How low can you go: can food production reach net zero?

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howard griffiths: Hi there! And welcome everybody to the this webinar on food security? And the question, how low can we go in terms of can food production reach net 0 by 2050?

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howard griffiths: I'm going to introduce a fantastic panel set up set of panelists in a moment before I go on to that just a little bit of housekeeping information, just to let you know that the the audience, your microphones and cameras will be kept off throughout. And please note that the event is being recorded. You're welcome, however, to use the QA. Function

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howard griffiths: to raise questions for the panel, and they can be. We can view these at any moment during the course of the of the discussions. So please be prepared to enter some questions there, and we'll try to tackle those in the general discussion at the end. And then, finally, this is a webinar that's being organized by the Cambridge Global Food security.

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howard griffiths: I interdisciplinary research Centre. And it's a part of a series are called food for thought panel events.

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howard griffiths: And you can find out more details on our website.

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howard griffiths: Okay? Well, without further ado, we've we've got 3 of our panelists present, and we're hoping that Emma will be able to join us. I'd like to introduce you to Professor Sarah bridle. Who's the chair in food, climate and society at the University of York an interesting trans disciplinary background. But notably she's recently published a book

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howard griffiths: about food and climate change without the hot air, which, of course, resonates to some extent with with a with another tome in terms of energy, and so on. So very interesting. We've also Sophie Atwood. Who is the World Resources Institute? Which is a climate. Think Tank. And there she's working on the food program. And and she's a behavioral scientist, and so got an in insight into

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how we can switch to healthier foods.

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howard griffiths: Adam Pellegrini, is a an associate professor in the and the department of plant Sciences here in in Cambridge. And she's based. He's basically a a soil scientist. But he's particularly interested in climate change and impacts on soil and soil dynamics, and and particularly will tell us a little bit about potential for

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howard griffiths: our production can potentially contribute to reaching net 0

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howard griffiths: and then finally, Oh, welcome! We've now got Emma. Who's who's managed to join us after having to reboot her computer? She now she's a researcher in the Health Behavior leap in Oxford, and she also has long standing interest. And as a former graduate this play of of Cambridge as well. In shifting behavior to to a plant-based diet. So welcome, all of you.

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howard griffiths: So, to start with, we're going to have some short presentations from each of our panelists. And Sophie, is that okay? If II start with you to begin with and I'm not sure whether you want to share your screen, or whether you just wish how you how you, if you've got anything to any slides to present but I'll hand over to you for your your short

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howard griffiths: thoughts on that. The key questions raised by this this, whether we can reach net 0 by 2,050. Thank you, Howard. No, I didn't make any slides so sorry. Just be me talking at the screen.

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Sophie Attwood: so we're we were asked to give our thoughts on, how low can you go? Could can food production reach net 0 and kind of reflecting on this today? I think my general case is unfortunately, I'd like to be optimistic. But my answer is, no, probably not.

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Sophie Attwood: Going through kind of the data that I've seen on the topic and also working in this area for about 5 years now and looking at the pace at which change seems to be happening.

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Sophie Attwood: it's kind of not really happening quick enough. So we're we're seeing some progress towards a more sustainable food system. But really it's in the timeframe that we need to reach net 0. It's not. We're not getting there. And really, at the speed we need to.

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Sophie Attwood: My work, specifically, is Howard mentioned, is on the behavioral side. So I look at consumer demand and demand for more sustainable diets the big thing that we focus on is trying to encourage a reduction in the amount of ruminant meat that's consumed because of all the products you can eat, ruminant meets the one with the really big environmental footprint and produces the most Ghg emissions, which obviously is our topic, the big thing for net 0.

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Sophie Attwood: And to summarize, really, where I think we're at kind of on that agenda is that we have seen some progress in recent years towards the towards a reduction in emissions from beef, specifically

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Sophie Attwood: so we've seen between where data is available between 2015 and 2020 re, a reduction in high consuming regions, which is important. It's been around 2% or 91 calories per person per day.

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Sophie Attwood: So that's really great. But 2% is a relatively small decline in a relatively small proportion of the population. So if we project that rate of progress forward. Really, as I said, it's not kind of enough quick enough.

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Sophie Attwood: And it's also in the the kind of set in a global context, really, where we see rapidly increasing demand for meats and for ruminant meat, particularly in many other areas of the world.

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Sophie Attwood: many developing countries. As populations grow. We're expected to reach 10 billion people on the planet by 2050. Many of these economies are transitioning. So they're becoming more developed, higher incomes. If you think about a areas like Asia and Africa. As this happens, we do tend to see a transformation in the diet moving towards higher protein consumption and greater demand for meat.

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Sophie Attwood: So when we really look at forward projections on meat consumption. In many of the developing countries we see, the intake levels will vastly exceed the recommended thresholds, though already being exceeded in many developed countries, and that increase will really wash out pretty much any progress that we're making currently in in the developed world to cut our consumption levels.

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Sophie Attwood: which is all quite depressing. Really. I think the kind of further issue I see on on the topic is, the progress is slow, but we also still don't have the impetus that we need behind this agenda

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Sophie Attwood: on the research side, which is where I spend a lot of my time, lots of progress has happened. So we we do now have quite a clear idea from the consumer perspective on how we can get change to happen. And that's really great. See? But the translation of that research into kind of policy at the national international level doesn't seem to be happening in quite the way it needs to to get an accelerated

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change.

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Sophie Attwood: So if we have a look at many national strategies on food, we see the kind of many of our really high impact behavioral changes that we could recommend aren't being included in the in these strategies and quite a few Co more outdated approaches like information campaigns is still being recommended as the kind of go to actions to take. So that's likely to be impeding

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Sophie Attwood: progress. And we definitely need to do a better job of get getting the message out there. And what really really works? Just to give an example, if we think about the the nationally determined contributions or Ndcs, which are the major strategy documents that countries have to put forward. That lays out what they will do to try to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, which is trying to keep climate change to ideally under 2 degrees increase in temperature.

