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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Kalyani Raghunathan

Kalyani Raghunathan is Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in New Delhi, India. Her research lies at the intersection of agriculture, gender, social protection, and public health and nutrition, with a specific focus on South Asia and Africa. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Communications and Public Affairs (CPA)

Claire Davis

Senior Editor

Claire Davis

Bio

Claire Davis is a Senior Editor in the Communications and Public Affairs Unit, based in Washington, DC.

Google Scholar Citations

Publications

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Journal Article

Sustainability considerations are not influencing meat consumption in the US

2024Downs, Shauna M.; Merchant, Emily V.; Sackey, Joachim; Fox, Elizabeth L.; Davis, Claire; Fanzo, Jessica
Details

Sustainability considerations are not influencing meat consumption in the US

The consumption of animal-source foods, and particularly red meat from ruminants, is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, and loss of biodiversity. Reducing red meat consumption has been identified as a key strategy to mitigate climate change; however, little is known about how to effectively intervene to promote its reduction in the United States (US). This study aimed to examine meat (red, unprocessed, and poultry) and seafood consumption patterns, the factors influencing their consumption (including a reduction in their consumption over time), and how these differed based on socioeconomic variables. The study was conducted through an online survey with a representative sample of the US population (n = 1224) in 2021 using KnowledgePanel®. Overall, we found that most participants reported consuming red meat (78%), processed meat (74%), or poultry (79%) 1–4 times per week, with several differences in consumption patterns based on socio-demographic characteristics. A substantial proportion of the population reported reducing their red (70%) and processed meat (64%) consumption over the previous year, which was much higher than those that reported reducing poultry (34%) or seafood (26%). Key factors influencing red meat reduction were health and price, while environmental sustainability and animal welfare were less important, particularly among certain socio-demographic groups. These findings can help provide insight into how best to frame messaging campaigns aimed at shifting red meat consumption in the US to support climate change mitigation. Focusing on the factors that resonate more with consumers is more likely to lead to shifts in consumption patterns.

Year published

2024

Authors

Downs, Shauna M.; Merchant, Emily V.; Sackey, Joachim; Fox, Elizabeth L.; Davis, Claire; Fanzo, Jessica

Citation

Downs, Shauna M.; Merchant, Emily V.; Sackey, Joachim; Fox, Elizabeth L.; Davis, Claire; and Fanzo, Jessica. 2024. Sustainability considerations are not influencing meat consumption in the US. Appetite 203(1 December 2024): 107667. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2024.107667

Country/Region

United States

Keywords

Americas; Northern America; Animal Source Foods; Consumer Behaviour; Diet; Feeding Preferences; Meat; Sustainability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2024.107667 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals

2021
Fanzo, Jessica; Haddad, Lawrence; Schneider, Kate R.; Béné, Christophe; Covic, Namukolo M.; Guarin, Alejandro; Herforth, Anna W.; Herrero, Mario; Sumaila, U. Rashid; Aburto, Nancy J.
…more Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, Mary; Barquera, Simon; Beal, Ty; Bizzotto Molina, Paulina; Brusset, Emery; Cafiero, Carlo; Campeau, Christine; Caron, Patrick; Cattaneo, Andrea; Conforti, Piero; Davis, Claire; DeClerck, Fabrice A.J.; Elouafi, Ismahane; Fabi, Carola; Gephart, Jessica A.; Golden, Christopher D.; Hendriks, Sheryl L.; Huang, Jikun; Laar, Amos; Lal, Rattan; Lidder, Preetmoninder; Loken, Brent; Marshall, Quinn; Masuda, Yuta J.; McLaren, Rebecca; Neufeld, Lynnette M.; Nordhagen, Stella; Remans, Roseline; Resnick, Danielle; Silverberg, Marissa; Torero Cullen, Maximo; Tubiello, Francesco N.; Vivero-Pol, Jose-Luis; Wei, Shijin; Rosero Moncayo, Jose
Details

Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals

Food systems that support healthy diets in sustainable, resilient, just, and equitable ways can engender progress in eradicating poverty and malnutrition; protecting human rights; and restoring natural resources. Food system activities have contributed to great gains for humanity but have also led to significant challenges, including hunger, poor diet quality, inequity, and threats to nature. While it is recognized that food systems are central to multiple global commitments and goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals, current trajectories are not aligned to meet these objectives. As mounting crises further stress food systems, the consequences of inaction are clear. The goal of food system transformation is to generate a future where all people have access to healthy diets, which are produced in sustainable and resilient ways that restore nature and deliver just, equitable livelihoods. A rigorous, science-based monitoring framework can support evidence-based policymaking and the work of those who hold key actors accountable in this transformation process. Monitoring can illustrate current performance, facilitate comparisons across geographies and over time, and track progress. We propose a framework centered around five thematic areas related to (1) diets, nutrition, and health; (2) environment and climate; and (3) livelihoods, poverty, and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience and sustainability. We hope to call attention to the need to monitor food systems globally to inform decisions and support accountability for better governance of food systems as part of the transformation process. Transformation is possible in the next decade, but rigorous evidence is needed in the countdown to the 2030 SDG global goals.

Year published

2021

Authors

Fanzo, Jessica; Haddad, Lawrence; Schneider, Kate R.; Béné, Christophe; Covic, Namukolo M.; Guarin, Alejandro; Herforth, Anna W.; Herrero, Mario; Sumaila, U. Rashid; Aburto, Nancy J.; Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, Mary; Barquera, Simon; Beal, Ty; Bizzotto Molina, Paulina; Brusset, Emery; Cafiero, Carlo; Campeau, Christine; Caron, Patrick; Cattaneo, Andrea; Conforti, Piero; Davis, Claire; DeClerck, Fabrice A.J.; Elouafi, Ismahane; Fabi, Carola; Gephart, Jessica A.; Golden, Christopher D.; Hendriks, Sheryl L.; Huang, Jikun; Laar, Amos; Lal, Rattan; Lidder, Preetmoninder; Loken, Brent; Marshall, Quinn; Masuda, Yuta J.; McLaren, Rebecca; Neufeld, Lynnette M.; Nordhagen, Stella; Remans, Roseline; Resnick, Danielle; Silverberg, Marissa; Torero Cullen, Maximo; Tubiello, Francesco N.; Vivero-Pol, Jose-Luis; Wei, Shijin; Rosero Moncayo, Jose

Citation

Fanzo, J.; Haddad, L.; Schneider, K.R.; Béné, C.; Covic, N.M.; Guarin, A.; Herforth, A.W.; Herrero, M.; Sumaila, U. R.; Aburto, N.J.; Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, M.; Barquera, S.; Beal, T.; Bizzotto Molina, P.; Brusset, E.; Cafiero, C.; Campeau, C.; Caron, P.; Cattaneo, A.; Conforti, P.; Davis, C.; DeClerck, F.A.J.; Elouafi, I.; Fabi, C.; Gephart, J.A.; Golden, C.D.; Hendriks, S.L.; Huang, J.; Laar, A.; Lal, R.; Lidder, P.; Loken, B.; Marshall, Q.; Masuda, Y.J.; McLaren, R.; Neufeld, L.M.; Nordhagen, S.; Remans, R.; Resnick, D.; Silverberg, M.; Torero Cullen, M.; Tubiello, F.N.; Vivero-Pol, J.-L.; Wei, S.; Rosero Moncayo, J. Viewpoint: Rigorous monitoring is necessary to guide food system transformation in the countdown to the 2030 global goals. Food Policy 104: 102163 20 p. ISSN: 0306-9192

Keywords

Objetivos De Desarrollo Sostenible; Sustainable Development Goals; Healthy Diets; Sustainable Livelihoods; Dieta Saludable; Livelihoods; Diet; Resilience; Food Systems; Sistemas Alimentarios; Governance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102163 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

2019
Dainese, Matteo; Martin, Emily A.; Aizen, Marcelo A.; Albrecht, Matthias; Bartomeus, Ignasi; Bommarco, Riccardo; Carvalheiro, Luísa G.; Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca; Gagic, Vesna; Garibaldi, Lucas A.
…more Ghazoul, Jaboury; Grab, Heather; Jonsson, Mattias; Karp, Daniel S.; Kennedy, Christina M.; Kleijn, David; Kremen, Claire; Lands, Douglas A.; Letourneau, Deborah K.; Marini, Lorenzo; Poveda, Katja; Rader, Romina; Smith, Henrik G.; Tscharntke, Teja; Andersson, Georg K.S.; Badenhausser, Isabelle; Baensch, Svenja; Bezerra, Antonio Diego M.; Bianchi, Felix J.J.A.; Boreux, Virginie; Bretagnolle, Vincent; Caballero López, Berta; Cavigliasso, Pablo; Ćetković, Aleksandar; Chacoff, Natacha P.; Classen, Alice; Cusser, Sarah; Silva e Silva, Felipe D. da; Groot, G. Arjen de; Dudenhöffer, Jan H.; Ekroos, Johan; Fijen, Thijs; Franck, Pierre; Freitas, Breno M.; Garratt, Michael P.D.; Gratton, Claudio; Hipólito, Juliana; Holzschuh, Andrea; Hunt, Lauren; Iverson, Aaron L.; Jha, Shalene; Keasar, Tamar; Kim, Tania N.; Kishinevsky, Miriam; Klatt, Björn K.; Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Krewenka, Kristin M.; Krishnan, Smitha; Larsen, Ashley E.; Lavigne, Claire; Liere, Heidi; Maas, Bea; Mallinger, Rachel E.; Martínez Pachón, Eliana; Martínez Salinas, Alejandra; Meehan, Timothy D.; Mitchell, Matthew G.E.; Molina, Gonzalo A.R.; Nesper, Maike; Nilsson, Lovisa; O’Rourke, Megan E.; Peters, Marcell K.; Plećaš, Milan; Potts, Simon G.; Ramos, Davi de L.; Rosenheim, Jay A.; Rundlöf, Maj; Rusch, Adrien; Sáez, Agustín; Scheper, Jeroen; Schleuning, Matthias; Schmack, Julia M.; Sciligo, Amber R.; Seymour, Colleen; Stanley, Dara A.; Stewart, Rebecca; Stout, Jane C.; Sutter, Louis; Takada, Mayura B.; Taki, Hisatomo; Tamburini, Giovanni; Tschumi, Matthias; Viana, Blandina F.; Westphal, Catrin; Willcox, Bryony K.; Wratten, Stephen D.; Yoshioka, Akira; Zaragoza-Trello, Carlos; Wei Zhang; Yi Zou; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
Details

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

Natural and modified ecosystems contribute a multitude of functions and services that support human well-being (1, 2). It has long been recognized that biodiversity plays an important role in the functioning of ecosystems (3, 4), but the dependence of ecosystem services on biodiversity is under debate. An early synthesis revealed inconsistent results (5), whereas subsequent studies suggest that a few dominant species may supply the majority of ecosystem services (6, 7). It thus remains unclear whether a few dominant or many complementary species are needed to supply ecosystem services. The interpretation of earlier studies has been controversial because multiple mechanisms underlying changes in ecosystem service response to biodiversity can operate in combination (8, 9). On one hand, communities with many species are likely to include species responsible for large community-wide effects due to statistical selection. On the other hand, such diverse communities may contain a particular combination of species that complement each other in service provisioning. While these mechanisms imply positive effects of species richness on ecosystem service supply, total organism abundance or dominance of certain species may also drive the number of interactions benefiting ecosystem service supply. Depending on the relative importance of species complementarity, community abundance, and the role of dominant species, different relationships between species richness and ecosystem services can be expected (10). In real-world ecosystems, natural communities consist of a few highly abundant (dominant species) and many rare ones. The importance of richness, abundance, and dominance is likely to be influenced by the extent to which relative abundance changes with species richness (11) and by differences in the effectiveness and degree of specialization of service-providing communities. However, these three aspects of diversity have typically been tested in isolation and mainly in small-scale experimental settings (12, 13), while a synthetic study contrasting their SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE Dainese et al., Sci. Adv. 2019;5: eaax0121 16 October 2019 1 of 13 on October 17, 2019 http://advances.sciencemag.org/ Downloaded from relative importance in real-world ecosystems is still lacking. A major limitation to resolving these relationships is a lack of evidence from real-world human-driven biodiversity changes (14, 15), particularly for ecosystem services in agroecosystems. For instance, changes in richness and total or relative abundance of service-providing organisms in response to land-clearing for agriculture (16, 17) could alter the flow of benefits to people in different ways compared to experimental random loss of biodiversity. Over the past half-century, the need to feed a growing world population has led to markedly expanded and intensified agricultural production, transforming many regions into simplified landscapes (18). This transformation not only has contributed to enhanced agricultural production but also has led to the degradation of the global environment. The loss of biodiversity can disrupt key intermediate services to agriculture, such as crop pollination (19) and biological pest control (20), which underpin the final provisioning service of crop production (21). The recent stagnation or even decline of crop yields with ongoing intensification (22) indicates that alternative pathways are necessary to maintain future stable and sustainable crop production (23–25). An improved understanding of global biodiversity-driven ecosystem services in agroecosystems and their cascading effects on crop production is urgently needed to forecast future supplies of ecosystem services and to pursue strategies for sustainable management (15). We compiled an extensive database comprising 89 studies that measured richness and abundance of pollinators, pest natural enemies, and associated ecosystem services at 1475 sampling locations around the world (Fig. 1A). We focused on the ecosystem services of pollination and biological pest control because these services are essential to crop production and have been the focus of much research in recent decades (26). We quantified pollinator and pest natural enemy richness as the number of unique taxa sampledfrom each location (field), abundance as the number of observed individuals, and evenness (or the complementary term

Year published

2019

Authors

Dainese, Matteo; Martin, Emily A.; Aizen, Marcelo A.; Albrecht, Matthias; Bartomeus, Ignasi; Bommarco, Riccardo; Carvalheiro, Luísa G.; Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca; Gagic, Vesna; Garibaldi, Lucas A.; Ghazoul, Jaboury; Grab, Heather; Jonsson, Mattias; Karp, Daniel S.; Kennedy, Christina M.; Kleijn, David; Kremen, Claire; Lands, Douglas A.; Letourneau, Deborah K.; Marini, Lorenzo; Poveda, Katja; Rader, Romina; Smith, Henrik G.; Tscharntke, Teja; Andersson, Georg K.S.; Badenhausser, Isabelle; Baensch, Svenja; Bezerra, Antonio Diego M.; Bianchi, Felix J.J.A.; Boreux, Virginie; Bretagnolle, Vincent; Caballero López, Berta; Cavigliasso, Pablo; Ćetković, Aleksandar; Chacoff, Natacha P.; Classen, Alice; Cusser, Sarah; Silva e Silva, Felipe D. da; Groot, G. Arjen de; Dudenhöffer, Jan H.; Ekroos, Johan; Fijen, Thijs; Franck, Pierre; Freitas, Breno M.; Garratt, Michael P.D.; Gratton, Claudio; Hipólito, Juliana; Holzschuh, Andrea; Hunt, Lauren; Iverson, Aaron L.; Jha, Shalene; Keasar, Tamar; Kim, Tania N.; Kishinevsky, Miriam; Klatt, Björn K.; Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Krewenka, Kristin M.; Krishnan, Smitha; Larsen, Ashley E.; Lavigne, Claire; Liere, Heidi; Maas, Bea; Mallinger, Rachel E.; Martínez Pachón, Eliana; Martínez Salinas, Alejandra; Meehan, Timothy D.; Mitchell, Matthew G.E.; Molina, Gonzalo A.R.; Nesper, Maike; Nilsson, Lovisa; O’Rourke, Megan E.; Peters, Marcell K.; Plećaš, Milan; Potts, Simon G.; Ramos, Davi de L.; Rosenheim, Jay A.; Rundlöf, Maj; Rusch, Adrien; Sáez, Agustín; Scheper, Jeroen; Schleuning, Matthias; Schmack, Julia M.; Sciligo, Amber R.; Seymour, Colleen; Stanley, Dara A.; Stewart, Rebecca; Stout, Jane C.; Sutter, Louis; Takada, Mayura B.; Taki, Hisatomo; Tamburini, Giovanni; Tschumi, Matthias; Viana, Blandina F.; Westphal, Catrin; Willcox, Bryony K.; Wratten, Stephen D.; Yoshioka, Akira; Zaragoza-Trello, Carlos; Wei Zhang; Yi Zou; Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf

Citation

Dainese, M. et al. 2019. A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production. ScienceAdvances 5(10).

Keywords

Crop Production; Biodiversity; Food Production; Pollination; Crop Yield; Ecosystems

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0121 Source record

Project

Water, Land and Ecosystems

Record type

Journal Article

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