Title: Environmental economic assessment of animal production and consumption chains and the alternative options

Primary Researcher: Xueqin Zhu
Email address: xueqin.zhu@wur.nl
Submitted on: October 3, 2002

Start date: 23 March 2000
End date: 22 March 2004

Introduction:

The research project deals with the environmental economic modeling of the protein production and consumption chain. It is within the context of PROFETAS (PROtein Foods, Environment, Technology And Society) programme. PROFETAS is an interdisciplinary research programme, initiating to make global food production and consumption more sustainable. The central hypothesis is that a partial transition from animal protein foods to plant protein foods is environmentally more sustainable, technologically feasible and socially desirable. Therefore, the so-called Novel Protein Foods (NPF) are studied with the intention of partly replacing the current pork protein production and consumption.

Aim:

The project focuses on the description of the environmental and economic elements of the protein production and consumption chains, namely pork chain and NPF chain. It analyses particularly the external effects at the various stages of production and consumption in Western Europe in a global context. It investigates the environmental and economic effects of a shift from the animal protein to the plant protein foods. The main scope of the study is on the economic and environmental aspects relevant to protein chains through Life Cycle Assessment and general equilibrium modeling.

Research:

Protein food production and consumption results in environmental impacts in all phases of the production and consumption chain. A systematic description of the chains and LCA are used as the major methodologies for assessing their environmental impacts.
In order to investigate the effects on the economy and environment of the shift from animal protein to plant protein foods, an applied general equilibrium modeling approach is taken because it is a useful tool for analysing policy issues or shock events in the economy. Considering the existing framework of applied gerenal equilibrium model, the first step in modeling will develop a more comprehensive framework including normal goods and non-rival goods (environment). Then the model can be applied empirically for different scecnarios for the European Union (EU) in the global context. The results can shed some light of the impacts of novel protein foods on the economy and environment.

Funding via University

Yes

External Funding Sponsors

NWO

FTE

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