A group of international scientists have raised questions about potential conflict of interests that Teagasc might have because it hosted a summit in 2022 on the Societal Role of Meat and highlighted a declaration from the event on the “societal role of livestock”.
Five scientists “critically analysed” the ‘Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock’- which is a document that was published following the summit two years ago.
Evidence reviewed during the event hosted by Teagasc at the Food Research Centre in Ashtown and conclusions from the summit were published in volume 13 of the scientific journal Animal Frontiers in April 2023.
Attendees of the summit – with academic and scientific credentials – were invited to endorse the “evidence base” by signing the ‘Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock’.
Summit
According to Teagasc it routinely hosts international scientific conferences “to bring together the latest science available on a particular topic, and to facilitate discussion around the science”.
In relation to the summit on the Societal Role of Meat it said the “outputs from this and other conferences are all published for the public to read and evaluate the outcomes”.
It also highlighted that publication in peer reviewed scientific journals and on organisations’ websites “ensures that everything is transparent, available to the public to review”.
According to a spokesperson for Teagasc the Dublin Declaration “was hosted independently of Teagasc and it was left to individual scientists to decide if they wanted to sign it or not”.
“No companies or organisations could sign it.
“Each individual who signed had to be a scientist working in the relevant area,” the spokesperson added.
Scientists
But in their paper –The Dublin Declaration: Gain for the Meat Industry, Loss for Science – which was published earlier this month in the Environmental Science and Policy journal the five scientists claim that the Dublin Declaration “echoes meat industry narratives”.
The scientists; Jochen Krattenmacher, Romain Espinosa, Edel Sanders, Richard Twine and William J. Ripple, said their analysis revealed that the declaration was “scientifically problematic, particularly in its neglect of issues such as meat overconsumption in high-income countries and the dominance of industrial animal production, thereby downplaying associated risks and harms”.
They also said that they had identified “several academically questionable practices” in relation to the declaration.
The scientists said these included “denial of credentials to dissenting actors, omission of significant conflicts of interest, and excessive self-edition and self-citation, all while purporting to provide a scientific and balanced overview”.
The five said that their analysis showed how the authors of the Dublin Declaration in “misleadingly neglect well-established scientific evidence pointing toward a need to significantly reduce meat production and consumption in high-income countries”.
Teagasc
Specifically in relation to Teagasc the scientists also point to what they describe as “conflicts of interests of the Irish semi-state authority Teagasc and of Animal Frontiers and the animal production science associations behind it”, which had published a special issue edited by the declaration’s authors.
They said that Teagasc “notably is invested in the Irish dairy sector and generates income from livestock trade and providing services to the industry”.
In their paper the scientists also stated: “Teagasc arguably should seek to reduce its conflict of interests (COIs) in respect to its public mission as a charity by divesting from the industry, or at least diversifying its portfolio toward non-animal-based food producers”.