Delivering "less but better" meat in practice-a case study of a farm in agroecological transition

Eating "less but better" meat can be a strategy to guide meat consumption in Western or high-income countries towards sustainability, but what "better" means depends on the perspective. Multiple studies and reports suggest that agroecological farming systems could contribute to a broad range of sustainability benefits, but few studies have examined the implications for people and nature following trade-offs between sustainability priorities at the farm level. Therefore, this study explored the effects on a broad range of sustainability themes following agroecological transition on a case farm in east-central Sweden. We applied a novel mixed-methods approach, combining the indicator-based SMART-Farm tool with additional quantitative and qualitative analysis of the farm's climate impact, contribution to global food security, economic performance, and working conditions. The results showed improvements for aspects within environmental, social, economic, and governance-related sustainability dimensions, with corroborating results across methods. The case farm thus served as an example of transition to a more sustainable production system, but as expected, there were both trade-offs and synergies between sustainability aspects. Negative effects were found for economic aspects at the farm and societal level. For this case, one may conclude that "better" meat production both supports and depends on, a more sustainable farm; but that "better" meat and a more sustainable farm cannot be viewed in isolation from the wider food system. Also, "better" can be described by several states along a transition pathway. Key contributions of the study are threefold, a) articulation of the links between agroecology and the concept "less but better," b) empirically demonstrating synergies and trade-offs in striving for more sustainable meat production, and c) a novel methodological approach for sustainability assessment

Policy Options for Sustainable Food Consumption – Review and Recommendations for Sweden. Mistra Sustainable Consumption report 1:10

The environmental impact of the average Swede’s diet exceeds the planetary limits for the food system in most areas. Over 15% of consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions come from food in Sweden. Sweden’s agricultural landscape has the largest proportion of European Red List species of all landscape types in Sweden and food imports are associated with high rates of land use, pesticides and veterinary antibiotics in other countries. Our diet is also not sustainable in terms of health – for example, 51% of Swedes are overweight and many of the most common diseases and causes of death are linked to diet.This report identifies and discusses policy instruments that the state and other public actors could introduce to steer food consumption in Sweden towards a more environmentally sustainable diet. Seventeen policy instruments operating either through knowledge and support, changes in relative prices, or regulation and requirements have been identified and previous research on policy effectiveness, costs and acceptance has been mapped out in a way that we hope is clear and easy to understand. Based on the current state of knowledge, we have formulated three recommendations on what public actors could do to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable food system.1.Intensify work in the public sector2.Develop national targets for sustainable food consumption3.Develop and implement effective and attractive policy instrument packagesThe mapping and analysis show that there is a need for research on policy instruments for environmentally sustainable food consumption, particularly when it comes to combinations of instruments. However, there is a sufficient evidence base for the immediate development and implementation of policy instruments to deal with the climate, environmental and health impacts of food. A focus on targets and policy instruments in the food area, as outlined above, is also fully in line with the EU’s new Farm-to-Fork strategy. The policy instruments discussed in the report can probably achieve only part of the huge, transformative changes required to limit the production and consumption of food to planetary limits, but a central issue is how to do this. Part of the answer lies in a change in food consumption and here we believe that we know where the answer lies: public actors ought to develop and implement a variety of policy instruments and systematically evaluate them – it is in this more large-scale implementation that the real need for research lies. The challenge of reducing the environmental impact of food consumption in Sweden is considerable, but there are good opportunities for nudging the trend towards more environment-friendly and health-friendly sustainable food consumption through the deployment of new policy instruments

Assessing agro-ecological practices using a combination of three sustainability assessment tools

This paper is based on results from the research project UNISECO, which is funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 773901.We would like to thank all the farmers, farm organisations and stakeholders of the multi-actor platforms of the UNISECO project who contributed to the data collection. We also like to thank Andreas Basler whose corrections improved the comprehensibility of the paper.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Delicious Sustainability? : Synergies and goal conflicts between eating quality and environmental sustainability in Swedish beef production

Improved production and reduced consumption of beef is often highlighted as key aspects for tackling sustainability issues of the food system because the environmental impact of beef is ~100 times higher than plant-based foods. Both scientist and civil society organisations argue that eating “less but better” beef is important for sustainability. Better quality can encompass better eating quality as well as improved sustainability, but despite the two being very important for overall quality, very little research on interactions between them exists. No tools, applicable in Sweden, allowing for joint assessment have been developed. This study investigates the synergies and trade-offs between eating quality and environmental sustainability by using Swedish beef production as a case study. It reviews peer reviewed literature on factors that contribute to eating quality (flavour, tenderness and juiciness), and four factors that contribute to environmental sustainability (climate, biodiversity, feed/food competition and animal welfare). Based on the findings, an indicator-based sustainability assessment framework and a meat quality grading scheme differentiating Premium and Standard eating quality is developed, aimed to be practical tools for Swedish beef assessments. The study provides a systems-based understanding of synergies and trade-offs that may occur when “less but better” is presented as a strategy for tackling the environmental impact of beef. Results show that there are synergies between eating quality and biodiversity, animal welfare and with the right choices of feed, feed/food competition but with consequent trade-offs with climate impact. The discussion addresses the potential of enhanced eating quality to increase the profitability of Swedish beef production without consequent substantial negative impact on sustainability. The suggested methods have the potential to facilitate a shift from quantity- to quality-based consumption, but further empirical studies are required

Policy Options for Sustainable Food Consumption : Review and Recommendations for Sweden

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