually produce the food. And then there's two on the consumption side. So one is on food waste and one is on dietary change. Uh, and so we work across those sort of different interventions that you can make to explore how you can improve um climate outcomes, biodiversity, improve land use. Um, and one of the good things that we can do in our work is we can connect the supply chains. So we can account for food grown in one country and then exported into another country and then used in that country. So if there's some sort of change in food waste or consumption, we can see how that changes overseas. And so that's why our work is focused on the on the big picture here.

Ash Sweeting 2:41

Okay, so if we start with um uh where you see the the and we'll move through those three areas in the order you mentioned them. So if we start with the agricultural production side of things, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

I mean, so uh the consensus, I should state at right at the front here, the consensus is as if you look across the modeling that's done and the work that's done, these different pillars, these three options, aren't equal in their opportunity. Um, the dietary change is the largest opportunity we'll have, especially in high income nations, but more broadly over the globe as well. Um, that's followed by the food waste, and that's followed by the production. So we're actually sort of addressing things the other way around by going through the production first, but that's that's that's great because there's plenty of things that we can do on the production side too. Um, but a lot of those things that we would like to do on the production side, uh, for example, multi-cropping, more diversity in in food, uh, more diversity in the types of food that we grow, but also the production practices that we use, a lot of that will relate to lower yields. And so we have to find that land somewhere. And so the the way in which we think about that, and the way that I think about that from a systems perspective, is that land comes from these dietary changes, which is predominantly a shift to more plant-based diets. And then that opens up so many opportunities for farmers, so many opportunities for consumers in terms of what they buy. Um, so on the production side, um, if you are able to engage in those practices, there's a big scope for um multi-cropping, for the quote unquote regenerative uh uh approaches, which I have a little bit of an issue with the the name regenerative. It's it's it's it's it's not well defined what this is. Uh it's sort of a package of things anybody can really say that they're doing or being regenerative. And it's very difficult then to say, well, how much improvement are you actually getting for the environment, for society from those practices if you're not being very specific about which ones you're talking about. Um, but in any case, um, there is a big opportunity for sort of more precision agriculture. Uh, this is more knowledge about what's happening in production. Uh, there's a big opportunity in diverse uh crops, for example. So in the UK, we know from these dietary shifts we're going to need more legumes. Um, and there are huge opportunities to bring back um different uh types of legumes, uh, beans, peas, um, even the potential for temperate soy, for example. Um, so there's lots of really exciting production options on the table, as long as we have that land and those resources to play with.

Ash Sweeting 5:19

One of the things I think is always fascinating about food systems is how everything you do has so many different, it's now nothing's nothing's simple. You know, you add legumes into the system, you suddenly put in more nitrogen to the soil, so you change the amount of nitrogen that you need in terms of all people using as a fertilizer. Um, you're also changing protein sources for those people or those whoever's eating that, so that changes the need for um animal-based or other-based proteins. So there's these in everything's interconnected in so so many ways. But you've mentioned you've mentioned the dietary shift um as as the greatest opportunity. So what does that look like from from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Well, from our modeling, uh to take one study, for example, uh, we looked at a shift towards more plants, so not cutting out uh meat entirely and not cutting out animal cause entirely across high-income nations. And so if people were to shift to a diet that's healthy for the planet and healthy for the people in high-income nations alone, we would save an area roughly the size of the EU. Um, now that's a huge amount of land. And what we looked at there was if we save, if we sort of save that land, if we pay farmers to continue to manage that land, at the moment we're doing this through subsidies in Europe, so we can continue to pay to do that. Um we were able to revert this land to potential natural vegetation. We looked at the carbon stocks before and the carbon stocks after, and we found that you would be able to double the benefit of the dietary shift. So you're shifting from foods that have a high uh uh emission intensity to foods which have a lower emission intensity. You double that benefit again if you're able to save that land and draw down the carbon onto that land when you revert it to potential natural vegetation. And that's just a climate argument. So I mean, there's also the nature, uh, there's also the water, um, there's also the soil quality. There's loads and loads of different um benefits that you would get from that. Um, so that's one example of some of our work that we look at. Other people have looked at what would happen, say, in the UK if you would move towards different types of diets. At the extreme, uh, you would be reducing emissions by about 75% from the dietary emissions if you were moving towards uh plant-based diet. So these are big opportunities in high-income countries.

Ash Sweeting 7:50

Um, I think what you said about those benefits of having more natural land, the the biodiversity benefits would probably something something that should also be thrown into those mixes. Because if you've got more of you know, the the biodiversity on that natural land and then the insects, the birds, um, etc., and then how they interact with you know the farmland, with pollinations, um, all that sort of stuff, I think is something that is also probably not spoken about as much as it as it should be.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, just just to add on to that, like um, so you know, you're looking at sort of landscape-wide benefits, which are managed by the farmers who are still there, still working on the land. Um, and you get that resilience from nature, which is obviously really crucially important. Um, but you also get a better absorption of the punches of climate change. So in the UK, for example, if you're thinking about the landscape and nature coming back to that landscape, it's better at absorbing flood waters, it's better at um absorbing storm surges, because what you're doing is you're increasing the amount of things on the land, like the trees, trees and vegetation, and that's slowing down the winds. So we know we're getting uh cyclones, and there's research that shows all of these effects. So research shows that you can actually take the edge off the increasing uh storms that we're getting uh in uh northern Europe, these anticyclonic uh uh storms, and you can take the edge off them in terms of the amount of uh the wind speeds that you're getting. Um, and so you know it's really it it's it's a whole sort of suite of different things that are making you more resilient to the climate impacts.

