Your research focuses on transformation towards a sustainable food system. How relevant is that to a democratic society?
It’s very relevant. At the moment, for example, we’re running a corpus linguistic analysis of the public discourse on food in various countries around the world – for example the EU nations, India, Nigeria, South Africa, the US and Switzerland. We’re examining millions of media reports. Eating is a central element of culture. It’s not just associated with emotional and biological processes – it also has a key sociopolitical dimension, and the issue of meat, in particular, is hugely polarising.
What does that mean?
What and how we eat is increasingly linked to a social identity. Certain groups of people are defined by it. We have the stereotypes of the urban vegans or the Trump voters with their burger and steak.
What effect does that have on a society?
Attributions are made that reinforce group identities. It makes it more difficult to listen to other people’s views. Yet, food can have precisely the opposite effect.
How so?
Food can bring people to the table so that they meet face-to-face. There are some fantastic projects going on, where people from different cultural backgrounds or with different political beliefs are brought to the table – literally – to cook and eat together. It’s a great opportunity. I feel it’s particularly important, though, that we act on a political level, that we change the governance of the food system – the institutions and the nature of sociopolitical collaboration. In our report on a sustainable food future for Switzerland, we called for the creation of a Future Committee that would allow the key social stakeholders and interest groups, representing private and public interests in the food system, to work together to build confidence and negotiate solutions.
‘The transformation of food system is important for social cohesion.’
Lukas Fesenfeld, political scientist
Who would set up a committee like that?
Ideally, it would be legitimised by parliament or the Federal Council. It shouldn’t depend on individual federal offices. It needs a comprehensive range of stakeholders, representing the full gamut of the food system – so alongside producers and farmers, you would have the processing industry, retail, consumers and NGOs that are committed to protecting workers, population health, animal rights and the environment.
How do you decide who the stakeholders are?
They would have to be selected on the basis of transparent criteria, systematic stakeholder analysis and a scientifically monitored process. The Future Committee’s work should precede and accompany the parliamentary process. The results of these discussions can then be fed into the legislative process and, ideally, help bring about more stable, longer-term solutions. It could help counter the widening gaps.
How can we achieve that?
It’s important to focus on the opportunities and on pulling together. For a long time now, the global food system – even in Switzerland – has followed a political and economic rationale that encouraged a concentration on larger-scale operations along the value chain. If the supermarket chains buy goods from larger producers, they benefit from economies of scale, which, in turn, allows cheaper prices. Consumers have grown accustomed to this price level. In many countries, subsidies have also been tailored to large-scale operations rather than sustainability. A disincentive. It forced many smaller farms to give up and led to major frustration, precisely because many people in the agricultural sector see it as their life’s work. As we have observed in other countries, this situation can be exploited by anti-democratic forces. This is why transforming the food system is so important for social cohesion.
How can Switzerland – a country that is around 50 per cent self-sufficient – play any kind of role?
Switzerland can play an important role in achieving greater sustainability by examining the nature of domestic production and consumption and also by regulating the import and export of food. At the moment, for example, around 77 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the food consumed in Switzerland is generated abroad. The extent of a country’s self-sufficiency is not the only indicator when it comes to making the transformation towards a sustainable food system. Although economic, environmental and health goals could easily be combined with an increase in Switzerland’s self-sufficiency. Food security and sustainability are mutually dependent.
How would we make that work?
By transforming consumer behaviour. That would have an impact on production and processing as well as on imports. At the moment, over 40 per cent of Switzerland’s arable land is used to grow animal feed. Feed imports mean we can add at least another 200,000 hectares abroad to this total. That’s inefficient and is a threat to our food security. These arable areas here and abroad could be used to produce significantly more plant-based food for human consumption. But, at the same time, it’s important to emphasise that Switzerland has a locational advantage when it comes to pasture-based livestock farming, particularly in the Alpine region.
‘Even Switzerland can feel the effects much faster than we previously anticipated.’
So livestock farming would make sense?
From a global sustainability perspective, it would make sense for Switzerland to import certain varieties of fruit and vegetable that are not ideal for cultivation here. In turn, we could export animal products, provided these are produced on existing pasture land and without imported feed. Overall, however, for this to work, domestic consumption of animal products would need to fall, and Swiss consumers would need to consume less and focus primarily on Swiss products from pasture-based livestock. This would not only lead to less consumption of animal products as a whole but, specifically, less consumption of poultry and pork products, which are particularly reliant on imported feed.
So, from a global standpoint, importing less isn’t necessarily more sustainable. The key is to import the right things?
Exactly. In an ideal scenario, all countries and regions around the world would produce those products for which their location puts them at an advantage from a social, ecological and, to some extent, economic perspective. But that’s not how things work in the real world.
How can we promote pasture-based production?
On the one hand, we need to make it more expensive to import feed. At the same time, we need to incentivise value creation in alternative areas, for example growing pulses. Or we allow farms to adopt new sources of income by creating solar parks, for example. At the end of the day, however, consumer acceptance will be crucial.
What will that depend on?
