How Can the EU Ensure Its Farmers Win in the Sustainable Food Transition?

The EU is in dire need of a food system shift towards alternative proteins – but all stakeholders agree that farmers need to be at the centre of the transition.

In September, farmer groups, agricultural lobbies, and climate organisations jointly published a report on the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture.

The 56-page document laid it bare: business as usual is not an option. The EU needs to overhaul its food system, with one major step being a transition to alternative proteins and the development of a plant-based action plan by 2026.

But any such transition – which would drastically lower emissions and land use while boosting food security – would need to keep farmers at the heart of the change. It’s something agrifood stakeholders in the EU strongly agree on.

Farmer representatives, food producers, non-profits, academics, and other food system actors have held a series of roundtable discussions as part of the EIT Food Protein Diversification Think Tank, offering a starting point for action and identifying key areas of research and support to advance regenerative farming and protein diversification.

For example, defining terms like these is in itself a challenge that needs depolarising. To discuss protein diversification with farmers, effective language should include an emphasis on diversified production methods, food security, self-sufficiency, and health and climate benefits.

EIT Food Think Tank: alt-proteins are a complementary measure

The broad consensus around the think tank is that Europe still needs animal farming, and alternative proteins provide a complementary option. It’s important to pose protein diversification not as a replacement for livestock farming, but as a complementary source of income through plant-based foods, cultivated meat, and fermentation-derived proteins.

“The efforts should focus on moving towards a sustainable diet mix which will improve human health, shifting the discussion from protein quantity to quality,” a policy brief of the discussions reads. “For better health, people in the Western world should aim for a more balanced diet, incorporating more plant-based foods that are low [in] saturated fats, higher in fibre, and rich in a variety of vitamins and minerals.”

Research suggests that the optimal ratio between animal and plant proteins should be 40:60 for nutritionally adequate diets, a proportion many retailers in the EU are hoping to reach through their sales. This can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81% – a major win considering that meat and dairy production accounts for 84% of the region’s agrifood emissions.

It will also bring land use benefits. Redesigning the food system on circularity principles can clear up to 71% of farmland in Europe, and the potential is even greater if cellular agriculture, fermentation, and cell-based production of meat, dairy and seafood were added to the picture. Separate research has shown that if governments back alternative proteins with suitable policies, they could replace two-thirds of animal proteins by 2050 and make the region self-sufficient.

The think tank has proposed a narrative model centring around a “triptych of mutually complementary farming practices”: a transition to agroecological practices (particularly regenerative agriculture), carbon farming co-financing schemes, and protein diversification.

When implemented together, these three interlinked practices represent the “most promising business model” for food production in Europe, and should serve as a blueprint for the future. Farmers stand to gain much more by engaging in regenerative agriculture (which has its detractors), according to the think tank, and the adoption of an Eco Score-type label on food products can add immediacy to these combined efforts.

“This also provides the foundation for a new contract between farmers and food producers, aligning them on a shared transition roadmap and on the conditions to deploy it,” the policy paper states.

Cultivated meat not a threat to farmers, but an opportunity

To meet the growing demand for alternative proteins, the EIT Food think tank says there’s a need to scale up the production of new vegetable crops, pulses and legumes with between nutritional content and a low carbon footprint. Their demand is set to increase even further as biotechnologies continue to develop, including biomass and precision fermentation, and cultivated meat production.

But the adoption of new crops and technologies carries financial risks for farmers in an increasingly unstable economic landscape, which could deter them from embracing the transition. The stakeholders say they need support and examples to show how these new business models can diversify their sources of income and reposition them as key players in the food system.

“Assumptions are often made that livestock farmers perceive cellular agriculture, precision fermentation and plant-based foods as a threat, but in fact at least some of them see in them the potential to create [a] new market,” the paper reads.

Recent research from the UK proves that despite having concerns, farmers are largely receptive to cultivated meat. This is because you still need traditional agriculture to source the initial cells and nutrient components (like sugar or sidestreams as feedstock) for cultivated meat and fermentation-derived foods. And then there are models like RESPECTfarms, which helps livestock farmers transition their business and production models for cultivated meat.

The problem, though, is a lack of research and knowledge about the different feedstocks needed and the impact of upscaling these technologies on rural economies. “To implement these innovations, farmers need support from R&D and public institutions, including more flexible policy approaches, education programmes, reduced bureaucracy, and access to both public and private funds,” the paper states.

Additionally, it is crucial to ensure that the cost of the transition is well-documented and shared between all actors of the value chain, which can be achieved by reinventing how supply chains and their business models operate. Offering training, facilitating access to new types of seeds, farm inputs and tools, and providing technical support, meanwhile, will help farmers implement an effective protein transition.

“Protein diversification is not a goal in itself,” the think tank says, “but rather a pathway to ensure [the] resilience of the EU food system, adequate food production, the commercial viability of farming and EU competitiveness, while achieving sustainability goals.”