Summary
This project gathered opinions from different stakeholder groups (from academia, public sector and private sector) regarding realistic changes in the food and land use system in Germany by 2050. From this information, four different pathways to reaching greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets were developed and tested using an accounting tool, which assessed their impact on indicators such as land use, GHG emissions, and biodiversity conservation potential. Most participants from academia believed there should be no consumption of animal products, while participants from the private sector believed animal product consumption will not decrease by more than 30%. The findings show that achieving the German GHG reduction target of 36% by 2030 in the agricultural sector and approaching the EU’s overall emission reduction goal of 55% is feasible across all stakeholder pathways, and three of the four pathways can almost achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, with the exception being the private sector pathway. A strength of this study, noted by the authors, is the “bottom up” approach to developing the four pathways, which adds a perspective to the scientific literature that considers societal and political plausibility. A limitation is the small stakeholder group sample size (25 respondents) meaning the views may not represent the stakeholder groups more broadly. This study suggests that dietary changes that lead to less farmed animal production is the main path reducing GHG emissions, which in turn releases land previously used for grazing and crops, making room for land types with higher carbon sequestration rates.
Food systems contribute considerably to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and influence land use. In Germany, many strategies have been proposed by policy-makers to reduce negative impacts and make the food system more sustainable. It is unclear how close the suggested policies, when bundled, will bring the food and land use system towards the targeted goals; and what stakeholders from non-policy-making organizations consider realistic changes in the German food system. We thus surveyed different stakeholder groups on their opinions about realistic changes in the food and land use system in Germany up to 2050, developed four stakeholder pathways, and used an accounting tool to determine the effect of each pathway on indicators such as land use, GHG emissions, and biodiversity conservation potential. The assessment showed that GHG emissions from agricultural activities and land use are reduced from 66 to − 2–22 TgCO2e by 2050, while the area where natural processes predominate increases from 19 to 27–32%, and the resilience of the food system is not negatively influenced. The change is caused mainly by a diet-change-induced reduction of livestock production and agricultural area transformation into areas with higher carbon sequestration rates. If followed, the common stakeholder pathway (based on all stakeholder responses) would thus lead towards a sustainable food and land use system, but only if the underlying assumption of a drastic diet change towards more plant-based products comes true. Stakeholders from the academic and public sectors were more likely to assume that such a change was realistic than stakeholders from the private sector.