Want to contribute to the food transition? Read about our Moral Ambition Fellowships and apply here. If you want to go into detail about the goals of our Food Transition Fellowship, read our Strategic Focus for 2025.

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Back in the 1950s, Mexico embarked on one of the biggest transformations in the human history of food production.

It started with the American agronomist Norman Borlaug and his work with an ancient crop: wheat. The population of Mexico — and the whole world — was rapidly expanding and there were concerns that food production could not keep up.

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” wrote researcher Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb. “In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

It all turned out quite differently. Nowadays, we share the planet with three times as many people while global hunger has actually gone down. How is this possible?

What happened is “the Green Revolution”: a period from about 1960 to 1980 in which advances in pesticides, irrigation and plant breeding led to dramatic increases in yields of wheat, rice and other cereal crops. Norman Borlaug would come to be hailed as “the father of the Green Revolution” and “the man who saved a billion lives”, for the unprecedented speed at which he and his team cross-bred plants and developed new hyper-yielding varieties of wheat.

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The Green Revolution was a revelation: the farmlands of the world turned out to be capable of producing far more food than previously seemed possible. Yet despite the work of Borlaug and his colleagues, modern food production is once again reaching the limits of what is possible. 

The latest scientific evidence is clear: our current global food system faces critical challenges, including those related to biodiversity, the environment, public health, socioeconomic equality, food security, and animal welfare. And addressing these issues will require a fundamental shift in how we produce and consume food.

Where the Green Revolution was a breakthrough in the way we grew crops, we now need another revolution: in the way we produce, process and consume protein-rich foods. And what that means, is that we need to start moving beyond intensive animal agriculture.
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Too intensive, too many animals

Modern agriculture is more specialized and efficient than ever before, and yet we’re currently not fully reaping the benefits of those gains.

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To begin with, we’re approaching the limits of what crop efficiency alone can achieve. Take Norman Borlaug, for example: while his high-yield crops made him a hero in some circles, his methods have also faced serious criticism. They’ve been linked to soil depletion, biodiversity loss, increased pesticide use, and the spread of monoculture farming and declines in genetic crop diversity. In short, we’re producing more food per square meter than ever before, but it’s placing unsustainable pressure on the system.

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This brings us to a deeper issue: despite these dramatic efficiency gains, our imprint on the land continues to grow. In 2019, 45% of the Earth’s habitable land was being farmed — an area equivalent to more than half the Asian continent. “The most visible mark that humanity has left on the planet is the transformation of wild habitats into farmland,” write data journalists Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser of Our World in Data.

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How is this possible? How can land use skyrocket even as efficiency increases?

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The answer lies not with crops, but with animals. A mere 16% of agricultural land is used to grow crops for direct human consumption, while a staggering 80% is devoted to raising livestock and producing animal feed. This is often overlooked: due to the land needed for feed, animal-based food production requires over four times more land to generate the same amount of nutrition as plant-based food. This means that despite using vastly more land, animal products account for only 17% of the calories we consume globally.

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This is where the opportunity lies. We can ignite the next revolution in food production — not in crops, but in the protein-rich foods we have typically sourced from animal products. And for a number of reasons, this might just be one of the most powerful levers we have to improve the world today.

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Improving millions of human lives

First, consider what a protein revolution could mean for our quality of life today. The soil we walk on, the water we drink, the air we breathe — all is demonstrably affected by the unintended consequences of our intensive animal agriculture. 

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This includes the use of chemical pesticides in monoculture systems, nitrogen and phosphate water pollution from synthetic fertilizers used for animal feed crops, the risk of zoonotic diseases leading to pandemics, and antimicrobial resistance caused by widespread antibiotic use in livestock. The latter is even projected to become the world's leading cause of death by 2050.

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Moreover, the food on our plates is increasingly linked to public health risks. Across the EU, most people’s diets are misaligned with official dietary guidelines: 80% of Europeans do not eat enough whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables, while consumption of animal proteins is routinely too high. This imbalance contributes to chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease — the current leading cause of death in the EU.

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Transforming how we produce and consume protein, by improving the quality and availability of meat and dairy alternatives while preserving cultural food traditions, could dramatically improve millions of lives.