Ash Sweeting 9:26

And that's that's really fascinating because it's I had a recent conversation with um someone from the Hoover Institution, a guy called uh Nick Parker, and he was saying his research was that the when you introduce wolves into Wisconsin, um, you decrease the collisions between deer and vehicles because the wolves change the deer's behavior. And then looking at how that flowed on from an he's an economist from an economic perspective. And the the big takeaway I got from that is that whenever you change something, there's the intended consequence, and then there's all these under unintended consequences, and and it's very much feeding back into those angles what you're saying. With you know, obviously, from a I'm in California and water's an issue from my accent. You can tell I'm Australian, water's a huge issue, and all those roots and everything that provide pores into the soil that store more water when it's there is something that you never never want to um miss out on those opportunities. And it's the same same in the UK for those those water infiltration and and and then having vibrant soils and you know it goes back to everything being interconnected. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

And it is it's it's it's it's also our job to try and think about those connections as well. I mean, you know, I think, you know, economists will say you'll never be able to sort of like get ahead of everything and understand the all the effects of something you might do. But you can kind of imagine also if we're able to make these shifts, that people have more access to green space. Uh, they have more access to, you know, to trails, to nature, to recreation. Um, and we know that in a country like the UK, which has one of the worst mental health outcomes of the OECD countries, we know that it's a big deal to have access to green space. You know, um, so you can think about that at that angle, you can think about the air pollution uh side of things, you know, because the energy system has been uh decarbonizing and the particulates from the energy system have been coming down. So if you think about getting rid of coal power stations, for example, it's a really clear one. You can't, you're not getting those particulates, those very small particles that we breathe into our lungs and you know, deep into our lungs and cause all these cardiovascular diseases. We're not getting as much of that anymore. But agriculture is continuing to emit those particulates. So actually, it's going to be soon the case that agriculture is driving more of the air pollution than the energy system. Uh, and if we're able to then again, if we come back to this issue of like saving the land, making the agricultural system smaller, but making the nature agri agricultural system wider and bigger, then you're also talking less air pollution. So you're again, then you're talking uh fewer uh years of life lost, uh lower health costs, all the benefits that you could come from that. So I mean, yeah, you you try and get ahead of these things and you kind of kind of keep spiraling out of all the benefits you can imagine.

Ash Sweeting 12:14

Being being, you know, and uh take the burden or some relieve some of the burden from the NHS by actually preventing disease rather than you know having to treat those sick people.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

100%. And of course, like um, if you look at the burden on the NHS, it's a massive burden of the uh food system, you know, the way in which we're eating, you know, which is not just animal products, although we do over-consume animal products, but we you know, we obviously overconsume sugar, uh, high-fat foods too. And so, you know, but part of that can be addressed through this too, in terms of moving to these healthier diets.

Ash Sweeting 12:47

I recently saw a yield map of a of a field somewhere. I can't remember where it was, but what it showed is like you know, the average yield of that crop in that field was was, I can't remember what it was X call it, but the variation within that field was huge. Sometimes in some parts of it, it was double X or two and a half times X, and then sometimes it was you know a third X or a quarter X. So there's this huge variation, but you know, when you start talking about the yield from field A or field B, um, everyone just talks about the average. And where do you see using that more productive land and reverting the less productive land into other forms um of land use like rever um you know re-naturalization, etc., as fitting into that whole process? So you can you can take land away without really impacting the ability of the land to to produce food.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. You can kind of start to sort of think about um optimized versions of this. This is you know a very top-down. So what you really want is a bottom-up way of doing this, where people are involved in you know different uh farming communities, different um, you know, uh different regions uh around countries. Um I think fundamentally it's a concern that sort of is a little bit later down the track, like which fields and how you do those things. Because when you look at the system as a as a whole, um in the UK, for example, uh, well, actually across Europe, around 40 to 60 percent of all crops are grown for animals. And so you've got all of that incredible, incredibly you know, fertile land. Uh, and some of that can be taken out to produce, you know, other uh legumes to produce other foods that we we need. And actually, one of the interesting things about that is because the animal system is quite inefficient when it comes to calories and protein. Well, quite is an underestimate, uh, understatement, really. Um, you know, you'd be able to save some of that land to deal with the climate impacts again, because we know climate's gonna hit these yields. Uh, and so we're gonna need some of that land, even though it's producing lower yields, in order to make up the shortfall. Um, and so actually, you know, this is actually a sort of a survival uh transition as well, because we uh as climate starts to eat into these yields, and we can talk about some of the some of the latest information on this if you like, but um we we are gonna have these shocks uh in food prices, which is my sort of big concern, is how this then translates to big uh food prices and then and then um and then cost of living. Um but to come back to your your point about those different fields to get to a production uh point again, um, you can imagine how you know precision agriculture again can help there uh and can help look at what you know why is why is this field underperforming compared to that field? Uh why does this field look that way? In many cases, this might also be climate-related. You know, at the moment you might have fields with quite high yields, which actually are just getting waterlogged year after year after year now because the flooding is just so much higher, or you know, droughts through through through through the summer. So, you know, that also is changing quite rapidly in terms of which fields might be uh yielding more as well.

Ash Sweeting 16:07

Um, I very much would like to dig into what you mentioned about the the the prices and the price instability and all that sort of stuff. But firstly, you know, I think there's fairly broad consensus that the the modern Western diet is far from ideal from a health perspective and the environmental footprint is very, very high. Um, but getting people to change what they do is notoriously difficult. And what are your thoughts in terms of how you incentivize the types of behaviors that you're you know that you're outlining?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah, I mean, I I think there's clearly the system already incentivizes a certain outcome. So the subsidies uh that are based on land use across Europe, because they're based on land use and because agriculture uses so much uh land and animal agriculture uses uh the largest proportion of that land, you're actually subsidizing through that system more embodied subsidies in those animal sourced foods as an output. Um, so I think that along with the production subsidies, sorry, the consumption subsidies, say for milk programs, tilts the playing field. You know, there's subsidies that you don't see in the foods that we would like to see more of, which are, you know, vegetables, uh, legumes. Um, and so you know, there's already that distortion going on. Now, I I often think that subsidies are the last thing that are going to move, they're the last things that shift because subsidies are kind of a representation of the raw sort of political power and what that looks like. And you know, nobody likes change and everybody likes things to stay, you know, similar until they reach a breaking point and everybody wants change, and then you know, and then sometimes things change in the wrong way. So um, you know, so I do think there's some change in terms of the um behavior. Well, I think you have you have lots of different groups in society, of course. You have people who would never change, never ever considered changing their diets. Then you've got people who would change diets because of um health issues, because of, say, animal welfare concerns, because of environmental concerns. And so I think it's sort of speaking to any of those different sort of subsections and saying, well, look, you know, here are options. And the research that, you know, that's been done on this show that when you give people options, they tend to enjoy those options and they, those delicious options. And so research in the US, for example, research in the UK shows that when you have more plant-based foods on the menu, even meat eaters choose them because they sound interesting, they sound different. It's about exploration, it's about novelty, it's about it's not abstinence, it's exploration. Um, and so that's the way I think you know, we sort of sort of message it. In terms of the behavioral thing, I think it's asking too much of people on their own, you know, to make those shifts if those options aren't available to them, or if the one option that they have just doesn't sound very good. You know, my my my partner, she she's uh, you know, she she really dislikes uh mushrooms. And so when the one option is mushroom, you know, your heart sinks a little bit, you know, on the menu. So um, this is why things like the Danish plant-based action plan, which has got a broad um support from across the community, from the farming community, policy community, um, consumers, um, chefs, restaurants, got support from across the picture, has targeted all the way along the supply chain. So from right from the farmer level all the way through to chefs and you know, educating chefs and and and and and consumers. And what that does is it allows people to engage in it. Because you can't just sort of sit back and say, hey, we should be doing this. You know, that's it's not it's I mean, that that only goes so far, information only goes so far. Um, so I think you know, those sorts of um food environment interventions are incredibly important.

Ash Sweeting 20:03

I think what you said about the policy side of things is particularly interesting, or the subsidy side of things, sorry, which comes back to policy, but uh that you know it's it's what corn, wheat, rice, um, soy and sugar are probably the most heavily subsidized by far crops on the planet. And then they're the easy imports for other production systems for the animal production systems. So when I was in the Middle East, um you looked at how the UAE subsidized their production systems or animal production systems, and how Saudi Arabia subsidized their animal production systems, and the Saudis subsidized the end product food. So they had things like the Almorai dairy, they had these huge poultry enterprises, and the Emiratis subsidized feed, they gave subsidized feed, so they used a huge amount of feed and they had loads and loads of animals, but they had very, very little production, and even that little change of where you address that subsidy, you could really see this stark difference in that outcome. And you know, so much of be it North American or EU um subsidies are driven at those at those cereal, you know, starchy, sugary type crops. And what do you think, you know, do you think there's any any uh realistic measure to get those? Because I I agree 100% that if you change those signals, those subsidy signals, farmers, if you start subsidizing a broad range of legumes and and vegetables and all those sorts of things, um, it would probably be very good for the NHS as well as changing what's available in the supermarkets and and what people are choosing to eat and and then the the dynamics of all those people who use those cheap commodities um to value add them through you know, animal protein and all those sorts of things. Do you think that's doable? In terms of the political landscape, or do you think there are some uphill battles to be fought in that regard?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

I think it's really interesting what's happening across, say, Europe, when they're discussing the common agricultural policy reform. So this is the CAP report reform, this is the CAP that pays you mainly on area of land, you know, and what they could learn from the environmental land management schemes in the UK, which are just starting, you know. So these are schemes where instead of paying per bundle of land, um, you start to pay for um environmental outcomes, uh, so natural outcomes. So, you know, you start to pay for uh natural nature, you start to pay for uh different um interventions, right? So um I think it's interesting how that's changing and it's kind of it's it's quite slow. So Elms is being phased in uh and the direct payments being phased out. The danger of that is that if you don't get that right and the level of support drops too low, then farming in many areas of the world is a really precarious, difficult, um, really hard job sort of income-wise. Uh, and then you end up in a space where you know people start to resist this change because you've got the balance wrong and the farmers can't take up these options as you phase out the direct payments. Uh, and so you they see their subsidy income going down. And so it's about making that um really careful um sort of um attribution or that really careful uh policy um sort of uh space where you can make sure the farmers have those options and can continue to have that income as you shift away from these direct payments, which are more sort of, or the, you know, sorry, even the sort of uh consumption-based payments, which are more distortionary on what you're actually getting out uh at the end. Um yeah, I I think the other thing to mention on this is that typically, you know, subsidy shifts are always the last things that shift. So as I said before, you know, that they're they're really quite well entrenched, they take a long time to change. And in the climate literature, there's this concept of policy sequencing. So this is the idea that you don't just jump to a carbon tax, you know, in my in the 90s, you know, or even now, you wouldn't just say, let's put on a carbon tax on this. You know, you're like, well, how does that happen? I mean, you've got to address so many issues, so many policy issues, government issues, industry issues. And what happens is instead, what you want to do is you want to have lots of uh policies that build up to that point. And this is this idea of policy sequencing, because each policy brings down the threshold for the next policy to get passed and the next one to get passed. And then eventually you get to something very different that is hopefully much healthier for us. So, um, for example, having yeah, having a carbon price, for example, is a is a key example. That in a lot of countries needed a number of different policies for um appliance regulation, um, you know, for um subs, you know, uh renewable energy subsidies, whatever it is, lots of different policies build up to that. And I think it's kind of similar for the substitute.