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We, for example, conducted an analysis recently of the Ndcs to have a look at all the different behavioral policies they pee, they featured specifically looking at food among these. And

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Sophie Attwood: we we looked at the top 20 highest submitting countries, just to give an example, to see what was there. And, interestingly, what we found

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Sophie Attwood: is a very, very few of these featured shifts in diets as a recommended strategy. So we know this to be one of our biggest levers for change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It doesn't even feature in most of these national strategies. There's a little bit on food waste. China is doing some quite interesting things. To be applauded. But we didn't find hardly anything on sis sustainable diets, and I think one of the only countries to feature plant based as a recommendation was Ethiopia.

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Sophie Attwood: which is, as you can imagine, not a country with a huge environmental footprint. So just to give a snapshot there really of of where we're at

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Sophie Attwood: is kind of quite worrying at this stage in the game.

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Sophie Attwood: There is some progress kind of at the national level not represented in the Ndcs. We have, for example, now some national strategies beginning to come through around diet, which really are quite

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Sophie Attwood: promising. I think there was one published about last week from Denmark which is really praised for being really forward thinking strategy I saw today South Korea, have the National Dial Strategy come out. So there is. There is actions on the national level. But this is, we're really a point where this should be happening everywhere. It should be happening in much more cohesive way. And it really should be happening in countries with very high consumption rates of

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Sophie Attwood: products that are high emitters like beef.

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So that includes places like Australia, the Us. Argentina and Brazil. So

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Sophie Attwood: we need much more action, much more quickly.

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Sophie Attwood: so yeah, we're a situation in 2023, where we're in a world that's rapidly warming. We do have quite good insight now on what works. We just really need to rapidly introduce those insights and get change to happen at a lot quicker pace.

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Sophie Attwood: So that's that's where I'm sorry to be the Downer. But hopefully, that's some other panelists can offer some optimism.

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Sophie Attwood: I think you're on mute Howard's apologies.

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Adam Pellegrini: Howard, you're still on mute.

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howard griffiths: Sorry. Can I move over to? Sorry. Yeah. Can I move over to? Adam now? Thanks, Sophie. I was just saying, great to get get get that global perspective, Adam, where, from the production perspective, what are your thoughts on on reaching net 0?

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Adam Pellegrini: Well, I think I'm equally pessimistic that it probably won't hit net 0 and the time required, but I do think there a lot of opportunities and knobs that can be turned to reduce emissions as well as increase carbon dioxide removal.

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Adam Pellegrini: So obviously, you know, the food system is a massive player in climate change. It's around a third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

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Adam Pellegrini: and within the food system itself, a little over well over half a little bit less than 2 thirds of the emissions come from what's happening on the farm. So how a manager is feeding its cows, how it's tilling its field, how much fertilizer it's applying, etc., and if you look across, you know thousands of different studies that have assessed the carbon emissions or greenhouse gas emissions

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Adam Pellegrini: of different food products, you can see this massive amount of variability in the relative emissions, even within a single product like beef, for example, which I won't speak much about, because Sophie no knows way more about it than I do.

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Adam Pellegrini: But taking beef as an example, you, you can see this huge spread in the amount of emissions, and that spread can arise, due to all the different aspects of what's happening on the farm that contributes greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. So in some cases it may be due to the enteric fermentation that

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Adam Pellegrini: with the cow and the methane that it's produced, and that can be changed by altering the type of feed altering whether or not it's grazing, etc. In another case it may have to do with how manure is being managed, and that can change as well, and be either changed by the farmer or change at a government level.

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Adam Pellegrini: So the data are out there to tell us at least what are some of the practices that currently exist, that we could be promoting to reduce emissions without necessarily changing a dietary preference per se in terms of, if you just care about your 100 grams of beef a day. Well, there's a lot of swing, and the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted with that.

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Adam Pellegrini: The other component is looking at carbon dioxide removal, and so that would have to do with things like

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Adam Pellegrini: cover cropping, reduced tillage, altered grazing management. Biochar edition. All these things that have really become hot button topics. People are getting paid to do them. Companies are getting started up to help

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Adam Pellegrini: fund farmers to do them. And one big component of my work is evaluating whether or not they're actually impact or impactful and practical.

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And I think that

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Adam Pellegrini: the upper bound limits proposed by the intergovernmental panel on climate change show. These things have huge potential to sequester carbon.

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Adam Pellegrini: and unfortunately, within that the uncertainties are very high, almost in order of magnitude. So you have this process that can potentially reduce emissions by increasing sequestration, that we're very Unc, that's very unconstrained. So I think that that's an area that really needs a

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Adam Pellegrini: more in-depth look, because, as governments begin to roll out policies to promote regenerative farming, they really need to figure out what they should be promoting, and by how much so I do think that there's some opportunities. But we still need to improve on the science from the carbon dioxide removal standpoint. And

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Adam Pellegrini: aside from that, you know, II don't have much other good news to say.

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Adam Pellegrini: Thanks, Howard.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks very much, Adam. That's that's given us again a a kind of a very clear steer from the from the producer side. And I think we can come back to to to maybe ask you some more questions about the what you mentioned there. An interesting sounding concept, regenerative farming, and I think nature based solutions is another one that gets bounced around. So maybe we'll get some questions or we'll be able. Come back to think about that.

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howard griffiths: Let's move on to to to Emma next. If that's okay, Emma, welcome and and I know you've been interested in in

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howard griffiths: consumer based responses and and and nudging in the past. So tell us what your current, what your current thoughts are.

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Emma Garnett: Oh, many current thoughts. Good evening. Everyone. Can. Food production reach net 0. This is, of course, a really important question, and it's a great one for a panel discussion. And thank you all for being here. I think it's almost the wrong question. We are going to have to reach net 0 food production one way or another, and the question is, as Sophie and Adam have both alluded to how much societal disruption and human suffering are we going to go

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through before we get there? Will a net 0 food production? Will those societies look recognizable to today's societies, or will they look completely different? The

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Emma Garnett: as I'm sure we could all agree. It's not a binary. Yes, no, we reach net 0, or we don't.

