(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to Mind the Globe, the podcast where we dive into some of today's most pressing global challenges.
We are a team of seven international students from the Junior Research Lab at Institut Agro Montpellier, here to explore the issues that shape our world and our future.
Hello and welcome to Mind the Globe Junior Research Talk.
My name is Andrea and today I'm here with Eric Verger to talk about sustainable diets.
In this episode we will be discussing the topic how we can feed everyone in the future, stay healthy and protect the planet at the same time.
Eric Verger is a researcher at the IRD, the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development.
Welcome and thank you for being here.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and your background?
What did you study and where do you work today?
Hi everyone, thank you for this invitation.
I have an educational background in food engineering and nutrition.
My core research activities are related to diet quality assessment and improvement of this quality in different populations, like adults, pregnant women or kids, and in different contexts.
They have been in Europe but also in different parts of the African continent.
Other research activities have focused on the relationships between agrobiodiversity and diet quality in women living in different rural areas in low and middle income countries.
I can cite two current projects to illustrate these activities.
In the first one called CARI, we are developing and validating a food frequency questionnaire adapted to the context of the Reunion Island.
In the second one called DYNAMIC, we are documenting the links between agroecological practises and the dietary practises of small-scale farming households in the central area of Madagascar.
At the IRD, there are different knowledge communities, right?
And you are responsible for one of them.
Can you give us an insight into your work at the IRD and what are the current goals of your knowledge group?
All these communities are linked to global endgames humanity has to face, like climate change, biodiversity and so on.
And one of them is about sustainable food systems.
I am the animator of this very specific community.
As the animator, I am responsible for implementing the roadmap of this knowledge community that we have collectively created.
To be a little more concrete, the first goal of this community is to federate a research community within our IRD about the development of regional analysis methods covering all parts of food systems.
It's because food systems, it's a very recent object for interdisciplinary research.
Before, it was more a social sciences object.
And now, a lot of people can work on this concept from agronomists, economists, nutritionists and so on.
But they are not yet realising they are part of this community.
So that's why we have this objective to federate people.
And the second goal is to, of course, produce actionable knowledge to fuel the dialogue between different system stakeholders, but also the dialogue between science and society and politics that is essential to transforming food systems to make them more sustainable.
So yes, today we will focus on sustainable diets, as you said.
How did you end up in this topic?
And can you tell us why do you think that sustainable diets are so important into our today's world?
Yes, during my thesis and my postdoctoral work, I focused on assessing the quality of diets in terms of their ability to meet nutritional needs.
But I had been interested in environmental issues for a long time, and mostly due to political reasons.
And in fact, it was only when I was recruited to the IRD that I was able to incorporate this environmental dimension and more broadly other dimension of sustainability into my work.
For me, the sustainability of our diets, in fact, the sustainability of our food system, and more broadly, in fact, the sustainability of our human societies is fundamental.
Because the sustainability of life on Earth is compromised by the way humanity has exploited it.
And more particularly, it's a small part of humanity that consumes excessively on the backs of the vast majority.
So I'm clearly thinking about our capitalist Western societies, which are themselves the source of huge inequalities within them.
So that's why it's so important to think about this different dimension if we want to resolve all the burdens of malnutrition.
Sustainable diets also aim to achieve the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
The SDG 5 aims to achieve gender equality.
Gender inequality remains a significant global challenge, even in the food sector.
What are the challenges women face in agriculture and food production?
And how can sustainable food systems help to reduce these inequalities and promote gender equality?
As you mentioned, women face numerous inequalities in all sectors of activity.
So, for example, women do not receive the same support as men farmers do.
So, for example, they have less access to land, loans and machinery.
And also, most of the women have to cope with a workload that is often invisible from an economic point of view.
I mean, it's all the domestic activities like carrying, cooking and cleaning they have to take care of.
Globally, women spend an average of four hours per day on unpaid care work, more than double the time spent by men.
As a result, they have less time to engage in paid agricultural or economic labour or work longer hours.
This means that contributions to the household and community often go unrecognised in economic terms, even though they play a crucial role in supporting food production and family well-being.
As explained in a very recent article from Blackstone and colleagues, current globalised food systems rely on complex value chains, in which people and animals are often made invisible and or exploited.
Complex value chains mean that many steps in the food production and distribution, like farming, processing and transport, can involve unfair conditions.
For example, workers may face unsafe working conditions or low wages, and animals raised for food may not be treated well.
These issues are often hidden from consumers, so it's difficult to see how our food choices affect the people and ecosystems involved.
That is why sustainable food systems need to address these underlying conditions and their impacts across the supply chain.
If we want to have a sustainable food system and a sustainable diet, we have to make sure that we have a better social justice among all these actors and mostly among the women that are suffering so many dominations.
