Incentives and new technology could help stimulate change in the red meat supply chain to shift towards a green future, a new industry report from Rabobank has found.
The Unlocking Climate-Friendly Meat; Supply Chain Initiatives Will Be Key report from Rabobank suggests that the trend towards “climate-friendly meat” will offer opportunities for meat industry players despite its challenges, to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Incentives such as price premiums for producers, as well introducing new technologies are among the suggestions in the report, which are aimed to work with stakeholders to produce lower-emission red meat without undertaking “onerous emission measurements”.
“Instead of having to measure on-farm emissions, livestock owners could participate in a dedicated supply chain with a program that uses a technology or process that has demonstrated emission benefits,” said Rabobank senior animal protein analyst Angus Gidley-Baird.
“While sustainability ranks highly amongst a growing number of consumers, they don’t necessarily want to pay higher prices for the benefit.”
“Surveys conducted by Meat & Livestock Australia show that, when it comes to the actual purchase, the most common drivers for protein choice are freshness, value, and ease of preparation.”
Gidley-Baird said that measuring livestock GHG emissions in a broadscale approach was one of the greatest challenges the industry faces, due to the diversity of operations and production systems, interactivity with the landscape, lack of data and harmonisation of methodologies.
“Without the ability to easily, accurately and consistently measure emissions, it makes it difficult for broad based policy instruments to be applied, which is another reason why we believe a market-based approach is more likely to lead change,” he said.
“In the red meat supply chain, the bulk of the emissions occur at the production end of the supply chain, yet it is society – in this case consumers – that represent one of the key proponents for emissions reductions.”
“Communicating emission reductions through the supply chain was essential to connect the two ends of the supply chain, and required either the use of a trusted program or brand, or the measurement and reporting of emissions.”
The full report can be accessed here.