Ash Sweeting 25:09

You don't want to have to jump the whole river in one set, you find the spot where you can jump from rock to rock to rock or rock, and then you get across the other side.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yeah, and I think I think that's where the sort of the some of the plant-based action plans, like the Danish one and some of the other some more countries that are producing this now is interesting because they're trying to, I think, you know, they're looking across the supply chain, trying to make all these sort of small interventions and help in order to have a systemic shift in how farmers and consumers and the food industry in general um produce food and and present food for people.

Ash Sweeting 25:47

So back to the food price instability and the the risks or what you're seeing in your research there. Could you please talk us through that?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, so uh there's been a really accurate assessment of temperatures for a given amount of emissions over time. So the models have been pretty pretty precise on that. Actually, the last couple of years, it's actually been warmer than the model suggested, and we can't quite explain that. But up to about you know two years ago, it was really quite accurate. The issue has been is that there's been a systemic underestimation of how bad the climate impacts could be for that given amount of warming. Um, and so if you look at, say, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, um, you know, if you look at their reports through the years, you can actually see this change through the years. So, what in terms of like the big economic and ecological impacts, what the IPCC thought would be happening at around 3.2 degrees of warming in 2001, nowadays that risk is below two degrees. And it's worse for some of these large-scale tipping points. So these um sort of the big ocean currents or the uh Amazon or like dieback, um, the glacier melt, uh, coral reef loss. Um, what we thought would be happening at above five degrees of warming, which is really extreme, we now think is going to be happening below two and even 1.5 degrees of warming. And that's where this 1.5 degrees came about. You know, we were initially talking about two degrees, and now you know we were talking about 1.5 degrees, because there's been this underestimation of how bad things could get. Um, to take a sort of regional example in the UK, this is quite astonishing to you know, to me, I think, is the the UK uh climate change risk assessment that was done in 2021, they found that there was a 0.02% chance of a 40-degree day by 2040. Now we breached that in 2022 in both of urban and rural regions, so across the country. So it just gives you an idea of how you know we're underestimating these things. Um, there's been a number of studies on what this means for the food system and the economy more broadly. I mean, in terms of the economy more broadly, um, there was a London School of Economics report that suggested 7% reductions on GDP year by year uh by 2080. And you know, if you look through the report and they look into health, they look into food, they look into energy, they look in, and at the end of pretty much every chapter, there's this, but we think we this is really underestimated. You know, and the you the UK Institute of Uh and Factory uh Faculty of Actories, uh, they found that the global economy could face about 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090. So this is what we're doing, we're talking about, this is what we're playing with. What this means for food prices is you know, coming back to food and coming back to the sort of more um near-term future is inflation, food price inflation. Because what we're seeing is we're seeing increasing yield losses, and then you get food price spikes on the back of those yield losses. So, one study, for example, found that the chance of a multi-bread basket failure, where you lose, you know, at least 10% of the global crop of um soy. Um last century, we would expect a multi-bread basket failure once every 16 years. And at 1.5 degrees, they estimated that this would be once every three years, and at two degrees, once every two years. And that's the you know, sorry, that was sorry, that was for corn, not soy. That's for corn. Corn is the more um sensitive crop, but it's similar for the other ones too. So you do see it for soy. I think soy is something like once every 20 years last century, that goes up to once every nine years, uh 1.5 degrees. So, you know, you're seeing these big impacts. And research now shows that, for example, in the 2022, that extreme summer that I mentioned before, which we had for 40 degree heat in the UK. Well, in Europe, um, that was estimated to increase the um food price inflation by about 0.5 to 1 percentage uh point. So, you know, that's already a big increase on top of the other uh food inflation that we're experiencing at the time. And one paper found that if you project that out to 2035, it would amplify food prices by 30 to 50 percent. Now, there's a if you look globally, uh that same study found that you we would have persistent food price inflation of one to three point two percent every single year by 2035. So that's a doubling in food prices every 20 years or so. So these are really significant increases in, and my sense is that you can't capture everything through these models, and actually you might get a little bit more than that, because things that these models don't take into account are things like the spread of pests, uh, which actually spread more under climate change. They don't actually sort of decrease in range, they actually just continue to increase in range. Um, a lot of the studies also don't take into account um all the extreme weather events that we can have have, and they also don't take into account the very complicated interactions between uh food getting hit in one region that we rely on and we import to another region. So they don't take into account, say, things like damage to ports or infrastructure through sea level rise or storm surges. Uh, they don't take into account how these complicated networks can uh say if you get a yield loss of some uh corn, how that then translates to um livestock prices, for example. So there's all these sorts of you know extra issues. So my sense is actually be a little bit higher than that, even in terms of the food price increases.

Ash Sweeting 31:41

This is you know uh the rises in food price and the inflation is something that is you know, it's a big issue. Everyone everyone eats and everyone has to eat. And do you think it is getting anywhere near the attention in the media, in in government elsewhere that it that it actually needs?