Nowadays, more and more people are following these Western dietary patterns, the so-called Western diet.
This consists of nutrient-dense foods like a lot of meat and dairy products, but it's also linked to negative health outcomes and high greenhouse gas emissions.
Do you think a more plant-based diet could help to reduce these high carbon emissions?
Yes.
Numerous studies based on either dietary data from actual consumption or on modelling of optimised diets, they have shown that plant-based diets can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The magnitude of this reduction can vary depending on whether we are considering issues like the bioavailability of iron and zinc, which are less available in vegetarian diets.
But on the whole, it is realistic to hope for reductions of the order of 20 to 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Western contexts, with diets that will be culturally acceptable.
This would represent a significant improvement, especially in high-income countries where diet-related emissions are particularly high.
For example, red meat such as beef is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
Producing one kilogramme of beef can generate around 20 to 40 kilogrammes of CO2-equivalent emissions, compared to only two kilogrammes for plant-based proteins like lentils or beans.
When I say culturally acceptable, I mean it's just a matter of more or less rebalancing foods we are already consuming without introduction of any new foods like insects or lab meat, stuff like that.
However, other aspects of food systems, like the way we are producing, like are we using nutritious inputs, or the way we have lost and wasted during all the value chains, these have to be modified if we really want to reduce as much as possible our carbon emissions.
Rebalancing the amount of foods we already consume is an effective way to reduce CO2 emissions without drastically changing eating habits.
For example, reducing the overconsumption of red meat and dairy, which produce high levels of greenhouse gas and adding more plant-based opinions, like legumes, nuts and vegetables, can significantly lower the carbon footprint of our meals.
Improving the way we produce food is also important.
For example, reducing the use of synthetic fertilisers can help to reduce emissions by lowering nitrous oxide, a strong greenhouse gas.
Nitrous oxide mainly comes from nitrogen fertilisers and animal waste, which is used on fields and pastures.
Food waste is another critical issue.
Globally, about one-third of all food produced, about 1.3 billion tonnes, is lost or wasted each year.
By reducing food loss during harvesting, storage and transportation, we could cut greenhouse gas emissions but also conserve vital resources like water, energy and labour.
Talking about cultural acceptance, do you think that different societies will accept new eating patterns, like a more plant-based diet?
And what challenges do you see in promoting this?
Well, about this aspect, for me it's absolutely necessary to recall a specific fact recommended by a colleague, Benoît Daviron, in his book, Biomass.
In 1954, Donald Paarlberg, who was an economic advisor to the United States Ministers of Agriculture, he explained that varying herd size is the method that is required today to balance food supply and demand.
In fact, at this time, the United States had a massive use of chemical inputs, and so they faced unprecedented plant overproduction.
And while they can reduce this production or, let's say, sell it cheaper to other parts of the world to benefit, they said, OK, we have to valorise that, so they turned into meat production.
In fact, we are talking about doubling meat production in just 20 years.
And it took numerous promotional campaigns among the general public, mainly under the supervision of the American Meat Association, to get people to increase their consumption.
So, in fact, when you have a strong political will, with a lot of communication and a lot of means, you can modify the food supplies and promote any food you want, and in fact really make sure that a change can happen.
So, the way the U.S. government has promoted meat, we can have a similar way to promote plant-based diet.
And also because, in terms of nutrition, we are just talking about rebalancing the diet.
We can just suggest people to decrease the quantity of meat.
Yes, so it's time to promote something else.
So, your recent research focusses on sustainable food systems in low- and middle-income countries.
Can you explain why there hasn't been much research yet about sustainable diets in these regions?
And would you consider sustainable diets and sustainable nutrition as a luxury problem maybe?
This lack corresponds to a whole range of economic factors.
In fact, when you consider the low-income countries, you have a lack of capacity to fund education and research.
So, at the end, you have a lack of qualified people to carry out the different scientific studies, and at the end, you have a lack of data to understand the sustainability of the diet and the food systems.
So, sadly, many research questions in the global South are potentially luxuries in view of the wealth these countries are generating.
To close this gap, it needs both local efforts and global responsibility.
High-income countries, which use more resources and produce far more global emissions, should show a moral and practical obligation to support low-income countries in developing sustainable food systems.
Wealthier nations need to invest in solutions like funding education and research, supporting data collection and sharing knowledge through partnerships.
And for that?
You have research institutes like IRD trying to collaborate with this country to help to improve the way they can have these studies in their country, but clearly, we have to change much more things if we want to make sure that these countries have the possibility to run this research.
When we look at data, it shows clearly that a high income leads to a higher carbon footprint.
