Crossing the divide (Green Alliance)

This report contains a summary section. The following is an exact reproduction of that summary.

Summary

Agriculture is responsible for over a quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions and is the primary driver of land use change and biodiversity loss.³⁷ In the global north, there is consensus within the sector that food production and land management practices need to change to keep global warming below 1.5°C and meet the targets signed up to in the Montreal Biodiversity Agreement. But that is where the consensus ends.

While the course of action for other sectors, such as energy, is relatively clear, the path for agriculture and land use to reach net zero and restore nature is highly contested. There is division between competing 'worldviews', each with very different ideas of how to achieve a system that can produce healthy food at affordable prices, sustain rural livelihoods and resist shocks, all without destroying nature and overshooting climate goals.

We characterise below four central worldviews influencing this debate:

• Traditionalists
  This is the dominant worldview in Europe, resisting change at the pace and scale proposed by others. Its adherents take a traditional approach to food production, viewing a farmer's role as producing enough food to feed the nation, seeing the tools of the Green Revolution as normal and natural, with climate and nature goals as secondary.
• Agroecologists
  These call for a complete restructuring of the food system, to shift power away from big business towards family farmers, who they see as more in touch with nature. They promote low intensity, agrochemical free farming, localised food systems and 'slow food' culture, where growing, cooking and consuming food takes up a much larger share of people's time, interest and spending.
• Technovegans
  These see new food technologies as central to tackling the climate and nature crises, mainly by displacing meat and dairy with alternative proteins. They believe the ensuing huge reduction in land use would free up most farmland for large scale rewilding.
• Sustainable intensifiers
  These take a similar 'land sparing' approach to Technovegans. However, their approach is to focus on updates to farm level Green Revolution technologies rather than changes to food manufacturing: for instance, they believe decarbonised fertiliser and precision breeding will mean that farms become more efficient while limiting inputs, land use and pollution.

These worldviews are ideal types. Though most will recognise the categories, few people will feel they fit neatly into one. However, the differences they expose are reflected in expert debates, which can tend toward polarisation. The effect is similar to debates over energy, in which partisans of nuclear power and renewables both assert their technologies can provide all the zero carbon power needed, rendering the alternative technology irrelevant. As with energy, so with food: the resulting clash of worldviews focuses minds on an idealised far future, with partisans seeking to prevent the deployment of approaches preferred by other worldviews. From an outsider's perspective, the disagreement is bewildering. In debates over near-term policy changes such as the EU's Farm to Fork strategy or England's ELM programme, protagonists often bury their differences and pretend to agree. Positions may be polarised, but the debate is often falsely consensual. The result is stasis, while global temperatures rise and nature continues to decline.

New alliances could drive positive change

An alternative approach is needed. New alliances between these worldviews could help to drive change at the pace needed to meet food, nature and climate goals.

We explore three alliances between these worldviews, two of which could drive forward environmental progress at a faster pace and one which may lead to negative environmental outcomes:

• Technovegans and agroecologists. This alliance could lead to significant environmental benefits, in ways that align with widely held cultural and landscape preferences. It would match family farming appeal with food technologies that make space for agroecology's high land demands, as well as more natural habitat for wildlife and nature-based carbon removal.
• Sustainable intensifiers and technovegans could find an alliance based on their shared affinity for technology, land sparing and their satisfaction with the way the economy works today. This alliance could see progress on environmental goals, freeing up large areas of land for nature restoration. But it risks being unpopular as it does little for small farmers, risks destroying traditional, pastoral landscapes and has animal welfare implications.
• Agroecologists and traditionalists are already building loose alliances motivated by having a shared enemy: technology, whether laboratory produced meat or robotic mega-dairies. They have aligned on keeping demand for meat and dairy up to boost sales of artisanal livestock products. Because this alliance also incidentally increases demand for large volume, low cost foods, this alliance has a negative impact on the natural world.

All these alliances will have to deal with fundamental disagreements. For example, technovegans and agroecologists clash on land sharing and the role of technology. To come together, they would have to see the benefits of greater influence and effectiveness in an alliance, or at least believe that a shared enemy – in this case large scale, industrial meat production – is sufficiently objectionable to unite them.

Why agroecologists and technovegans are a good alliance for the environment

Our assessment suggests that the agroecologist – technovegan alliance is most stable, with clear environmental benefits and is also likely to be the most popular with the public.

This is because they each help to solve issues faced by the other. For example, alternative proteins make the dietary change needed for an agroecological farming system more viable while freeing up some land for nature restoration. This would help agriculture to meet its net zero carbon target. In turn, agroecology is the type of farming system more of the public want to see, and linking its expansion to the promotion of alternative proteins could improve the popularity of technovegans, who risk looking anti-farmer on their own.

However, if either of the other two alliances we have outlined were to emerge strongly, it could weaken the opportunities for this alliance, as one of the partners would be locked into another alliance.

In this report, we have recommended some ways organisations could lay the groundwork to encourage an agroecologist – technovegan alliance.