Teagasc rebuffs 'Guardian' claim and says food firms do not influence its research

The statement in favour of the meat industry was signed by more than 1,000 scientists at an event hosted by Teagasc in Dublin in 2022. Picture: iStock

State agriculture agency Teagasc has said that the contracts it holds with food businesses specifically preclude those companies from influencing the output of the body’s research activities.

The agency’s statement of its position comes after the Guardian revealed that a public statement in favour of the meat industry, signed by more than 1,000 scientists at an event held by Teagasc in Dublin last year, had numerous links to the livestock industry.

The Guardian reported that the vast majority of supporters of the so-called “Dublin Declaration”, released in October 2022, appear to be researchers in the animal and food sciences, some of whom are funded by food companies.

The declaration stated that livestock systems, the reduction of which is broadly considered by scientists to be key to battling climate change, “are too precious to society to become the victim of simplification, reductionism, or zealotry”.  

“These systems must continue to be embedded in, and have broad approval of, society,” it said.

It said that “livestock-derived foods are the most readily available source of high-quality proteins and several essential nutrients for the global consumer”, adding that such systems generate “many other benefits”, including “improved soil health” and biodiversity.

No details of the declaration’s origins or composers were given at the time of its release.

The declaration was subsequently used however to lobby senior EU officials against some environmental policies.

Teagasc, which hosted the event at which the declaration was launched in south Dublin on October 19, 2022, at a cost of €45,000, said when asked about the potential links between the declaration and the livestock industry, that it “routinely hosts international scientific conferences to bring together the latest science available on a particular topic, and to facilitate discussion around the science”.

The Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, had not responded to a request for comment on this matter at the time of publication.

Teagasc did not directly respond to a query as to the scientific bona fides of the “Dublin Declaration”.

It acknowledged however that it “does receive funding from food companies”, but that contracts are in place with those companies “that outline that they will not have any influence over the publications of the outputs of the research, or knowledge transfer programmes”.

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A spokesperson said that such companies’ involvement is “clearly visible to all parties and the outputs of those initiatives are communicated into the public domain”.

As an example, the agency said that its Signposts programme involves “over 120 farmers, demonstrating best practice in reducing greenhouse gas emissions on their farms”.

The Guardian report noted that one of the six-member organising committee which initiated the declaration, Peer Ederer, had recently described veganism on X, formerly Twitter, as “an eating disorder requiring psychological treatment”.

Prof Ederer has previously sharply criticised the climate policies of the EU, while in 2020 he gave a talk to UK "climate-sceptic" group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, during which he declared that “cows are not the reason for whatever climate change we have”.