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It's about staying at net 0. So this is quite cliched. But it's a journey, not just a destination. Even when we get there we have to stay there, and we need to get there as soon as possible. Of course there are so many things that we can do, and that our governments could be doing, and although there are some technological improvements which would be great or many, in fact. But this isn't the main barrier, it's political and societal will.

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There is a brilliant climate writer based in the Us. Called Mary Anise Hager, and she wrote a fantastic piece called Home is always worth it which I thoroughly recommend.

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Emma Garnett: and to paraphrase some of the things she says in that I've never seen a perfect world, and I never will. But I know that a world warmed by 2 degrees is preferable to a world warmed by 3, 4, or 5, and I will fight for that with all that I have, because Earth is all that I have.

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Emma Garnett: We need to slash meat consumption in higher middle income countries. We need to slash food waste. We need a circular economy within our food system that prioritises human health and sustainability rather than profit. We need to remove fossil fuels from across our societies and from our food system from fishing ship fuel to tractor fuel. We

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Emma Garnett: have to reduce the land footprint of our diets, too. From less meat and more beans and lentils to possibly exploring technologies like cultured meat and precision fermentation. And with that freed up blind we can sequester more carbon and return it to nature

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Emma Garnett: and to return to the discussion of optimism versus pessimism. I'd like to share a quote David Attenborough. I heard him say it, and he quoted someone. I can't find the original speaker, so they'll have to forgive me. It doesn't matter whether I'm optimistic or pessimistic. I can see the problem, and I feel compelled to act.

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Emma Garnett: And personally, I find this incredibly liberating. So don't feel like you have to choose between team optimism or team pessimism. Just, you know. Do what you can and act in your home, in your communities. Let's focus on decarbonizing our food system as safely and as rapidly as possible. Thank you.

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howard griffiths: Thanks very much, Emma. That's a great, a great Co. A call there. So I think a phrase I used to use at various pounds in the past the same note, and Nimbyism do it in your own backyard. So

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howard griffiths: anyway, right with enough of me. I'm not. It's not great to be able to introduce Sarah Bridle as as I mentioned before, who's been

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howard griffiths: giving us lots of background information on diets and their greenhouse gas emissions. So, Sarah, what are your thoughts in this general area?

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Sarah Bridle: Well, I mean what a great introduction already! So just to sort of try and add a few things. I would just like to also point out that we don't just need food production to reach reach net 0. We need food production to go beyond net 0, because actually overall, we need net 0 with all the other things like aviation that are going to be happening, presumably, anyway. So all of the the reports, for example, at Committee on Climate change

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will require the food system to actually go way beyond net 0 in order to to make up for the other activities that we're doing. So it's definitely a hard task.

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I mean, we talked about product changes in production and consumption. So I'll just. I'll just comment a bit on what's been said. But I think that I mean Emma raised this point about land use, and that that came up in some of Sophia and Adam's comments as well about land use.

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And really this is the the key in terms of getting to net 0. Because, of course. that that, as Adams explained already that we can use the land to sequester carbon.

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And, as Emma said, you know, there's, for example, rewilding is one way that we can use that land to to sequester carbon. And just to illustrate the scale of the issue. I mean, people sort of worry, because they say if we use land for sequestering carbon, we're then going to not have enough food.

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But actually, this is really a big misunderstanding of the situation that actually about 80% of the land globally that's used for agriculture is used to produce food that's fed to animals.

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but that actually produces it takes about 16 times as much land to produce one calorie of animal based products compared to one calorie of plant-based products, and if you do the sums. That means that we actually have to increase our in the extreme case. If everybody went Vegan, which I'm not proposing, but just to illustrate the scale of the potential of diet change.

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we need need to produce a bit more plants. So actually, we'd need 25% of the land to produce plants, and we'd free up 75% of the land for other uses. And if we use that land for sequestering carbon, for example, with with forests, then we would be able, sequester enough carbon to cover our diets and other uses. So, just to illustrate, you know one possible way that the food system can totally reach net 0 and beyond

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but we could talk about whether I'm pessimistic or optimistic. Or we maybe we don't need to I mean, I've started working a bit more on potential catastrophes that might happen in the food system. Because I feel like, as Emma's said. You know it's gonna change one way or the other. And the big question is whether we're being a proactive part of that, or whether that's just happening to us, and we surveyed 58, our food system experts and

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80% of them thought that it was possible that we would have food, major civil unrest in the next 50 years. And and then we asked them about the causes of that, and more than half of those people thought that if it was due to food. Then it would be just due to there not being enough food in the UK.

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And and the others thought it might be to do with there not being a sufficient distribution of food within the Uk, due to, for example, not being able to get the food around the place. So it's definitely a question of trying to figure out how we build back better. You know, it doesn't mean, say, we just sit back and wait for for bad things to happen. We can say, what's that plan going to be when things get worse? You know. How do we make sure that we build, but better than building back fast, which is what's been happening so far.

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And so yeah, I think there's a huge amount of potential. I think that you know it's been alluded to as well. I feel like in the question, how low can you go? It implies that all of the participants on this call should go home, and, you know, try and change their diets. But I think what we're, I think all talking about is systemic change, about how do we change the way that the food system is set up

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so that we can then move towards net 0. And that really comes down then to you know what's the political will's been said, but we need to bring consumers along with that, because, actually, for example, we couldn't have a sugary drinks tax

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if we didn't have a general comprehension that, for example, sugary drinks are causing health problems like type 2 diabetes. So I think there's a lot to be done in terms of engaging consumers. But it's actually not for the reasons that most people think it's. It's in order to get that pressure to get the systemic change, and I shall stop there. Thank you.

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howard griffiths: Brilliant thanks, Sarah. That final point you raised there. And again I get, I suppose, the the one thing that's

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howard griffiths: none of you have really come out to say, but is implicit in your your final comments. Relate to the the extent that we could. We could have.

