This contribution is from The Vegan Society, led by Head of Campaigns, Policy and Research Claire Ogley ([email protected]), with AC Baker.
In summary: The vested interests in the industrial animal farming system are a huge barrier to efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.
The scale, complexity and speed of the necessary agrifood policy and practice transition requires fully-funded and consistent leadership from Global North Governments and Intergovernmental Organisations.
Policymakers must fund traditionally marginalized voices, including small-scale, Indigenous and plant-based agrifood stakeholders to assess the evidence, to update the policies, and to co-ordinate the implementation of the efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood system policies too.
The language and culture of Global North 'science and innovation' can directly and actively, exclude Indigenous and small-scale practitioners, community members, activists, and traditional knowledge. We need to be alert to the contradiction in the following statement: “While science is fundamentally important, the Strategy also recognizes the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and small-scale producers as an important source of innovation for agrifood systems.”
Whose norms are used to establish 'credibility' of evidence? How are 'rigor' and 'neutrality' defined? Whose knowledge is included, and who is excluded e.g. stock-growers, permaculture based upon Indigenous farming?
This is key learning, to quote this call for contributions: “Decades of development efforts around the world have shown that narrow approaches and technological quick-fixes do not work, especially in the long-term.”
The Strategy emphasizes guiding principles: rights-based and people-centered; gender-equal; evidence-based; needs-driven; sustainability-aligned; risk-informed; and ethics-based.
Our guiding principles must include the rights, needs, and ethical relationships of all, including all people, and with all free-living and artificially bred animals.
Complexities and practical problems
We have some knowledge of how agrifood systems policy is enacted, but the systems are hugely opaque, complex and surrounded by barriers at every level.
We have some awareness of opportunities to contribute. But the resources of time, and thus money, required to have your knowledge, evidence and research incorporated into agrifood systems policy are huge.
Knowledge and evidence which confirms the status quo, or only slightly changes it, are greatly privileged in current processes.
Knowledge and evidence which challenges the status quo faces huge barriers from the vested interests who are benefiting from how things currently work. Also, someone who is representing a large organisation, who has generally supported the status quo, and/or who has consistently had access to significant resources (time, money, land, staff etc.) is hugely privileged in agrifood systems policy at local, national, regional and global levels.
A current example are moves in various countries and regions by the industrial animal farming lobby to place restrictions on the labelling of plant-based foods. If food policy knowledge and evidence was neutral and transparent, no one would be suggesting such restrictions. Empirical research (e.g. published & summarised here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3727710, https://proveg.com/press-release/new-reports-reveal-best-ways-to-label-…) demonstrates that most people understand that both traditional and newer products can accurate be described as vegan-friendly animal-free, plant-based meat, sausages, burgers, butter, cheese, milk, eggs etc. Leaving out these food description words on appropriate plant-based products is what seems to cause people confusion when they are buying food. Agrifood policymakers should actively support the use of these food description words, which have been used for example to describe coconut meat, soya milk, peanut butter, damson cheese and so on for decades or even centuries.
Current weaknesses in processes
The biggest weakness of the current processes is the power of vested interests, particularly large-scale animal food industries, to stop sustainable plant-based land management and food systems.
For example: Canada is a world-leader in legume growing. The country has invested strongly in legume farming, including diversified legume cropping & improved legume cultivars since the 1970s. The Pulse Canada organisation of farmers and exporters now has an ambitious “25 by 2025” strategy, to get 25% of pulse production into new, higher value markets by 2025.
https://www.foodincanada.com/features/exporting-canadian-value-added-pu…
In Canada, about 20% of arable land is now in crop rotations including legumes. In contrast, the figure is only about 1% across Europe. Meanwhile, Europe imports vast quantities of soya beans for animal feed from South America, driving Amazon deforestation.
So, we must critically examine the question, given Canada’s work, why hasn’t global food policy and practice also focused on pulses for the past 50 years? There are pulses which are suitable for high-value food uses which grow well in many of the global agricultural climate zones.
The vested interests in the industrial animal farming system are a huge barrier to efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.
Opportunities and challenges
There are many serious barriers to drawing from sustainability science, interdisciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity to inform policy.
Over the past ten years, food policy experts have increasingly urgently explained the opportunities that plant-based farming, food manufacturing and diets offer for creating an efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood system.