SPEAKER_00 32:05

I don't think so. I mean you see you do see some attention, but um it typically it's typically in the certain sector of the media that reports on climate change and the environment anyway. Um so to some extent you're only talking to people who are paying attention. Um you do see, you know, obviously you see the call, you know, the reporting for sort of agricultural intelligence firms and things. So you do see that sort of stuff. Um, but no, I mean, in short, it's kind of remarkable that something that's so destabilizing is not being talked about more often. And it's certainly not being talked about when you see the food articles out there. So there's a lot of understanding that, yeah, the food system is is is is incredibly unhealthy, you know, and that is causing all these health problems. But that should really be being linked as well to climate change and the health problems from climate change, but also the ways in which the food system needs to change to cope with these impacts from climate change. The one thing I didn't mention just then was, you know, a lot of those models also don't take into account heat stress on livestock, for example. So, you know, you've got the impacts on the feed, but then you've also got the impacts on the livestock. Um, and so you know, that's for one reason that on the whole, we've seen a slightly higher inflation in animal source foods than we have in um crops, uh plant-based foods uh recently, because obviously you're passing through those cost increases through through the chain. Um, but no, it's it's it's incredible to me that we're not talking about this more because a lot of this also is quite near term in the sense that it's not going to be the end of the world near term near term, um, and it's not gonna um necessarily be you know political instability in high income countries in the near term. But it does have an impact on strikes, for example. You know, if you look at the UK, we had lots of strikes a couple of years back. This was driven by cost of living going up. People couldn't afford, in the public sector, they couldn't afford the basics. And when you look at the amount of inflation that climate drove through that period um of several years, uh, some estimates suggest about a third of the food price inflation was driven by climate change. So you could say that some percentage of that societal stress and the political problems that came from that was driven by climate change, but we're not talking about that.

Ash Sweeting 34:22

When I think of food price hikes and instability, two events come to mind. One is the 1917 St. Petersburg red protests, which led to the collapse of the Tsar and the formation of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, etc. etc. So not insignificant. And the other is the Arab Spring, which is much more recent, which obviously the upheaval in Egypt and across North Africa, as well as Syria, the rise of ISIS, um the empowerment of of Putin, um, and all those those uh challenges we're currently facing. So the impacts of food price inflation can be can be huge and very hard to unwind.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Absolutely. And if you look at the food price crisis of the you know of 2008 uh and that food price crisis, you know, again you see the political disability and rising in uh say in middle-income countries, um, and then total political instability in low-income countries, you've just mentioned, uh Syria, for example. Um, and in high income countries, you see the strikes, you see the societal stress, but you know, it's come it, you know, eventually it will get there for higher income countries too, um, is my feeling on that. I mean, it's hard, you know, be silly to try and uh project too much about the future. Um, but you know, you affect food prices, you really do undermine the entire political space. Um, if you look at uh the recent uh American election, one of the things that was discussed over and over and over again was inflation and the cost of living. So you know, this is and and when it comes to food, it's even more important for a lot of people, uh, quite understandably, of course.

Ash Sweeting 36:13

And and you you know that cost of living crisis is is a headline um topic in across Australia, across Europe, across here in North America, and you know, there's been so many elections in the last last 12 months, but um I'm not gonna name them all, but cost of living has been a major, major driver of how people are choosing to select elect their leaders as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

And and this is kind of you know, we often talk, you know, people some people talk about the poly crisis, some people talk about all these multiple, but this is how all these things interact together, you know, um, because you if you start to see that, then you start to see these sort of populist uh reactions, um, you start to see um people reaching for solutions, either to hold on to the current system or to shift to their idea of what the current the future system needs to look like, or just trying things, Helman Aries, you know. And then what you see is somebody, say, like Trump coming in, um, somewhat of a disaster so far in terms of the uh civil service, you know, uh firing a bunch of air traffic controllers uh and then having to rehire them. Um the the I mean the list goes on and on. In terms of the food space, you look at uh people who are being fired uh from monitoring bird flu, uh people being fired from the USDA. Um and all of that is sort of interconnected uh with this cost of living. I mean, if that is the broader impact, if that was the broader stress that brought Trump to power, then again you can say that this is actually a feedback with climate change, that it this affects our social systems too, and then makes us less able to cope with the climate changes that we're going to get in the future. Another really good example is uh Trump getting rid of um NOAA, which is the major organization for providing weather forecasts for farmers. And if those farmers don't have those weather forecasts, you know, you can imagine their yields take a little bit of a dip because they're never they're not quite able to uh plan uh as much as they would have done. And then you see even more food price inflation, you see more panic, you see even more people reaching uh for maybe the strongman for the uh extreme um solutions uh that um or so-called solutions that politicians would like to give. So, you know, you can see how these things are interact interacting together at the moment. And it's quite worrying for me because I mean this can this can actually cause where it's quite difficult to recover from. Because as you start to sap society's ability to cope with these things, um, then you you're you're unable to respond to those changes and adapt to those changes. So I think this is one of the things that's been sort of a little bit disappointing recently, is not more um ambition for the food system, uh, for how to make it more resilient, for how to make it healthier for people, because this is the kind of um response that we need, the level of response that we need for the level of threat that we're experiencing.

Ash Sweeting 39:19

I think that word resilience is something that is probably not focused on enough because going back right to the beginning where we were talking about with you know having more roots in the soil, having more water in the soil, having that protection from extreme weather against um or storm or flooding, um having that biodiversity, all those things add resilience to the system.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Yeah, precisely. And that's what that's that's why I see in terms of the agricultural system that we have at the moment, I my my feeling is one way or another, we're very likely to go more plant-based. So that's not necessarily saying all the way plant-based. It's just saying that we're going to go more plant-based. And the reason is because the current system takes up so many resources, so much land, so many inputs, so much labor, so much assets, so much, et cetera, et cetera. And we actually also work on the asset side of things. So we look at how much what assets are required to produce different types of food. Uh, we will work on what kind of labor, what kind of income people to get for that food. Um, and you just see that it's not working. It's a it's a massively expansive system that's incredibly wasteful. And the the system that we're sort of talking about in terms of shifting towards more uh plant-based foods, at least in high-income countries, makes that system much smaller. And so it gives you this headroom, it gives you this space where you can respond. As I mentioned before, you can you can either keep some land in production and then when you do get hit by lower yields, you've at least got those that product there, you know, it's not going to hit prices as much. Uh or if it's bringing back nature to help you deal with the climate impacts, or to or to help uh with the mental health or the uh physical health uh of people, which again are it also impacted by climate change. So it just it just gives you that space to respond, it gives you that resilience. It also gives the options for the farmers because if you are able to save that land, then farmers are able to sort of look at more diverse intercropping, as I mentioned before, uh, more sort of diverse foods, which also provide a greater potential for absorbing these impacts. You know, you lose one crop here, but you don't lose that crop over there, that sort of thing.