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howard griffiths: Well, government policies which could actually

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howard griffiths: drive us, or shift us, or nudge us towards some of these goals you mentioned the sugar tax which has been, has had some success. But again, my understanding is that it's been largely watered down to some extent from what the actual food scientists would have would have preferred. So I guess that's that's one of the big problems. So

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howard griffiths: Now, we I don't think we've got any questions in the in the in the chat. So perhaps I'd just like to to ask you all whether you've you've mentioned a number of issues, but one of the things that we haven't. You haven't also haven't talked about are extreme climate, climatic events, and we're about to see another storm to hitting the south coast. So to what extent do you think that that these extremes, be it the intense heat

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howard griffiths: we've had in the Uk. For several summers in the over the last year relative to now the intense precipitation. We're getting very focused in particular areas of the Uk. How much this could drive the

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howard griffiths: sustainability plans off, of off, course. who'd like to come in on that.

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howard griffiths: Okay, Adam. I'm going to ask Adam to comment on that. Then.

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Adam Pellegrini: okay.

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Adam Pellegrini: so when you first started talking this talking about this immediately. What I thought of was globalization. And the reason for that is because I think you need to have enough of a supply of food from different areas that maybe not experiencing these catastrophic events at the same time. So that obviously comes with costs right? There is higher transport. In order to bring food to consumers.

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Adam Pellegrini: But I think that you can also find, you know, creative ways of figuring out. How do we reduce the overall climate risk of food production. I mean, from my basic understanding of agricultural production models. They do a reasonable job with looking at potential production change.

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Adam Pellegrini: And so you can get some idea for okay, depending on the location in the globe, where might we see the largest effects? And as a consequence, make sure that we don't take the really, you know, robust areas totally out of production. Now, the trade off would come into well, what if that's an area that could be tropical rainforest and store a lot of carbon? Or what if that's er what if that area is peatland that could be restored? So I do think you come into these

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Adam Pellegrini: potential collision, it comes in with A into a collision course with reducing emissions. But I think we have the tools to be strategic with that, and at least foresee some of it.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks very much, Adam. Would anybody Emma, please come in?

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Emma Garnett: Yes, I just wanted to kind of echo Adam's point. And there I sometimes see, some people argue that globalization is very bad for food security. And instead of just eat local sort of thing.

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Emma Garnett: Linkedin and other websites, and I think there are some really terrible assumptions in that. The idea that Uk production will be relatively unscathed, and that, you know other places will have, you know, badly disrupted food systems. And so, therefore we shouldn't import things from those places. I think exactly as Adam says, that we need some trade and globalization, so that places and regions and countries which have one bad year can import food from elsewhere in return. The favor in subsequent years.

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Emma Garnett: I think extreme weather events are a huge challenge and threat to our food system, of course, and I think in terms of resilience. Looking into the future. We need as many tools in our tool box as possible, and I'm not an expert on these, but things like, you know, cultured meat or precision fermentation

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Emma Garnett: which aren't relying on the seasons and weather to the same extent as if you were growing livestock and crops in fields, I think can be, could be really important, a. A. As having some resilience to those extreme events, and so that we're not reliant on spring, summer, autumn, winter, behaving in certain ways in certain places, because that is all. Heading out of the window sadly.

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Emma Garnett: You're muted, Howard.

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howard griffiths: Sorry, guys.

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howard griffiths: I never kept the hang of this this modern communications business. Okay? Can I, Sophie? Sarah? Can I move on to bring in one of the questions that's come up in the chat which I think is, there's a couple of really interesting ones that have come in. The first one is about how how much business is which picks up on some of the comments about globalization. But how much does business sort of sway political will and unwillingness to to take us to where we need to be

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howard griffiths: so. Perhaps I could come to to come to you, you for Sophie come to you.

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Sophie Attwood: It's kind of complicated answer to that, because the answer is like, Yes, it does. I remember this is totally anecdotal. But a couple of years ago, talking to somebody who worked at the

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Sophie Attwood: The pulse board in the Us. The board that I kind of oversees the the pulse industry like lagoons, chickpeas, etc. Etc. And they they were explaining to me how A lot of the research had mentioned. The pulses are really good for health, and they'd recommended a really high quantity in the diet. Can't remember what it was design like kind of 12 cups of a week of pulses.

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Sophie Attwood: and that recommendation had gone out, and the dairy lobby in the Us. Lobbied so hard that they'd removed that all the way down to 1, one or 2 cups of pulses and replaced with dairy as a recommendation. And if you look at the US. National dietary guidelines. They still have, for example, like a glass of insane amount of milk in the dietary guidelines. So even a document that's supposed to be a fixed science based recommendation of intake for health

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is highly highly shaped by kind of different forces.

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Sophie Attwood: I mean, most of the food products you eat

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Sophie Attwood: have, you know, evolved out of what can be farmed easily, and then you break breakfast cereals. Another example, you know, it gets sold it really high sold as a kind of high fiber. Healthy option. But that didn't really exist, you know. 50 years ago it came with the advent of cereal

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Sophie Attwood: farming. Then they have to do something with those products. So it is highly influenced. But on the flip side, the food industry. I'm not kind of not necessarily talking about lobby groups, but is also a massive tool for change. And there is many, many entities in the food industry doing amazing, really inspiring things.

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Sophie Attwood: And I've been lucky enough to work with quite a few of these companies, particularly in food service, and like the will to do things is really strong.

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Sophie Attwood: and there's a lot of kind of interesting creative efforts from chefs retailers have made, really, especially in the Uk. Really, big strides on tackling food waste.

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Sophie Attwood: A lot of inner products. Innovation. There's the whole of the out protein industry. There's a many industries that are looking at repurposing and reformulating food products for a number of reasons. So it's it's a bit of both, really. So II think there's kind of good and bad in there. So sorry. It's an anecdotal story, but that's one that came to mind.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks, Sarah. Your thoughts.