The experiments we have run with the general public show that, with the right combination of measures, acceptance of change when it comes to consumption habits is already higher than is often assumed. Alongside the state, retail and canteens can play an important part. Marketing will play a huge role. And subsidies and fiscal policies will also be crucial. Today, there is a huge amount of funding for livestock – including non-pasture-based livestock. That incentivises producers and, sadly, doesn’t promote sustainable consumption. When it comes to the transformation process, it is vital not to abandon farmers in particular. They should benefit from the move to more arable farming and pasture-based livestock.
Is that going to be enough to transform the food system and meet the sustainability goals?
If we are going to be serious about the UN sustainability goals that Switzerland has committed to, and if Switzerland wants to make a fair contribution to achieving them by 2030, we need to move much faster. Sadly, that’s not particularly realistic from a political or economic viewpoint at the moment.
What would be a viable path?
We need cohesion rather than polarisation. One possible pathway would be a logical sequence of measures. First, we need to focus on the opportunities and foreground the potential for new value chains. The new Danish fund to support the expansion of plant-based value chains is a good example here. This could be followed by gradual adjustments to regulation and taxation.
Could foundations take on a role here?
The nonprofit sector could help kick-start the process. We will need a lot of activities at the start, including in niche markets. Foundations could also take responsibility by helping to create a Future Committee. Their support could also help ensure that pilot projects are successfully integrated along the value chain. We often see projects that only cover a specific area and don’t consider how the overall value chain needs to look if transformation is to succeed. The same applies to the work of foundations.
Meaning?
Foundations can achieve more by working together. Luckily, this is starting to happen – they’re starting to consider where they complement one another, where they can support one another and where they can have greater impact together.
And initiate developments through pilot projects?
Pilot projects that are implemented well can show that something works. They can lead producers to make changes, find customers and politicians to adjust the way funding is handled. If we then want to scale up the project, however, the required totals will exceed the capabilities of the nonprofit sector. So, here too, it makes sense to take a strategic and gradual approach and to finance the initiative with different forms of funding. At the end of the day, the ideal would be a large-scale transformation fund, as outlined in our report. This fund could cover the costs of focused consultation during the transformation process, support research and development and reimburse infrastructural expenditure relating to the transformation along the value chain. There also needs to be financial compensation for the losers.
Whom do you expect the losers to be?
I’m thinking, for example, of farms that have recently invested in new cowsheds because the current subsidy policy encouraged that. We need to differentiate between entrepreneurial accountability and encouragement through social subsidy policies. It will be crucial to clarify when the decision to invest was taken so that farms that lose capital as a result of the transformation process are awarded fair compensation.
‘It’s important to focus on the opportunities.’
Lukas Fesenfeld
There’s already a lot of money being poured into agriculture.
Exactly. Including public money. Some of that needs to be rerouted. And over the long term, we won’t necessarily need so much new money. According to estimates, food consumption in Switzerland at the current rate will generate external costs of around 35 billion francs per year that are now incurred in other areas such as healthcare or environmental damage. If we include these costs, society as a whole would profit from a transformation towards a sustainable food system.
So a more sustainable food system would also be better for our health?
Yes, of course. It depends on the definition of sustainability. Normally, it includes a balanced, healthy diet. For example, there’s the Planetary Health Diet approach. This concept defines a menu that takes account of the health of both people and planet.
How do we achieve that sort of transformation?
On the one hand, the stakeholders today recognise that the opportunities are greater than previously assumed. On the other hand, new interest groups are popping up, as they did with renewable energy, and they are campaigning for fundamental reform, including changes to the subsidy policy and tariffs. That’s not yet a realistic option when it comes to the policies governing food and agriculture because too many stakeholders are still profiting from the status quo, or at least believe they are. There will only be an interest in change if we can credibly demonstrate that transformation will open up major opportunities. We need concrete measures to achieve that. So not just imposing new constraints – we need the new measures to go hand-in-hand with a simplification in the administrative workload for farmers.
Can you give us an example?
If minimum indicators for environmental protection are established at regional level, for example, these can be checked with the aid of satellites and public subsidies can be paid on the basis of this data. The administrative workload is reduced. Small farms benefit in particular. On the consumer side, there’s the possibility of changes in the way canteens are run but also the introduction of an animal welfare tax – something they’re currently discussing in Germany… That would not only change consumption behaviour – it would also generate new resources for the transformation. This funding is important for farmers who are making changes. They need planning security and reliable finance.
Does transforming food security work against sustainability?
Globally, today’s food system is responsible for around 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, a large proportion of species loss and around 70 per cent of freshwater usage. According to the global report by the Food System Economics Commission, which I worked on, the annual costs of the current food system for humans and the environment amount to over 10 trillion dollars a year. With the wedding-cake model of sustainability, all social and ecological goals are reliant on an intact ecosystem. Where that is absent, the economy can become unstable, resulting in hunger, conflict, pandemics and political unrest. That quickly impacts on global value creation. Even Switzerland can feel the effects much faster than we previously anticipated.
