In a new report titled Recipe for a Livable Planet, the World Bank recommends that high-income countries should shift subsidies away from animal agriculture and towards more sustainable alternatives.
The report finds that conventional agriculture contributes to soil degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and pollution. But even though the agrifood system is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, most actions that have been taken to reduce emissions have targeted other sectors.
According to the World Bank, livestock account for 25.9% of agrifood emissions, more than any other source. Additionally, some other sources may be indirectly related to animal agriculture — for example, net forest conversion accounts for 18.4% of agrifood emissions, and forest is often cleared for pasture or to grow animal feed. Even if all fossil fuel emissions were eliminated from every other sector, agrifood emissions alone would take the planet past the Paris Agreement target of 1.5C of warming.
Repurposing subsidies
While there will be costs involved in cutting agrifood emissions, shifting money away from subsidies — which the report describes as “wasteful and harmful for the environment”— could help. The total sum needed is estimated at less than half the amount the world spends every year on agricultural subsidies.
High-income countries have the highest per capita agrifood emissions, and the report advises that they should “decrease consumer demand for emissions-intensive, animal-source foods”. This could involve increasing the cost of animal foods to reflect their environmental and health impacts, along with shifting subsidies to lower-emission foods and promoting more sustainable alternatives.
Creating a level playing field
Several organizations have previously called for the reform of agricultural subsidies; for example, an investor coalition managing $7.3 trillion in assets has urged the G20 to make changes by 2030. A report by the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change reached a similar conclusion, and found that the EU’s common agricultural policy is not well-aligned with its goals. Currently, 82% of agricultural subsidies in the EU go to the production of emission-intensive animal-based foods.
Subsidies keep the prices of animal products artificially low, making plant-based alternatives seem expensive in comparison. In the US, livestock and seafood producers have received over $59 billion in subsidies since 1995, while plant-based proteins and alternatives have received just $124 million over the past two decades. As awareness of the environmental impact of animal agriculture increases, calls for subsidy reform continue to intensify.
“By supporting plant-based meat alternatives with the same levels of subsidies that the meat industry receives, we can promote a level playing field so that consumers who choose the more sustainable plant-based option don’t have to pay an unfair larger price,” Lynette Kucsma, the co-founder of Natural Machines, told vegconomist last month.