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Sarah Bridle: Yeah, II yes, definitely it's a. It's a big issue. And I think just to build on what? What Sophie said. I think actually, businesses tend to have a longer term view than governments actually on what's gonna happen. And you know, they're planning for, let's say, next 1020 years. They're concerned about the the food risks, the risks of the food system potential catastrophic risks.

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Sarah Bridle: In in perhaps a slightly longer term way than the government. So you know, they actually, if they think that we're going to have. For example, climate related financial incentives in the next 10 years. They want to be building towards that. And so actually, from their point of view. Often it's more about, are we going to have a level playing field relative to other businesses? And how do we get to that place? For example, I'm on the Eco working group of the food data transparency partnership, which is one of the tangible things to come out of the Government's

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Sarah Bridle: food strategy response to the Dimbleby Review. And you know, the point of that group is to really agree on those reporting standards that are going to be used when companies quote their food greenhouse gas emissions. So that at least there's one methodology that can be used.

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Sarah Bridle: and that's really helpful for businesses, so they can be on a level playing field. It's not necessarily going to change the world in its own right to have that agreed standard. But you couldn't have, for example, the sugary drinks tax if we didn't have an agreed way of measuring the amount of sugar in products. So I think it's a necessary first step for any kind of financial incentives. For example.

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howard griffiths: thanks very much, Sarah. I quite agree. I think it's it's very much.

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howard griffiths: I think, when industries recognize the threat to their bottom line. There will be increasingly pressure for for us to help to adopt policies. Now we had another really interesting question that came in.

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howard griffiths: about what what you individually would feel would be that the the single most important government policy that needs to happen to transform our food system

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howard griffiths: and and then. And so that's a government policy. And then what's the what's the best thing? And and we, as individuals can do to change our response. So I'll go around you all again. I'll come back. I'll come to Emma first of all.

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Emma Garnett: Yes, great question I'll slightly dodge it by saying, obviously there's no silver bullet. But for me it's very much fiscal and economic policies. So we have to

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Emma Garnett: price things according to their environmental damage. And that comes along with reducing inequality between nations and within nations. So it's not just lower income. People who are getting hammered, and the rich can carry on eating as much beef as they like, but redirecting subsidies away from livestock, which is much more publicly acceptable than a meat tax, even though they have quite similar effects.

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Emma Garnett: and redirecting those towards legumes, fruits, and vegetables will be absolutely key. So I think those big economic levers are really really what we need. And on an individual level.

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Emma Garnett: I would say, learn how to cook one or 2 really delicious Vegan meals with plenty of protein, and then share them with your friends and get them trying them as well.

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Emma Garnett: And so just think about we all, you know, influenced, and are influenced by our friends and colleagues and people around us. So you know, or choose a restaurant with a good vegetarian options and take your friends there.

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Emma Garnett: Make it normal. I'm really proud of my parents, for when they have dinner parties in this is so, you know, rural Somerset. They have, you know, Vegan options with people who are used to having kind of quite a big piece of meat is what you do when you're entertaining guests and so changing the norms that way, I'd recommend that.

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howard griffiths: Thanks. Emma. Come, come to you, Adam. Government policy, what would you recommend?

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Adam Pellegrini: So I was, gonna say, carbon tax. And that's because I think similar to what Emma was getting at. You can have a lot of things change when you turn the screws on something from the top down and potentially motivate big companies that manage suppliers to change who they're either sourcing from or what the supplier does, and thus reduce emissions. I think there's a whole load of issues that

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Adam Pellegrini: pop up when you begin to talk about carbon taxes, however, like, who? Where, where does that burden fall on, you know? Do all people have to pay the same amount of tax, or what do you do if you're disadvantaged, etc., etc. Now that's way above my pay grade and outside of my specialty. So I'm going to.

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Adam Pellegrini: I'll say, that's that's a problem for somebody else. But I do think that there's ways of things like redistributing the revenue that comes from a tax to people that may not be able to afford to pay more for food. You know there there are

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Adam Pellegrini: things that we can do as far as personal components to reduce emissions. Hoof I don't think I'm a very good poster child for that. I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but I do eat a lot of pasta

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Adam Pellegrini: and go pretty. Go pretty meat free, judging by my last name. That probably doesn't surprise surprise many of you, but for me, honestly, what I did was, I cut out beef for the most part from my diet, and I think that there's a lot of other good substitutes there, and it was pretty easy for a behavioral change.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks, Adam. Sophie.

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Sophie Attwood: I probably go down the behavioral routes and answering that we've actually done a piece of work lately to review all the different behavior levers is it was a business focus piece of work, but it kind of applies. You know, the same leaves can be applied in a policy context. And what comes out really is the things that work really well, massively, increasingly, availability of good quality, really tasty plant based options.

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Sophie Attwood: So it's a kind of carrot, not stick approach. If you swamp people's choice environment with the thing you want them to choose, they will choose it

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Sophie Attwood: and at the same time kind of resetting the default. So you really wanted to try to remove beef from the menu as a default option, or make it a lot harder for people to access. How that would, how that would translate to policy. I'm not sure, or could be a mandate on number of the ratio of vegetarians and non vegetarian dishes, or the number of specific mandate on days per week where meat could be sold.

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Sophie Attwood: The issue is, some of these things would be very, very highly unpopular. So and create backlash. So we need to be a bit careful about that. But there's definitely things that work there.

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Sophie Attwood: And I think from the perspective of individual recommendations, it's really gonna echo what everyone else is saying. Single thing. If you really wanted to sit it down is just avoid cows.

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Sophie Attwood: Anything from a cow. So it's a white meat. The impact isn't as bad pork is not as bad. Fish is kind of relatively okay, plant based is obviously the best. But if you're gonna do any one thing, just try to cut down the amount of beef and dairy that you eat

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Sophie Attwood: pretty simply and I think Emma mentioned something really nice which is modeling the change. So I've been vegetarian all my life, and it's been really interesting watching the difference in response to when, 15 years ago I used to tell people that to like 5 years ago, and not to now, it seems to be. For example, people don't like being told what to do. But if you can sit there and kind of model it.

