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REPORT
April 2022
The Politics of Protein
Examining claims about livestock, fish, ‘alternative proteins’ & sustainability
This page is automatically translated from the English original using DeepL and may contain errors.
This major report by IPES-Food sheds light on misleading generalisations that dominate public discussion about meat and protein, and warns of the risks of falling for meat techno-fixes.
Meat and protein are firmly in the spotlight of debates around food systems, climate change, and nutrition. Big meat, dairy, and seafood companies are fast rolling out a range of technologies – such as plant-based alternatives, lab-grown meat, and precision livestock and fish-farming – with the backing of governments worldwide.
But IPES-Food warns that a number of misleading claims dominate public discussion about meat and protein, leading to:
- A disproportionate focus on ‘protein’.
- Systematic failures to account for differences between production systems and world regions, and all facets of sustainability.
- Simplistic silver bullet solutions based on flawed ‘facts’.
It recommends:
- Focusing on a transition to sustainable food systems (not just a ‘protein transition’);
- Prioritizing reforms that deliver on all aspects of sustainability;
- Reclaiming public resources from Big Protein, and resetting the debate.
Phil Howard, lead author of the report
It’s easy to see why people would be drawn to the marketing and hype, but meat techno-fixes will not save the planet. In many cases, they will make the problems with our industrial food system worse – fossil fuel dependence, industrial monocultures, pollution, poor work conditions, unhealthy diets, and control by massive corporations. Just as electric cars are not a silver bullet to fix climate change, these solutions are not going to fix our damaging industrial food system. We need to change the system – not the product.
Phil Howard, lead author of the report
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