Ash Sweeting 41:37

It's very well documented that when people move from lower income up to higher income and have more disposable income, they one of the first things they do uh is increase the quality of protein and purchase more or consume more animal-based protein. And with all that price inflation and other inflation uh and the cost of living crisis, that's essentially you could say reversing that process. So, do you see that as a mechanism that you know when people, you know, and you you do hear about people who are more struggling, whether it be in the UK or or here in the US or in Australia, that you know, they they can't just walk around the supermarket and buy the things they want. They've got to be much more price conscious. And is there any evidence that the animal-based protein, which is generally the more expensive items on their shopping list, are some of the first casualties when people come under that impact, that income stress?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah, well, I think, yeah, it's a great question. I think I think important to state first that you can get lots of really quality uh proteins that are actually, you know, on the whole, healthier for you uh from plant-based proteins. Um it's just that we haven't really engaged in that uh as a sort of society as something that we've sort of looked at because it's been seen as a uh, you know, meat has been seen as a luxury good for so long, you know, and it's a and it and it's essentially sort of um, you know, a luxury can't afford under climate change, but also a luxury that necessarily we necessarily don't want because at the level that we're eating it, uh it's killing us in high income nations. Um so yeah, um so in terms of like the sort of aspiration of this and then this this dietary transition, this is this is often called a nutrition transition, as you go from um lower income up to higher income. What you actually see, yeah, you increase you see this increase in in meat consumption. Partly that's driven by the ideas of what a rich life looks like. You know, um, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Um it's often what was easiest in terms of the protein that you could get was going to be from animals. Um uh but it does, you know, there are plenty of different options as I've mentioned. So I think you know, as we see this shift, and what you see at the sort of the the sort of the the end stage of the nutrition transition is you actually then see also a reduction. Reduction in unhealthy foods. So there's an idea that the stage five of this nutrition transition is sort of like a more like a sort of where the Nordics are trying to go. Sort of very active population, cleaner air, cleaner water, you know, lower alcohol consumption, lower, you know, smoking, et cetera. You know, talking about, you know, broadly health, and also reductions in meat products and sugary products, and a move towards sort of more a whole food sort of plant-based diet. And we just got to somehow sort of get to that stage faster so that we don't all do all do the damage in the interim. And that's kind of the that's that's the real challenge, is then how fast does that diffuse uh you know across the high-income world, which then offers an opportunity for middle and low-income countries to develop those um sort of agricultural systems as well. So yeah, I mean it it it is it is tricky, and there is evidence that as prices go up, um, meat is the first one that comes off the table. Um, because it is, as you say, you know, though the those those uh those meat products are typically uh quite expensive in in shops. It depends where you are in the world. And so we're we're talking very broadly in this conversation often. I'm sort of thinking about Europe here, but you know, especially certainly in the UK, it's more expensive products.

Ash Sweeting 45:26

We've spoken a lot about the the richer part of the world, um, the OECD countries. What about the non-OECD countries? Because firstly, I guess that's where the vast majority of population growth is currently on going, and also the vast majority of people transitioning from lower income up into middle income is also happening in those parts of the world. So, how do you see the the food system challenges? And also many of those countries are also in areas that are more heavily impacted by climate change as well. So, what are the challenges there?

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah, well, I I think just on the population growth, um, there's sort of very few areas still growing, which is you know interesting to see. Uh, India is already below the replacement rate. So India from from now on, the women are having fewer children uh than necessary to replace the population. China's already at something like uh 1.4 babies per woman. Uh uh, I think it's somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6. Um what that means is you know, every every every woman has to have about 2.1 babies per woman to actually maintain the population. So we're seeing a massive reduction in the uh population this century. So just on the on the growing side, but there are sort of areas that are still growing. Um, although my um my opinion is actually we will continue to revise down the total population that we expect on the planet, um, because there's these feedbacks between climate, there's these feedbacks between climate concern as well, and we will see lower peak population than we thought uh sort of say 10 years ago. And the UN has already had to uh revise its uh maximum um population estimates uh because of these changes. Um having said that, you know, if we're looking into sort of uh lower income countries and middle income countries, I think it's not sort of good for us to be saying what's right for people. I think we should be saying these are the options that you have, you know. So this is the these are the options that you have on the ground. Um, and we should be setting an example in the sense that you know, we in the high-income countries are causing a lot of the damage. And we we we we provide a lot a lot of the idea of what a good life looks like. And so, you know, I do think the responsibility is very much on us, um, and also to help facilitate middle and lower income countries in taking pathways that are good for them, you know. So um, you know, if that's if there's increases in livestock, you know, that that's totally fine, you know, uh, but to be giving options. The worry that I have is that you're seeing a very large push by very powerful multinationals um to increase livestock for their own reasons in uh uh all the way across the world. So they see you know these markets expanding uh and then being able to sell more into these markets. And so these are the big agricultural producers, um, the big names, you know, carg gill, tyson, all the all the rest of it. And they see these as an area of market expansion. So whilst they fight a sort of uh a rearguard action in high-income countries trying to misform consumers about um the benefits of moving towards more plant-based uh diets, whole food plant-based diets, um, they're then looking at markets overseas. It's not actually too dissimilar to tobacco. We've seen this big drop in smoking in high-income countries, yet a big uptick in lower and middle-income countries as those companies have then pivoted. They fought for as long as they could in high-income nations, and now they've pivoted to lower middle-income nations. And that's similar for other um industries too. So I think that that's extremely concerning. And if you um really want to help there, is you want to give lots of the different options that we can help with in terms of technology transfer, in terms of um new varietals, in terms of uh options for farming um in those countries that are very specific to those areas. Um, one thing I would finally say on this is that we did a um study last year where we asked uh a number of agricultural and climate experts around the world what kind of reductions in livestock will we need to meet Paris targets? Um, and they said sort of a 60% reduction by about 2036 for a 1.5 degree target. Um now, what was interesting is when you asked the uh the experts, you know, who needs to go first, or is there should there be any change, or should we just do this broadly over the world, the experts are almost unanimous in saying, no, you know, high income nations go first, and then much, much later down the road, you know, we're talking decades down the road, uh, lower income nations. So this idea that you know that there's this idea that everybody has to change at once is just is just false.

