Technical biofuel production and GHG mitigation potentials through healthy diets in the EU

Abstract

Average diets in the European Union are not in line with the dietary recommendations of the World Health Organization. Too little plant-based and too much livestock-based food is consumed. Livestock production requires substantial resources and causes considerable greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), especially methane from enteric fermentation in ruminant animals. The livestock sector produces 18% of GHGE worldwide and uses 52% of the crops supplied in dry matter within the EU. Most livestock species are relatively poor feed converters. They require multiple units of feed to produce a unit of meat, milk, or eggs. The EU-average for this food conversion ratio ranges from 1.1 for milk to 34.2 for lamb meat on a dry-matter basis (Wilkinson, 2011). In addition to the impacts on the ecosystem, excess consumption of meat is also associated with substantial health risks.Large parts of the agricultural production capacity are used for a product that leads to high GHGE and even health risks, when consumed at current levels. This work therefore attempts to quantify the technical potential to repurpose feed crops for biofuel production, if healthy, low-meat diets were adopted. The reduction of agricultural GHGE and additional GHG mitigation from using the biofuels are examined as well.The analysis is performed with a modified version of the EUFASOM model. Trade volumes between EU and non-EU regions are fixed at observed levels to assess intra-EU potentials. Consumer preferences are considered in the examined diets. Average supply and demand quantities from 2007 to 2011 serve as the reference.If healthy diets were adopted and meat intake halved from about 200 to 100 g per day and capita, biofuel production could be increased 7.7 fold. With this, 16.1% of all the EU's fossil transport fuels could be displaced. Agricultural GHGE could be reduced by 24% and 14% of GHGE in the EU's transport sector could be additionally mitigated through the increased biofuel production.The adoption of healthy diets with reduced meat consumption can hence lead to large potentials for GHG mitigation in the EU. This holds however only if lower consumption of livestock products is mirrored by lower production as well. Mitigating GHGE by reducing livestock and displacing fossil fuels, is the “double dividend” of lower meat consumption. Furthermore, no innovations or high investments are needed, and substantial health costs can be saved.