Institut für Strategien und Folgenabschätzung
The project aims to promote alternative, plant-based protein sources as dairy and meat substitutes to reduce GHG emissions more rapidly. It combines practical classical breeding approaches to develop improved oat lines and new molecular techniques in oats and lupin with estimation of climate effects and socio-economic assessments. The comparative assessment of the product-specific carbon footprint of the dairy and meat substitutes studied in the project, with particular emphasis on breeding progress, will serve to identify targeted product-related GHG emissions from dairy and meat substitutes and to make them more accessible in the future. The investigation of socio-economic effects of the substitution of cow's milk and meat products by plant-based alternatives along the affected value chains from the producer via processing to the consumer should, in addition to the benefits and costs (quantitative and qualitative), in particular identify barriers and limitations among the value chains that prevent a growth of the alterantive´s market. Based on these investigations, consumers can be specifically informed about climate-friendly consumption behavior and the levers for further reductions can be described. The assessment of climate and socio-economic effects also serves to inform decision-making and the actors in the value chain.
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture