Pathways to sustainable beef production and consumption

Our food system, while providing food for billions of people, is having substantial negative impacts on the environment in many parts of the world. Furthermore, many of the diets being consumed are unbalanced and unhealthy. Malnutrition directly affects one in three people around the world, causing stunting, wasting or obesity. What we eat is also tied to many non-communicable diseases, and is one of the leading risk factors for preventable deaths in high income countries.

Globally, there is increasing interest to make our food system more sustainable and our diets healthier. This project considers the sustainability of the food system in the United States of America. In particular, it explores the action space in shifting beef consumption and production in the United States of America and considers the potential environmental benefits and trade-offs and the impact on diets and health outcomes.

We provide inputs into assessing some of the potential outcomes of various interventions in the United States of America food system. These interventions target changes in production processes as well as policies that shift dietary patterns. This work involves multi-scale analysis, which considers the household and regional/national outcomes of different policies.

This work can assist to better inform ethical interventions in the food system that reduce environmental pressures while limiting negative social and economic impacts.

Our partners are Johns Hopkins University and Victoria University.

Contact Daniel Mason-D’Croz for more information.