Ash Sweeting 50:24

So in terms of that impact, there's there's uh the reducing numbers, but there's also reducing the footprint from so is the major issue with the livestock the methane? Is it the fact that they're the land use is can we just unpack that a little bit uh in terms of where the issues and where the priorities are and and how how they are interrelated?

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Absolutely, yeah. So glad you asked that. Yeah, so there's this concept called the planetary boundaries, uh, and these are different environmental crises or issues, let's just say, that if we go beyond a certain level, we threaten the fundamental stability of the planet to provide for us. And if we look across those planetary boundaries, there's things like climate change. Now, climate change is um, you know, agriculture is the second largest driver of climate change. And within that, animal agriculture is something around the order of 60% of that. Then you look at um biodiversity loss, that's another um planetary boundary. If you look within that, agriculture is driving about 90% of that, and about 80% of that, 80% of that is driven by animal agriculture again. If you look at land system change, it's the biggest driver of that, agriculture in terms of uh deforestry. And again, it's a similar sort of proportion for animal agriculture. If you look at freshwater change, um agriculture again is the biggest driver of freshwater change. There, animal agriculture is a little bit lower. Um, if you look at nitrogen and you look at nutrients uh and nutrient flows, agriculture is the biggest driver again there, and animal agriculture is the biggest driver of that, again, about sort of that 80% level. So if you look across all of these planetary boundaries, it's the biggest driver in those, in many of those, those areas. If you take on top of that again, certainly in terms of industrial agriculture, um, it's you know the biggest driver of zoonotic diseases uh and the biggest driver of antimicrobial resistance in terms of how much uh antimicrobial resistance that we're seeing. So if we look across sort of the perspective there, then you're looking at a system that's driving a lot of the environmental um problems that we're seeing, and then also some of these public health issues. Now, it's not the case that all animals and all types of animal production is contributing the same. You know, of course, if we're looking at land use change, then it's things like the ranching in the Amazon or the soil that's being cut down for um feed in other countries. If you look at um zoonotic diseases, it's the intensive animal agriculture. So it's different sort of things wherever you look. And I think that one of the key messages I think is that you know, if we are going to get to this more resilient future that we're talking about, um if if you're sort of um interested in regenerative animal agriculture, if you're interested in these mixed systems where you have some animals on the land and you want to use them as part of that system, then you're just gonna need far, far fewer than we do today. So it's fine if you want to have those animals on the land in the sense that, you know, environmentally, if you look at the modeling, it you know, it's fine if you want some, but it's gonna be a big reduction. And so even if you are interested in mixed livestock systems like that, you still have to be for the dietary transition. Because otherwise, if you reduce your livestock and you don't change the way in which people eat and what they demand, then that livestock's going to be produced somewhere else, potentially with even worse impacts. So everybody should be for this, is basically uh the issue, except for potentially the um the lot the big livestock industries.

Ash Sweeting 54:13

If my my understanding is that the it's our society that drives our food system rather than the other way around. So we've got very industrialized people living in cities, they're you know, they their food comes from the supermarket and they're purchasing, and obviously this is impacted by marketing and a whole bunch of things like that, but that purchasing power is what sends the price signals all the way down, and the farmers frequently they're price takers, they don't have a lot of market power. So do you think, you know, whilst we have such an industrial society that's so frequently so disconnected from its food systems, do you think that adds to the challenges in trying to change the way food is grown and and those production practices to make them less about producing as much cheap food as possible and more about producing food in as as a sustainable way as possible and healthier food?

