A leading food systems expert has said that the world needs to “dramatically increase” production of protein for food by 2050.
Jack Bobo, director of the Food Systems Institute at the University of Nottingham, delivered the lead address at the Agricultural Science Association (ASA) Conference 2023, which is taking place today (Thursday, September 7) in Naas, Co. Kildare.
Speaking to Agriland after his address, Bobo spoke about the trade-offs between different diets, particularly plant-based diets.
“There are certain plant-based diets that would have a lower environmental impact, but they wouldn’t be as nutritious, so it’s a tradeoff. Animal protein is a nutrient-dense food and so having it as part of your diet is an easy way of ensuring you get complete protein.
It’s not as easy as people say to get the nutritional benefit of a meat-free diet,” he added.
Bobo highlighted that the need for animal-sourced protein varies considerably throughout the world, with the developed world likely not needing as much as it currently consumes, but much of developing world needing considerably more.
“We eat more meat now in many parts of the world than we did 30 or 40 years ago, so we probably don’t even have to eat as much protein as we do in some places. We would probably be happier and healthier if we didn’t eat as much meat because we shouldn’t eat as much food. It’s not meat’s fault, it’s that we are overconsuming,” he said.
“I think if we want more balanced and nutritious diets, we would tend to eat less meat in some places and more meat in other places.”
However, Bobo told Agriland that “the push to reduce animal protein doesn’t recognise that we need to dramatically increase protein by 2050”.
“So tomorrow, if we said we would eat less animal protein, it would be just a nutritional disaster for the world,” he added.
In terms of alternative, plant-based sources of protein, Bobo indicated that these won’t meet the nutritional demands of the global population, but can still play a role without reducing the number of livestock.
“It’s going to be hard to scale alternatives to 2050. Just meeting the growth in demand is a big challenge. The protein demand today is $1.5 trillion or $2 trillion dollars, so it’s going to grow to be a $3 trillion or $4 trillion dollar opportunity by 2050.
“That means that alternative proteins could grow to a $1.5 trillion dollar industry and we wouldn’t loose a single head of cattle,” he said.
He went on to highlight that some countries and regions of the world can produce animal-sourced protein more sustainably than others.
“Part of the challenge is that many of the parts of the world that need the most protein are very low-productivity producers. So you have India, which should be producing a lot less meat and dairy because it’s just not very efficient,” Bobo said.
“Some of those places, by and large in sub-Saharan Africa and many parts of Asia, they really don’t have the land and the environment to have dramatic increases in highly-productive meat production.”
Commenting on the public debate surrounding plant-based foods, he said: “It’s unfortunate that some of this conversation is around should we be eating a more plant-based diet, because dietary guidelines have said for 20 or 30 years that we should be eating more fruit and vegetables.
“[Those guidelines] weren’t telling us to have a more plant-based diet, they were just telling us we need to be healthier, and fruits and vegetables are a good way of getting there. By calling it ‘plant-based’, it feels like it’s being pitted against meat,” Bobo added.
“We have always failed to consume the amount of fruit and vegetables that we should. Not because we should have more plant-based diets, but because we need more fruit and vegetables.”
He said: “We should all be eating healthier food, and that means not eating too much; eating less processed food generally, not because processed food is evil but because we tend to overconsume it; and we should eat quality meat in the right proportion.”