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Sophie Attwood: you know, without a very strong agenda, people do tend to kind of pick up on on the benefits of eating in that in that specific way, and there are many benefits for health as well. So cut the cut the cows and

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Sophie Attwood: eat veggie in front of people.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks very much, Sophie. Sarah, your thoughts

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Sarah Bridle: I should be very quick, cause I totally agree with everything that's been said. Yeah, I definitely agree, financial incentives can be very unpopular. I think it's important that they are proportional to climate impact to help incentivize producers who are doing good things. Even if they are producing meat. But you know it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be just a tax. It could be reducing existing subsidies

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to livestock production, but also subsidizing the healthy, sustainable choices with, you know, if it was a revenue neutral tax that we subsidise untaxed. Then I think that would be more popular

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behavior, individual. Well, I think one thing I was surprised about when I did. The research into the impacts. Is is that actually like a tin of oh, you can't see it

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Sarah Bridle: to the beans. You don't have to boil their beans up all night. You know, if you have beans in a tin, then it's very easy to just add them to things. So, bulking out with beans and chip peas and lentils these things. You don't necessarily change the flavor massively if you add a couple of tins. But the fact that you've got packaging there isn't actually as nearly as bad as most people think, because it's recyclable. And it's it's not nearly as bad as as I thought it was when I

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first looked into it.

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howard griffiths: Brilliant. Thanks. Thanks for your prompt responses. There. I'm gonna I've got a a couple of questions and I'm gonna merge 2 of them, cause there's one that's there's one and and thanks to, I'm not able to name and name many of those, many of you who are making really important points in the chat which I'm we are taking a note on. Thank you for those. It's really interesting to see them coming in. I'm trying to keep up with you as you go through. There was a question about what? What?

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howard griffiths: What? Most, what would be the most useful intervention to reduce the carbon footprint of food, and that's what was followed by one a little later.

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howard griffiths: which was about their frustration with the lack of handling food waste in various areas. And I just thought we we could merge those 2 together and get you to go. Comment, perhaps, on this whole idea of our individual carbon footprint from and and managing food waste. What are your thoughts that we could, on what actions we should take there? Or we should encourage local governments and local councils to take there.

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Emma Garnett: Yeah, Emma, please, I can try and answer this one. First of all, just as saw that question, and good for you for doing all you can to reduce food, waste, and much sympathy for all the frustrations and barriers that you're coming across. But you know, good for you and cheering you on here from Oxford.

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Emma Garnett: I think. I'm not such an expert in this in terms of what you can do as an individual. I don't know if your street could have like a compost bin. I imagine you know there could be some issues with of potentially rats or hygiene. I'm not sure. But if this thing's on small scales that could happen in terms of local boroughs not collecting food waste.

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Emma Garnett: there will be local elections next year. Find out who's standing in your area. If you have time and find out who would actually push for stuff on food, waste and offer to leaflet for them, you know, or volunteer, and I think we are very likely to have a change in government at some point in the next 12 months, and that is a real kind of window of opportunity to push things. But in terms of things like food waste. Local council and borough policies are so so important.

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Emma Garnett: So finding a a counselor or candidate who's willing to engage with you on that is key. And yeah, I'm involved a bit with local politics and from talking with friends. It's amazing how much a persistent individual can shift a counselor's priorities. So good luck to you.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks, thanks, Emma. We'll we'll move on. I think it's really, really, really good to have an an expert like yourself tackling that particular area. There's another. Another question came in about how translating policy outputs into actionable plans.

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howard griffiths: so that's my lights. I think that is on the blink. And the question there would be, how can we bridge between policy but for between both production and consumption? And I think the the key thing that I know that that Francesca and the and the and the the Food Security Initiative. We're keen to marry together through this discussion was the balance between both the individuals and our consumption, but also the bigger picture about food production. So

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howard griffiths: how can we? How can we get actionable plans on that? And I'll just go and sort my lights out.

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howard griffiths: Who'd like? Who'd like to come in on that?

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howard griffiths: Sophie, can I?

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Sophie Attwood: How it looks like he's in a rave, and

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he's a glow sticks

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Sophie Attwood: tricky question, and I'm not sure I've necessarily got the answer to all of it. I think one

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Sophie Attwood: angle I

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Sophie Attwood: have seen done and kind of touched upon is trying to get scientific evidence into the hands of policymakers so they can use it.

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And I think this is sometimes things that if you're in a research role which I presume some of the audience here are

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Sophie Attwood: is a challenge in translating work that is conceptually interesting into something that has policy relevance, and that is really. I think, largely, the responsibility of research is to get better at, because there's a lot of amazing insights held in academia that probably would be adopted. But they need to get be communicated.

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Sophie Attwood: and probably through different forums and and in different ways. And I think.

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Sophie Attwood: what seems to work quite well that and cause I've done a fair amount of work trying to kind of communicate science. To also lay audience and consumers

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is. People do generally understand

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Sophie Attwood: concepts, but they need to be very, very, very much simplified.

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Sophie Attwood: and graphical graphical formats. Really. So if you can ever, if you're a researcher and you want to get your work kind of out and featured, if you can ever distill it down into a single graphic or image.

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Sophie Attwood: That is a really powerful thing to do, because that can get communicated really easy on kind of social media and stuff. So I think, from the the link between the research into the policy. It's a communications challenge. And it's one, I think, that we need to get better at really, and to try to accelerate that

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Sophie Attwood: the link between

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Sophie Attwood: production and consumption is something I can't answer. So I'll hand over to another panelist.

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Sarah Bridle: Can I just respond on that that comment that Sophie made, because I think that was really interesting point. In fact, there was an article just came out in Nature food last week, which again, you can't say because of my background. But Tim Benton has weighed in on this about how academics could do more to disrupt and reframe the the solution, space for food system transformation. But just to to comment on that, that I think that there is a sort of perception in academia. And I wonder how many of the participants are from Academia.