One of the main challenges has been the lack of leadership from Global North Governments in using agricultural subsidies, public procurement and other huge policy and finance levers to make this potential, reality. At the moment, a relatively small proportion of people who have the personal resources to make more sustainable food choices, along with relatively well-financed interested businesses driving innovation within plant-based food. However, we need to move further, faster to achieve sustainable transition to end multiple crises including: catastrophic climate change; malnutrition and food insecurity; destruction of free-living animals and the biodiverse habitats which support them; and the daily suffering of thousands of millions of farmed animals. The scale, complexity and speed of the necessary agrifood policy and practice transition requires fully-funded and consistent leadership from Global North Governments and Intergovernmental Organisations.
We are left with a ‘wicked problem’ with complex interdependences. Land managers, food businesses, and all of us as people who eat, are unable to bring about the efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood system without co-ordination. Action and academic research, and policy development, remain locked into the industrial animal-based inefficient, exclusive, fragile and unsustainable agrifood model of the twentieth century.
Ending Power Asymmetries
Money is time is power. Substantial financial redistribution has to be part of the solution. People need money to access land to do the action research required to demonstrate efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood systems. Substantial grant funding to small-scale practitioners will empower them to also hire the staff to collate, assess, and repeatedly present the evidence to policy makers that comes from practical experimentation 'in the field'. Agrifood stakeholders need substantial transitional funding to escape from industrial animal-based systems, along the lines of the transitional funding that some Organic producers can access.
Alongside funding, stakeholders need policymakers to actively listen to, believe, and act upon the vast existing evidence from people who are already involved in sustainable agrifood. This means policymakers must be committed to consistently challenging the vested interests so we can dismantle the current inefficient, exclusive, fragile and unsustainable industrial animal-based agrifood system.
Knowledge Production
We keep in contact with land managers, food producers and grassroots food needs, particularly in the UK & the EU. We mostly do not undertake primary research, we commission and synthesize evidence relevant to plant-based efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. Our Grow Green policy series: https://www.vegansociety.com/take-action/campaigns/grow-green/policy-ma… including our Planting Value in Our Food System report, is based upon primary research with agrifood system stakeholders: https://www.plantingvalueinfood.org/ and has extensive science-based policy recommendations. Although focused upon the UK, many of these policy points adapt well to other temperate zones, and much of the Global North.
Large, well-funded industrial animal-based agrifood organisations have a disproportionate influence on research questions across the board.
There is a growing convergence between researchers and high-level global policymakers (including various UN bodies) that efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems must be plant-based. However, policymakers at local, national and regional level are continuing to be disproportionately swayed by industrial animal-based agrifood organisations.
Our work is intrinsically trans-disciplinary and inclusive of action research by practitioners: we envision a completely plant-based society, free of animal (ab)use. This must be founded upon a plant-based agrifood system. Indigenous Peoples had inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems for millennia before the Global North created the industrial animal-based agrifood system. Small-scale producers including Indigenous People are re-creating inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems almost every microclimate. The work of small-scale and Indigenous land managers is indispensable for efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood systems.
We keep in contact with land managers, food producers and grassroots food needs, particularly in the UK & the EU. We mostly do not undertake primary research, we synthesize evidence relevant to plant-based efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. Our Grow Green policy series: https://www.vegansociety.com/take-action/campaigns/grow-green/policy-ma… including Planting Value in Our Food system which is based upon primary research with agrifood system stakeholders: https://www.plantingvalueinfood.org/ has extensive science-based policy recommendations. Although focused upon the UK, many of these policy points adapt well to other temperate zones, and much of the Global North.
Knowledge translation
A key purpose of The Vegan Society is to synthesize and share knowledge of plant-based efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems to all relevant audiences.
