Transformative Meat Governance (transformEAT)

There is broad scientific consensus that the current food system is unsustainable, with environmental impacts from animal-sourced foods consistently exceeding impacts of plant-based foods. Production of animal-sourced foods is a major cause of biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Current patterns of meat production and consumption also harm public health and animal welfare through emergence of zoonotic disease, antimicrobial resistance, certain non-communicable diseases, and harm to the farmed animals themselves. Therefore, meat sits at the heart of the “One Health” triad, representing a – perhaps the – embodied symbol of interlinked crises in human, animal, and ecosystem health. 

While there is increasing awareness that food system transformation is urgently needed to address the environmental degradation and public health risks stemming from the food system, what is stopping this transformation from happening? One key factor is that current political and legal frameworks governing the food system are, for the most part, not conducive to food system transformation – driven by policy incoherence, failure to address the negative externalities of animal-sourced foods, and pervasive “agricultural exceptionalism”. With meat at the core of the unsustainable food system, the necessary transformation in the food system and its governance must be framed and facilitated by a transformation in meat governance. 

In the transformEAT project, we aim to bring together a multi-disciplinary and multi-perspective scholarly cohort to conceptualize and operationalize this novel concept of “transformative meat governance” by identifying legal barriers and legal levers for achieving food system transformation towards a One Health-aligned, plant-forward food system. This will be accomplished by 1.) comprehensively mapping the current state of global meat law and governance and identifying key legal obstacles and opportunities for food system transformation; 2) conceptualizing a future system of governance arrangements that align with One Health, outlining its legal foundations and the potential range of legal and policy instruments encompassed by it; and 3) assessing realistic pathways by which this framework of transformative meat governance could be implemented and operationalized into democratic society, identifying possible issues and mitigation strategies to ensure a “just transition” towards a food system aligned with human, animal, and environmental health.