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Sarah Bridle: There tends to be a perception academia that we need to produce gold plated research which builds, you know, in a really thorough way on the previous research. And actually, what we need today, we don't have time for that in terms of the food system transformation. So I think that there's a lot that funding agencies are are starting to do in terms of the way that they actually frame what is research

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Sarah Bridle: and the way that they give out grants. But I think universities have some way to go as well in actually recognising their policy work, and not necessarily requiring, you know, a sort of gold plated research paper that takes 3 years to write takes one year to go through a freeing process and is then behind a paywall is actually completely unfit for the purpose that we need to be addressing.

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howard griffiths: Thanks very much. I'm gonna I'm gonna move on if I may. I'm gonna Adam, I've this one here for you. The somebody's asked. Well, what do we mean by re regenerative farming? So perhaps you could just give a quick summary of the the principles associated with that. And also another another comment, I know, we've we've discussed in the past is nature based solutions.

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Adam Pellegrini: Okay? 2.

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Adam Pellegrini: 2 big things for a late night brain, the first one with regenerative. I mean, that can mean a whole slew of things. But I think, in the from the perspective of carbon emissions, the idea would be doing something where you would either reduce your emissions or you would increase the sequestration. So the carbon dioxide removal, and as a consequence, net emissions should go down.

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Adam Pellegrini: Now there's a number of different pathways that have been proposed to do this, some of the biggest ones in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be things like cover cropping

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Adam Pellegrini: carbon sequestration in cropland soils. Sorry I'll take a step back. Carbon sequestration, cropland soils is one of the big ones as well as carbon sequestration in pasture land. So those are 2 of some of the biggest carbon dioxide removal knobs with regenerative agriculture.

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Adam Pellegrini: and within each of those you have a number of different management strategies. So within croplands it's thought that cover. Cropping can be good because it increases inputs into the soils. Now, there's a major study happening in Europe where they're evaluating the efficacy of cover cropping for soil carbon sequestration, and then they're integrating that into

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Adam Pellegrini: what might cover cropping actually contribute to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions in the food sector. And what they found is that it's actually pretty pretty minimal, though it varies quite a bit country to country

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Adam Pellegrini: so regenerative agriculture, I'd say very useful concept. It can be related to greenhouse gas emissions and can help guide, you know, potential pathways to reduce emissions, but is very context specific in its efficacy. And then

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Adam Pellegrini: do you want me to go into the nature-based solutions? One. Because I've been talking for some time. Now

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howard griffiths: maybe come back to that because there are some other other areas. And I think I'd like the panel to to contribute to some of these. There's been a couple of questions that I think is

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howard griffiths: we're making some interesting points about the that we've talked about developing countries and and th the way that their their diets are likely to change as there is an increase in in, in affluence, and and a general shift towards

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howard griffiths: increased meat consumption. And one of the questions that she question that, and I think we should come back to sort of explain why we think that that is likely. And there's another one which is also saying, it's all very well getting developing countries or persuading them to adopt more sustainable solutions. But if this is gonna be more expensive, can they really afford this? And and so how are we actually going to

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howard griffiths: incentifies these sustainable solutions in developing countries? So there's 2 elements there. Who'd like to go first on that anybody like to put your hand up.

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howard griffiths: Sophie, you've gone. You've you look

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Sophie Attwood: ready. Yeah, there's a quite an interesting analysis that came out last year. Looking at exactly this question in the context of the Eat Lancet, Planetary Health diet, which is the big the first and kind of most, I guess. Well researched plant based diet, and they analyze

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Sophie Attwood: what, how much it would cost a day to follow that diets when I equivalent of $2 60 a day. So obviously, if you live in developed world, that's a really minor proportion of daily household income. So it's affordable. It does presume a few things that you know how to cook, and you know how to cook the the recipes and that which is quite big. A big thing. But that $2 60 a day is unaffordable for something like 1 point

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Sophie Attwood: 5 1.5 8 billion people worldwide. And there's been additional kind of critiques of the diet in that it may lack certain nutrients that are required by populations who may have deficiencies in certain areas because of that, like poor access to different food. So there, there is a big debate around that topic, and the response from then on has been to try to evolve those recommendations so that culturally textualized.

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Sophie Attwood: So we we have kind of plant-based diets that are based on the Mediterranean diet as the basis, or we have ones that are based on Asian diet as the basis

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Sophie Attwood: and then you have some countries who die is inherently quite plant, based like India, for example, has very, very low meat consumption levels globally. So this is possible to do on low incomes. And there's there's examples of it being done. The problem is when it gets to adoption of more Westernized patterns of eating.

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Sophie Attwood: and many countries don't want to adopt those patterns, you know. So there's there's lots of examples of how this can be done.

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Sophie Attwood: We recently conducted an analysis of China as an example of a transition economy that's that's gone from relatively low meat consumption projects have quite high meat consumption in future. And we had a look at the dietary recommendations there, and found basically the the the amount of animal protein being currently recommended in the national Dietary guidelines is really closely approximates that in the lancet pantry, health diet.

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Sophie Attwood: because the the way that the diet is innately structured has a lot less meat and very, very much less dairy. So it's it's a lot more innately sustainable. So there is ways of there is ways of achieving a sustainable diet without it being an issue of inequality. But it does is contingent on factors like having the the research available for different cultural contexts. Promoting diets are culturally appropriate and presuming people have the skills to to produce them

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Emma Garnett: if I can. I was also thinking of that same paper, Sophie, about if what ability lance it? And one of the interesting things in that paper that got slightly lost in some of the headlines is just how expensive meet it. So there are some people that can't even afford that tiny amount of meat in the diet. And actually, most

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Emma Garnett: protein rich plants like pulses. I think even nuts might have been cheaper than meat so actually, when you if you're thinking about protein, then eating a more sustainable diet money wise is cheaper. The the other really key thing is the affordability of fruit and veg, and whether your carnivore or vegan like you have to have plenty of fruit and veg in your diet. That's really important. So I think a really big question, you know, how do we scale up sustainably production of fruit and veg

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for the many countries like the Uk, where we're not eating enough.