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Read: Europe is deciding on the future of its food system right now — and Katrien Martens is getting essential voices to the table

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Improving billions of animal lives

When you consider the lens of moral circle expansion — the principle that our sense of moral concern should encompass all sentient beings — it becomes clear that the most neglected stakeholders in our food system are the animals themselves. They are often depicted in nostalgic, pastoral scenes: grazing freely under blue skies, living peacefully on family farms. But while comforting, this image bears little resemblance to reality.

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While EU-specific data is limited, the situation in the U.S. paints a grim picture: roughly 99% of all farmed animals are raised in factory farms. In terms of scale, around 150 billion farmed land animals and fish are bred and killed annually, alongside an estimated 1,500 billion wild fish caught and slaughtered each year.

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Within these intensive systems, animals live short, often painful lives. This is not a rare exception, but rather standard practice: producing animal products at the volume and price we do today simply isn’t possible without systemic suffering. If we are to truly expand our circle of moral concern, we must reduce the number of animals used in our food system and create conditions where the ones that remain are treated with real dignity and care — not just imagined so on the side of a milk carton.

Improving trillions of future lives

Caring about our food system means caring about the lives of future generations. That’s because intensive agriculture is a major driver of climate change and will significantly shape the conditions future generations are born into. 

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To begin with, deforestation to make room for farmland releases vast amounts of CO₂ stored in trees and plants. On top of that, livestock farming produces large quantities of methane — a greenhouse gas far more potent than CO₂ — and transporting food around the globe by truck, ship, or plane adds even more emissions.

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All those gases add up: a 2018 study calculated that the food supply chain is attributable for over a quarter (26 percent) of global greenhouse gas emissions as expressed in CO2-equivalents. This means just ending fossil fuel use is not going to cut it: if we want to reach net zero emissions in 2050, we can’t avoid changing the way we produce food.

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By the same token, intensive industrial agriculture is also one of the main causes of global biodiversity loss. According to the World Nature Fund’s Living Planet Index, worldwide wildlife populations have declined by on average 69 percent since 1970. Reversing this trend would require us to cultivate better food on less land and promoting nature-positive farming practices that support biodiversity rather than erode it.

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Room for the food system we want

The time to rethink the role of proteins in our food system is now. In countries where living standards are rising — such as China, South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico — demand for animal protein is rapidly catching up with that of Europe, placing even greater strain on the planet.

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And while challenges remain, we already have much of what we need to get started. 

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First, we must recognize that most people don’t choose what to eat based on efficiency — food choices are driven by habit, culture, and personal identity. That’s why, from a behavioral standpoint, we need to make sustainable, healthy options as easy, appealing, and familiar as possible. That means investing in new food technologies like plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated proteins. By increasing the availability, affordability, and appeal of these meat and dairy alternatives — improving taste, price, and convenience — we can prevent millions of human deaths, spare billions of animals, and improve trillions of future lives.

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We also need to address the polarization in food politics. Too often, debates pit “pro-planet” against “pro-farmer” interests, when in reality, the two can align. One example is the work of our previous fellowship cohort, which brought farmers, retailers and sustainability advocates together to explore shared solutions for protein diversification.

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Lastly, this transition must support those whose livelihoods depend on agriculture. A fair and sustainable food future means ensuring farmers can continue their essential work with dignity and security. Today, our agricultural economy is overly reliant on animals. If we aim to move beyond intensive animal farming, we have a moral obligation to build new, viable economic models for European farmers. The success of a protein revolution depends on one thing above all: ensuring no one is left behind — not consumers, not farmers, not communities.

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We have the innovation capacity, agricultural expertise, and market infrastructure to make it happen. What’s missing is a supportive policy framework and stronger collaboration across the sector. We need faster and more efficient approval processes for food innovation, improved access to funding to scale sustainable protein solutions, and better coordination across the supply chain. Most importantly, key stakeholders — from farmers to food innovators — must come together to break down barriers and make new, sustainable products economically viable.

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This story of opportunities needs to be told and shared. The challenge is known, and solutions are out there. Now, all we need are the people that unleash the revolution.

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Want to contribute to the food transition? Read about our Moral Ambition Fellowships and apply here. If you want to go into detail about the goals of our Food Transition Fellowship, read our Strategic Focus for 2025.