AgroFossilFree - What is the Safe Operating Space for EU livestock?

Allgemeine Beschreibung

It was during the RISE Foundation’s research for the 2016 report on nutrient recovery and reuse in European Agriculture, that we first began to see how livestock – its production and consumption - is at the heart of so many of the challenges we struggle in agriculture today. The evidence concerning the sector’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and the impact of the leakage of nutrients from the sector to air and water, cannot be ignored. And as governments grapple with food security in an increasingly populated world that is already feeling the devastating effects of climate change, the inefficient use of resources by livestock is rightly being questioned. But we also became aware of the disjointed aspect of the debate. Of a growing chasm between different stakeholder groups defending a cause or calling for change and a lack of crucial connectivity between addressing challenges around production and consumption. The RISE Foundation is a public utility foundation. We aim to provide unbiased and balanced perspectives concerning areas of European agriculture. We do this by tackling issues that often inspire great debate among those representing a particular sectoral, ideological or interest group, who will often have a silo approach to what are multi-faceted challenges requiring a combination of approaches. We cannot shy away from the mounting research that is detailing the impacts of livestock production and consumption on our health, environment and climate. Whilst the massive advances in innovation in the livestock sector will certainly form part of the solution, it will not be enough. The shift needed for the sector to contribute to Europe meeting its commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals and the COP21 Paris agreement is just too great. And change is inevitable. We are going through one of the most disruptive periods of recent decades across multiple sectors – mobility, housing, advertising, banking... and farming. Transition to a more sustainable production and consumption model will not be easy, but it can present enormous opportunities for those who are willing to engage in the process. With this report we aim to call upon policy makers to use the range of policy tools at their disposal to support the sector through a necessary and inevitable transition. These will be uncomfortable messages to hear for the many who work hard to earn their living in volatile times by producing the livestock products that so many of us love to consume. But unless policy makers face up now to the need of the European livestock sector to adjust, and support the sector through that transition, the sector will pay the price of their inactivity. Protecting the status quo is providing a disservice to the sector. The livestock industry should recognise the emerging evidence of the impact of their sector and actively engage in the necessary transition. And society should recognise livestock producers as partners for change: the majority of who have acted and invested in the evolution of the sector in good faith. They need and deserve public support for the transition to make it fair and viable. It is time to act so that we have the time to support a well ordered and structural shift to a form of European agriculture that is more sustainable. This is not only necessary, it is also unavoidable.