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Emma Garnett: But I think the idea that sustainability is always more expensive is happily not true. In many cases

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howard griffiths: brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to. We're we're hastening towards a finish. But I'd just like to pick up on one another question that's come in about the the the UK. Emphasis on horticultural produce grown on lowland peat

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howard griffiths: and and I guess that also could time with a a little bit about nature based solutions. But can I? Sarah, you had some interesting facts on on the areas of land needed for food production, and so on.

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howard griffiths: Oh, my word!

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Sarah Bridle: Well, I just thought, be useful to share this image which came from the fantastic National Foods Strategy, by Henry Dimmobi and Co. Which was commissioned by the Government as an independent review.

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Sarah Bridle: And I mean, this obviously isn't showing there's caused some controversy, because people are like, well, that's not exactly where the food is being grown, but it's it's supposed to illustrate the actual. You know, the the area of land, not where the the stuff is being grown. So I think it's really helpful to to really get a picture of of how much of the UK. Is being used for pasture at the moment.

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Sarah Bridle: and also to be aware that we are actually using a lot of land overseas for producing food as well. And that shows you the area of pasture land overseas which is being used to produce the food consumed in the UK.

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And so actually, if we are talking about.

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Sarah Bridle: you know, reducing the amount of meat and animal products that we're we're eating, then we do indeed need to increase the amount of land that's being used for for plant based produce. But actually, if you, if you look at some of this land being used to produce plants. A large, you know, a significant amount of that is being used to produce cereals to feed to animals, for example. So when you do the sums, it really isn't an issue. And I hope that this graph helps to to illustrate that.

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howard griffiths: Okay, thanks. Adam, you

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howard griffiths: you're you're closely associated with a large group in your department, working on, on, on Peatland production and so on, and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Any thoughts there?

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Adam Pellegrini: Yeah, I mean farming on peatlands massively detrimental to the environment and releases a lot of greenhouse gas emissions while carbon emissions. And I think that there's for 2 reasons number one peatlands when they aren't drained are a natural carbon sink plants grow, they photosynthesize, they die. That carbon doesn't decompose. And so it builds up.

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Adam Pellegrini: So when you're draining a peatland, you're reducing its capacity to sequester carbon. Now, then, when you start cultivating on a peatland, you begin to disrupt the carbon, it becomes exposed to oxygen decomposition takes place. So you then increase the emissions. So you sort of are losing on both ends.

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Adam Pellegrini: And as a consequence, peatland restoration is actually one of the big nature based solutions that I think pretty unequivocably will be a net win for greenhouse gas emissions.

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Adam Pellegrini: And we've seen, I mean, in the UK. Obviously the draining of peatlands has been very severe in the area of the country that we live in and the fins. But in other parts of the world. It's how

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Adam Pellegrini: to extent and impactful extent for greenhouse gases like in Southeast Asia. Oil palm plantations, for example. So I think yes, it's very important. But it's certainly not just a Uk specific problem. And there's a lot of different management

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Adam Pellegrini: things that you can do to try to reduce those emissions like re-wetting peatlands. There you get a pulsed increase in in methane that takes a while for the carbon dioxide drawdown to balance out. But for the most part, it's peatland. Restoration is a net positive for the climate

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howard griffiths: brim. Thanks very much. Well, I should just put a plugin for our University of Cambridge conservation Research Institute. Who With the director, David Coombes. They're associated with a major project on evaluating greenhouse gas emissions from Peatlands and Peatland production and trying to find the best balance to get that production together with minimizing emissions.

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howard griffiths: So I mean, IIII think we should try to pull this together. I'd like to thank all those who've asked questions. There's a a couple here. There's one about why we don't grow more legumes in the Uk, very good question.

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howard griffiths: much risk. Well, more research needs to be done in breeding appropriate legumes, and also Adapting those that have traditionally been grown in much hotter and drier conditions. To that, are able to manage in the the rather changeable UK. Climate and their their breeding systems. Another question, why don't we cook anymore? I think. Sarah, were you waving your kind of beans around? I'm not sure that's entirely the

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Sarah Bridle: gives us the right idea from our panel of experts, but nonetheless well, I'd like to push back on that, because I think if you look at, look at ways of reduced food. Actually, if we all separately cook our meals, it's actually not particularly efficient and not good for climate change.

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howard griffiths: Okay? So that that we we will. But I think what what I'd like to say first of all is, is is the conclusions I can see is that is that one major plea we've had from the panel, and or reflection from the panel is that we, as scientists, are not doing enough to to educate, to promote, to provide

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howard griffiths: outputs that are digestible. Sorry. Pardon the expression, pardon the pun

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howard griffiths: for both politicians, and graspable by the general public to appreciate that steps can be taken. Things can be done that won't cost too much, but they will make a change, and they will make a slow but progressive stepwise towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving net 0. So we all should be trying to act. And I guess the other challenge that came out from, partly from.

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howard griffiths: and the discussions and and so on is that we do have an election coming forward. This is this is not a political broadcast. We know there will be an election in the next 15 months or so, use your vote, and discuss with those politicians and ask them what policies they are, but with be it at a local or a national level. What would they espouse in order to bring about net 0? Do they recognise the challenge

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howard griffiths: that climate change will bring to society as a whole? Not just in the UK. But globally as a whole. So I think those are 2 really important things that we can all take away, despite the rather

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howard griffiths: sort of the fact that we're rather we're worried about the ability, our ability to reach net 0 by 2,050. There are many things we can be doing, so I'd like to thank our wonderful panel

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howard griffiths: who have given us so many tremendous insights. Sophie Atwood, Adam Pellegrini, Emma Garnett, and Sarah Bridle. I'd like to thank the organizers, Francesca and and Abigail, and for inviting us, and and and making the whole, making this whole presentation possible, and, thanks to you, the audience for being both very active in your participation in the questioning, and and giving us much more food for thought than perhaps we had at the start. So, thanks to everybody, and good night.