Our Policy Team works with our Research Team and our Business Development Team to continually find new ways to share plant-based agrifood system knowledge and innovation. The Vegan Society has a Research Advisory Committee (https://www.vegansociety.com/get-involved/research/who-we-are) of about 30 people who conduct and share academic and other research, give specialist advice, act as peer reviewers, recommend peer-reviewed evidence, and otherwise support our agrifood and other work. We also have a Researcher Network (https://www.vegansociety.com/get-involved/research/researcher-network), which is also open to independent, early career and postgraduate student researchers conducting any relevant research. The Researcher Network community of about 45 people helps create and strength knowledge sharing between agrifood researchers and agrifood practitioners working independently or in organisations. We work with about 40 UK and 10 non-UK Universities through these groups. We published about 25 Research News articles (https://www.vegansociety.com/get-involved/research/research-news). The most popular of these articles was the psychology of veganism and why people adopt or drop plant-based eating patterns. We have also looked at plant-based nutrition in dietetic clinical practice. We also had nine episodes of our ‘On the Pulse’ Webinars in 2022, where researchers share their knowledge with other researchers as well as the wider interested community such as land managers, farmers, foresters, food manufacturers, retailers and vegans (https://www.vegansociety.com/get-involved/research/pulse-webinars). We usually have one or two active research collaboration projects underway too.
Our registration system, The Vegan Trademark (https://www.vegansociety.com/the-vegan-trademark), is run by people with expert knowledge of the practicalities of plant-based products including food and drink. Our Senior Management Team regularly attend networking events for the agrifood system, including international events such as the UN IPCC Climate Change COP26 in Glasgow in 2022.
The work is its own incentive: This is the core role for our Policy Team, and fundamental to how their work is appraised and assessed each year.
Our Research and Policy Teams collaborate with a wider Research Advisory Committee and Research Network. We are in constant dialogue, including about research and policy on plant-based agrifood systems. We regularly have external researchers briefing us on recent advances, and consult them in turn for policy input.
We produce briefings for policymakers working in agrifood about how plant-based land management, food systems and industrial supply can support work to end the ongoing harms of the climate, biodiversity, public health and malnourishment crises. We work with our Research Advisory Committee and Researcher Networks (c. 75 people across c. 50 institutions) to identify gaps in knowledge around plant-based agrifood system, and complete the research needed to fill them. We produce concept reports to synthesize existing knowledge on plant-based agrifood systems, targeted to specific audiences.
Our Grow Green project, reports and campaigns aim to change agrifood policy. The United Nations agrees, no sector can be ignored if we are to achieve climate change targets. Therefore, agrifood policy at every level must fully address the harmful impacts of a century of industrial animal-based farming. The health, environmental, and ethical case for a shift from animal protein to plant protein diets is widely documented. We address why this transition is not yet rapid enough, and what policies could catalyse the needed changes. https://www.vegansociety.com/take-action/campaigns/grow-green
This includes our landmark, ‘Planting Value in Our Food’ system project and report, which is based upon primary research with agrifood system stakeholders: https://www.plantingvalueinfood.org/ has extensive science-based policy recommendations.
In 2022, our Policy Team responded to numerous agrifood consultations run by the Welsh, Scottish, UK and EU Government, as well as agrifood non- and inter-governmental organisations. With our Business team, we also engage with industry consultations.
We contextualise evidence on plant-based agrifood systems for equity in many contexts including land management, food security, public health, and freedom for non-human animals.
Assessing evidence
What makes evidence credible, relevant and legitimate? These are subjective criteria: People rate as more credible, relevant and legitimate evidence which corresponds to their existing values systems, and existing knowledge of agrifood systems. However, people tend to frame such assessments as ‘objective’, to avoid cognitive dissonance. when our conscious attitudes, and our past, current and planned behaviours, and our beliefs about the world and ourselves, clash with new information, we tend to reject the new information.
However, it is a widely held ethical belief that it is wrong to cause harm unnecessarily. We are particularly ethically repelled by causing unnecessary suffering – that is, harm that is experienced by people or animals. Yet our whole current industrial animal-based agrifood system is founded upon suffering and harm. We know that agrifood has to change to avert the ongoing harms of the climate, biodiversity, public health and malnourishment crises. We know that thousands of millions of people and animals are currently suffering in the agrifood system. But we all need to and deserve to eat, to eat well, and to eat food that we enjoy.
So, every time we eat, if we are facing up to the realities of the current agrifood system, we are liable to feel painful or even paralysing cognitive dissonance. We are ‘good’ people actively, daily participating in a ‘wicked problem’ (Churchman C. W. (1967). "Wicked Problems” https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.14.4.B141).
Not everything that is faced can be changed; But nothing can be changed until it is faced, as James Baldwin said. Land managers, food businesses, and all of us as people who eat, have to learn to face the true harms of our agrifood system to bring about the efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood system which can end those harms.