So, the average person in a high-income country emits more than 30 times as much as those in a low-income country.
So, if we take that and the lack of resources like education and qualified personnel into account, do we believe that high-income countries should take more responsibility in promoting sustainable nutrition?
Or is it more a problem we have to face globally?
Clearly, high-income countries bear a fundamental responsibility for the fact that we are facing problems with the sustainability of life on Earth.
And it has been for several centuries.
As explained in a recent article in the Lancet Planetary Health Earth Commission, it was clearly mentioned that colonialism left a legacy of inequality that saw many countries become a source of wealth and resources for European elites through slavery, mining, agricultural export, and the exploitation of land and workers.
The era of colonialism began about 520 years ago.
At that time, countries from Europe began to conquer territories in other parts of the world and expropriated indigenous land.
Under colonial rule, many countries were forced to grow a limited number of export crops like cotton, sugar, and tobacco.
This diverted resources away from diverse local food production and led to severe food shortages in the colonialised countries.
European colonisers often dismissed indigenous foods as inferior, so they imported livestock and crops, which disrupted ecosystems and food practises.
And these inequalities persist as powerful countries and corporations in Europe and North America continue to control trades, financial flows, land, and labour, and extract values from the poorest countries and people.
So yes, clearly, high-income countries should review the way they produce and consume foods in order to limit their impact on the climate.
And they should also put an end to the control they have over low-income countries, in particular by cancelling debts and reconsidering the rules of world trade.
Climate change affects the whole world, but low-income countries are disproportionately affected by its economic and social costs.
Given these challenges, do you think it's realistic for them to adopt sustainable practises?
It really depends on the country we are talking about, because some of them are already involved in some specific models.
I'm thinking about Malaysia, where they have this oil palm production.
For me, they are trapped in this kind of production, because they have changed all their models to that.
So it's very difficult for them to change back to another model, because it will imply a massive way to finance this change.
Malaysia is one of the world's second largest producers of palm oil.
Its economy heavily depends on palm oil exports, which contribute significantly to the country's gross domestic product and provide employment for millions of workers.
But palm oil production has a severe environmental impact.
Large areas of tropical forests are cleared to make way for palm plantations, leading to deforestation, loss of biodiversity and the endangerment of several species.
This process also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane.
Transitioning to sustainable practises and moving away from the current model would require huge financial investments.
In addition, the global demand for cheap palm oil is a major challenge, as sustainable methods often lead to higher production costs.
This economic dependence on a single commodity severely limits the flexibility needed for transformative and sustainable change.
In fact, it was well explained in different reports, like from the IPES food, where they explain how the global debts that the low-income countries have with the high-income countries, it's really maybe the strongest barrier for these countries to make sustainable change in the way they are developing.
IPES food, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, provides evidence-based recommendations for building equitable and sustainable food systems.
Their report highlights the significant impact of global debt on low-income countries and their ability to pursue sustainable development.
Many of these countries are heavily in debt to high-income countries.
This forces them to prioritise debt repayment over critical investments in sustainability.
The focus is on short-term economic gains, rather than implementing sustainable agricultural practises or building resilient food systems.
The cycle of debt and dependency limits their ability to address environmental challenges, such as adopting renewable energy or transitioning to sustainable economies.
Looking ahead, what steps can we take, particularly in Western countries, to maintain a nutritionally balanced diet while minimising the environmental impact of our food choices?
What matters is that micro-insurance requirements are properly covered.
And we can achieve this by lowering our consumption of animal products in Western countries and consuming more plant products, particularly pulses, nuts and seeds.
So, yes, we can find many solutions like insects or laboratory-grown meat, but honestly, we don't need them right now for our Western countries, especially because laboratory-grown meat have their own environmental impacts.
They have a large question about the prices and the accessibility.
And insects is more about a cultural aspect.
But again, if we make the change I just suggested, like decreasing just some animal products and having more plant products, that will be enough to have a more sustainable diet and food system.
Okay, that's good news for vegetarians and vegans.
So, coming to the end of this interview already, for me and for the listeners of this podcast, what are simple steps that each of us can implement into our everyday life and what do you wish everybody should remember?
Well, if you have the financial and logistical means, as well as the will, you can turn to diets that are more plant-based than those in Western countries.
And also, if you do not have these means, don't forget to exercise your civil rights, of course, if you have any of these civil rights, by voting for programmes that propose to change our relationship with food or by joining associations that campaign for such changes.
Because I think it's first and foremost a collective issue.
Yeah, thank you.
That motivates to take responsibility for ourselves and even for the planet.
Yeah, okay.
So, I thank you for being here, Eric Verger.
And yeah, thank you for these interesting insights.
Yeah, stay healthy.
Thank you.