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think that it's more the food environment than than than you would than you would but maybe attribute. And that food environment is shaped by all sorts of different commercial uh interests. And so the food that is available to us now is very, very different to even 10 years ago. And the food that's available now is you know generally uh providing more uh profits for companies that are selling those foods in in those supermarkets. So I actually think it's more about the food on the shelves and what's on offer than necessarily it is about um consumer demand, raw consumer demand, although I think that you know consumer demand obviously plays part of it. But consumer demand is just totally shaped by advertising and by what's on offer, either in restaurants or in supermarkets and the prices that things are sold at in terms of you know, a lot of supermarkets do loss leaders, for example, or buy in bulk, or you know, and we know that this is really bad. I mean, if we just focus on, say, for example, um, you know, obesity, for example, and the overconsumption of sugars, we know that companies have got really, really good at finding the sort of perfect level of fats, sugars, and salts to make things hyper palatable. And you know, often this is in sort of uh so-called you know, ultra-processed foods. Um, and that's kind of hacking people's, you know, receptors in a sense, because what it's doing is it's telling the body, yeah, you know, I you know, I love this, I'm gonna overeat this and create more profits for this for this company. So actually, I I think there's a clear role for um regulatory intervention. I mean, there is already, I mean, it just if you have a look at what the food system looks like, it is largely an outcome of sort of the sort of regulations or lack thereof that we have in the system. So at the moment, it's already a system that's heavily um sort of um directed in that way. Um so yeah, I mean, and um I think like if you were to look at some of the ways in which we've seen systemic changes in the past, what you see is early adopters, uh, then that starts to expand as you start to have more options. As you start more options, people in the middle of the road start to adopt. And then you start to see more and more uptake of a new fad or a new um, you know, habit, basically. And if you look at the literature on this, if you look at societal norms, which is a lot more deeper than a fad, I mean, it's something that stays with society. If you look at societal norms, for example, there's research that suggests by the time a minority becomes about 15 to 40 percent of the population, you can actually see much larger shifts in the majority adoption of things. And this is kind of true for food systems more generally. I mean, you know, things like sort of um, you know, um cauliflower or uh broccoli or banana, I mean, these things have changed color over decades, you know. Uh, you know, we just accept new things, you know. People were weren't eating smashed avocado on toast or whatever it is, uh, you know, uh 20 years ago. And so we actually do see these shifts uh faster uh than you would think. And I think it's a lot of people, it's quite interesting when you talk to them. A lot of people may may are interested in cutting down. There's if you look into the sort of surveys on this in the UK, the support is actually about you know double what you would think it would be for various environmental you know interventions. So, for example, something like sort of 56% of people would support more plant options than cutting down on animal source foods, you know. Um, and so there's quite a lot, there's quite a lot of support there, but the food environment doesn't enable it. You know, I was in a shop yesterday and I was on my way back and I was really starving, and I couldn't, I had I went in to have a look for something. I couldn't see a single sort of plant-based sandwich available, and then I finally found one. So I had one option, wasn't great, you know. So I really I I I sort of think it's not all on the consumer like that.

Ash Sweeting 59:22

Oh, I wasn't blaming. It was more the it was I'm I'm not I'm not putting the blame on the consumer. I think it was more um the way a science society has evolved, the disengagement of the vast majority of the people with the food systems, the the fact that the the I guess the disproportionate power that the the major food of supermarkets, etc., have and the the consumers, you know, if you're if you're you know when you look at um consumption of fresh vegetables and and what we would call the the healthiest uh foods, you know, it's disproportionately high in the most wealthy uh sectors of the society. And likewise um farmers are frequently not very empowered to actually you know their their price takers. And um there was an interview I was told about whether there was a French farmer who was simultaneously, you know, complaining about the impacts or talking about the impacts of climate change on his on his farm and how that was squeezing his ability to produce food and also complaining about low prices that he was getting for his food that he was producing and just feeling this squeeze between two different things that he has no control over. Um but by it goes back to that resilience by everything funneling through um these these middle middlemen for one of a sense um want a better term, you're you're keeping those those two groups of people, the farmers and the the consumers separated, and you are they've got a disproportionate amount of power and yeah, their businesses and their businesses are driven by their ability to put margin on products.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

I yeah, I mean I to yeah, totally agree. I mean, the fact that we're sort of more not outraged by the food environment that we're in is quite astonishing once once you see it. But I you know, I think only education can go so far. And um, so I think we have to address where the real issue is, as I'm saying, and that's in the middle of the supply chain there. It's not with the farmers, it's not with the consumers, uh, you know, it's with the middle of the supply chain. You can do so much on the edges of the supply chain, but it's in the middle there. And I think that it's important to call that out. I think farmers for a long time have been upset, you know, with the prices that they're being paid, and quite rightly. Um when you look at the breakdown of the value add, often the, you know, they think it's more the supermarkets that are driving their prices down. Um, actually, there's also quite a lot of value add in the processors. So if you look across the supply chain, you know, the processes are taking what, about 50, 50, 60% of the value add. So these are the sort of the big Nestle's and products and package projects that you get at the end of the uh at the end of the supply chain. And um ultimately this is a case again of uh vested interest and state capture on this. And it's been very, very difficult to even get sugar uh you know uh regulations through. Um and um, you know, that's something that loads of people on, you know, almost the majority of people uh are on board with. Um but it's very, very difficult because you see you you're fighting these very these large vested interests. And certainly in the UK, one of the ways in which they actually brought in a sugar reformulation tax, which is still comes up for debate every now and then that maybe we should get rid of it or something, um, one of the ways in which that happened was that they didn't involve the uh sugar lobby in the discussions. Um, you know, and if they had, I wonder whether it would have gone through. So yeah, I do think that that's the case. I think this idea that um consumers are separated from agriculture um is part of it, but I don't think it's part of the a big part of the solution. You know, I think that local food production is good for its own rights, for social uh integration, for uh feeling of um well-being, mental health. But I my feeling is it would never really scale to the level that you would need to have some large sort of revolution in people's minds as consumers.

Ash Sweeting 1:03:28

No, that makes the the the logistics of that are just just don't don't work. Um before we go, is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't already discussed?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

Um yeah, I no no, I think we've I think we've talked about uh quite covered quite a lot here. Um I think that um this g this period of geopolitical stability um and instability um is really where a lot of the opportunities come for reshaping the food system uh as we realize that things really just have to change. And so that's incumbent upon all the experts involved in that transition to help clearly articulate what a more resilient, uh beneficial food future would look like. Um, and if we can get to the level where people understand what that food system broadly looks like, we can debate about sort of various issues of the amount of livestock in that future system. But if we can broadly agree that we need big reductions, um, certainly in high income nations, then at least socially we'll be ready to cope with those cost price increases and have an answer, which will then bring cost pri cost down for people.

Ash Sweeting 1:04:46

Thank you very much, Paul. Thank you for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Thanks very much, Ash. It was a great conversation.

Ash Sweeting 1:04:52

Thank you for listening to the AshCloud. Please subscribe to AshCloud if you've enjoyed this podcast, where I will continue to discuss food sustainability with guests who bring a deep understanding of the environmental, political, and cultural challenges facing our society and creative ideas on how to address them.