“Less meat, more legumes prospects and challenges in the transition toward sustainable diets in Sweden”

Within the field of sustainability as one of the focus areas of MMTC, our colleague Andreas Stephan together with other 6 co-authors (Elin Röös, Georg Carlsson, Ferawati Ferawati, Mohammed Hefni, Pernilla Tidåker and Cornelia Witthöft) has recent published an article at the Cambridge Core Journal in which he explores a scenario where meat consumption in Sweden is reduced by 50% being replaced by domestically grown grain legumes.

"In this paper, we explore a scenario in which meat consumption in Sweden is reduced by 50% and replaced by domestically grown grain legumes. We quantify and discuss the implications for nutritional intake on population level, consequences for agricultural production systems and environmental performance. [...] The transition scenario would increase total area of grain legume cultivation from 2.2% (current level) to 3.2% of Swedish arable land and is considered technically feasible. The climate impact of the average Swedish diet would be reduced by 20% and the land use requirement by 23%. There would be a net surplus of approximately 21,500 ha that could be used for bioenergy production, crop production for export, nature conservation, etc."

The full article can be found at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renewable-agriculture-and-food-systems/article/less-meat-more-legumes-prospects-and-challenges-in-the-transition-toward-sustainable-diets-in-sweden/4B3B9B479B1B407B148D60860F77A088