We need a critical mass of agrifood stakeholders to absorb, not simply state, the harms of the current system. The Table Debates organisation is actively researching how to move beyond this deadlock, for example in their "Gut feelings ..: (where) does animal farming fit?" paper. https://www.tabledebates.org/node/12341
Money is time is power. Policymakers must fund traditionally marginalized voices, including small-scale, Indigenous and plant-based agrifood stakeholders to assess the evidence, to update the policies, and to co-ordinate the implementation of the efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood system policies too. We approached two highly respected UK-based practicing stock-free farmers, neither who had the capacity to contribute to this consultation without being paid.
Substantial financial redistribution has to be part of the solution. People need money to access land to do the action research required to demonstrate the necessary agrifood system changes. Agrifood stakeholders need substantial transitional funding to escape from industrial animal-based systems, along the lines of the transitional funding that some Organic producers can access.
Alongside funding, stakeholders need policymakers to actively listen to, believe, and act upon the vast existing evidence from people who are already involved in sustainable agrifood. This means policymakers must be committed to consistently challenging the vested interests so we can dismantle the current inefficient, exclusive, fragile and unsustainable industrial animal-based agrifood system
We are most likely to believe new evidence that comes to us from trusted peer sources. We are most likely to believe new evidence that comes to us from trusted peer sources. Policymakers must fund traditionally marginalized voices, including small-scale, Indigenous and plant-based agrifood stakeholders to co-ordinate the communication of implementation of the evidence and techniques required for efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood systems.
Agrifood stakeholders need substantial transitional funding to implement evidence and change. This is necessary for them to escape from industrial animal-based systems, along the lines of the transitional funding that some Organic producers can access.
The most influential agrifood system stakeholders, including funders, land owners, large animal-based organisations and policymakers must be committed to dismantling the current inefficient, exclusive, fragile and unsustainable industrial animal-based agrifood system.
Examples of translating knowledge to policy
The Vegan Society Public Relations, Policy and Research Teams have been reviewing, collating, generating and sharing plant-based agrifood system knowledge with policymakers for many years. Most recently:
- Our Grow Green project, reports and campaigns aim to change agrifood policy. The United Nations agrees, no sector can be ignored if we are to achieve climate change targets. Therefore, agrifood policy at every level must fully address the harmful impacts of a century of industrial animal-based farming. The health, environmental, and ethical case for a shift from animal protein to plant protein diets is widely documented. We address why this transition is not yet rapid enough, and what policies could catalyse the needed changes. https://www.vegansociety.com/take-action/campaigns/grow-green
- Our Planting Value in Our Food system project and report, which is based upon primary research with agrifood system stakeholders: https://www.plantingvalueinfood.org/ has extensive science-based policy recommendations.
- The Vegan Society Policy Team have responded to around 14 Consultations in 2022 at EU, UK, and UK Nation Region levels relating to the agrifood system: EU Sustainable Food System; EU Forestry; EU Soil health; EU School Fruit, Vegetables & Milk scheme; EU Waste Regulations; EU alcoholic drinks labelling; UK 2030 World Climate & Nature Strategy; UK Food Standards Agency Precautionary Allergen Labelling; UK Bread & Flour Regulations; England Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board reform; England Dept. Health & Social Care Vitamin D; England Public Sector food; Scotland Land Reform; Scotland Agriculture.
The impacts of such work are notoriously hard to quantify without dedicated financial investment in monitoring. However, as part of the wider plant-based agrifood system movement since 1944, we have moved the policy debate and agrifood practice forward significantly.
For example, the EU's strategy, ‘Creating a sustainable food system’ now explicitly recognises that, “Although EU agriculture is the only major farm sector worldwide to have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions (by 20% since 1990), it still accounts for about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions (of which 70% are due to animals).” https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200519STO794…).
In summary: The vested interests in the industrial animal farming system are a huge barrier to efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.
The scale, complexity and speed of the necessary agrifood policy and practice transition requires fully-funded and consistent leadership from Global North Governments and Intergovernmental Organisations.
Policymakers must fund traditionally marginalized voices, including small-scale, Indigenous and plant-based agrifood stakeholders to assess the evidence, to update the policies, and to co-ordinate the implementation of the efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable plant-based agrifood system policies too.
Dr. A C Baker