Unlocking the potential of the food system – why we need to think differently

We’re well aware that farmed animals are all too often raised in confinement. But is it possible to imagine that the entire food system – crops, livestock, farmers and all – is itself confined and caged? Locked-in and constrained. Not able to deliver what it was meant to and restricted in what it can achieve.

This might seem an unusual way to think about food. But it’s how Feedback has been analysing the multiple connected problems in our food system – and it’s proving to be transformative in how we analyse problems and advocate for solutions.

We’ve been exploring how the system is unfairly weighted towards the industrialised model of food production. Our conclusion is that we are ‘locked-in’ to a system that is harmful for people and planet.

In our latest webinar on the Meat-Soil-Energy Nexus – outlining the connections between industrialised livestock production, the man-made fertiliser industry, and biomethane – we showcase this emergent thinking.

Industrialised livestock production

Feedback demonstrates that big corporations and governments in the global north are shaping food and energy systems around industrialised livestock production.  For example, an estimated 80% of the EU Common Agricultural Policy money supports emission intensive animal agricultural products.[1]

Fertiliser

This industrialised system also relies on damaging inputs via fossil fertiliser and the overuse of synthetic fertiliser is used to grow feed for animals not people. 80% of the nitrogen harvest in European crops provides feeds to support livestock.[2]

Biomethane

And these two industries are actively promoting the rush for biomethane as a response to the energy crisis. Biomethane from manure is one of the drivers growing industrial livestock production. Herd sizes at dairy facilities with digesters that produce biomethane grew 24 times the growth rate for overall dairy herd sizes.[3]

These industries are intertwined. They feed off each other, they are connected, it is a nexus. For example, industrial meat and dairy produces manure, manure is promoted as an energy source (biomethane), which can also be used to produce fertiliser, which is applied to soils, which in turn are used to feed livestock. According to industry voices this is a win-win – but it is in fact a vicious circle that locks us into a food system of continued and multiple harms.

And this system runs counter to peer-reviewed climate science that clearly outlines the adverse impacts of intensive livestock production on planetary boundaries, the negative impact of overuse of fertiliser on our soils, rivers and public health, and the indisputable evidence that we should be moving towards renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, not incentivising the production of biomethane way beyond its ‘sustainable niche’.

It also reflects a disastrous example of policy incoherence, with current UK and EU policies on food production and consumption, climate targets, public health and animal welfare working against one another.

But by shining a spotlight on how these industries are connected, we can unlock the positive levers for change.

How can this be done? Through redirecting financial flows of private and public finance away from industrialised livestock towards lower meat and dairy production and consumption, reshaping public policy towards a just rural transition that allows land use and diet change, and dismantling corporate power through targeted regulation and divestment in the sector. Our webinar set out some positive examples of these changes.

If we break this cycle, we can feed the estimated world population of 10 billion in 2050. But we do need to change what we grow and what we eat.

By understanding how the system operates as a whole, we can ‘unlock’ the cage and deliver a food system that is fit for people and planet.

References:

[1] Kortleve, A., Mogollon., J., Harwatt, H., Behrens, P. (2024) ‘Over 80% of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy supports emissions intensive animal products’ Nature Food 5 (4), 288-292

[2] Sutton, M., Howard, M., Erisman J, et al. (2011), The European Nitrogen Assessment: Sources, Effects and Policy Perspectives. Cambridge University Press

[3] Waterman, C. & Armus, M. (2024). Biogas or Bull****? The Deceptive Promise of Manure Biogas as a Methane Solution. Friends of the Earth