What future are we fighting for?

By and large, Jack was preaching to the converted when espousing the role of agriculture today and the huge advancements that the sector has made: “Often people are beating up on agriculture for what it’s not doing but they’re not talking about what it is doing, things are wildly better now,” he said. He addressed the risk of offloading our agricultural production to other countries that have not adopted or are not adopting sustainable practices: “The challenge we have is to figure out where can we be more intensive in our production and where should we be more careful in how we produce food.”
And he pointed out that, the Farm to Fork strategy and Biodiversity Strategy may lead to a decrease in food production of up to 15 per cent across Europe: “Fifteen per cent less food means you will import a lot more food,” he said.

Not about good and bad

Jack continued: “The country that sends the most food to Europe is Brazil but I’m not sure that it makes sense to export your environmental footprint to, arguably, the most biodiverse country on the planet.”
“But it’s not about good and bad and right and wrong it’s about choices and consequences, and we need to think about who should be producing that food, where that food should be produced, and how we do it better every day.”
And this brings us back to the article’s opening quote above. In arriving at this observation about the future we are fighting for, in terms of agriculture and food production, Jack posed potential scenarios that provided much food for thought.
“Let’s put ourselves in the year 2050, we’ve arrived at a future where you’re doing well, economically, and we have solved our environmental problems, and we ask ourselves, how did we get here? Thinking of the future we want helps us to think about what to do next, and so I want to give you an example in terms of scenario planning,” Jack said. Three scenarios followed.

Three potential futures

“The first scenario is where we double livestock production to meet that [global] protein demand, so animal agriculture wins,” he said. “In scenario two, alternative protein wins, so 100 per cent of that future growth in protein demand goes to alternative protein companies,” he added. “And in scenario three, we are producing less animal protein in 2050 than we are today.”
Asking for a show of hands from the audience as to which scenario would be preferable yielded little interaction – perhaps a true reflection of our uncertainty about the future. Regardless, Jack continued: “I think scenario two and, possibly, scenario three are the best outcomes for you. Because, if we double the number of livestock on the planet, then the winners [in that scenario] are Brazil and Argentina, because you [Ireland] are not going to double the amount of dairy cows on your farms. It’s not going to happen. So, in scenario one, demand doubles, and supply doubles, and your income is, at best, flat!
“In scenario two, demand for ‘real’ meat doubles, but the supply is flat, so your income is probably two or three times higher.
“And in scenario three, there’s sort of two versions of that: one where highly productive countries produce less, and the other is where unproductive countries produce less, such as India and Brazil.

“So, if we reduced animal production in those extremely unproductive countries, that would be a reduction in [overall] livestock production, so your incomes would go up even more [due to demand].”
Maybe, he posed, there is a real opportunity for conventional protein production as we know it, and plant-based protein production to come together to meet future protein and food demands. “The point that I want to make is that the future that’s best for you may not be the one that you’re fighting for, and the competitors that you have today may not be competitors in the same way [in the future].
“And so, it’s important that we have this clarity of vision. We need to know where we want to go but we also want to be flexible in how we get there. The future rewards clarity but it punishes certainty if you create rigid rules to how you’re going to get to that future, something’s going to go wrong and you’re not going to be prepared.”