# Editorial: Challenges of food and feed for the future

René Baumont, Diego Morgavi, Alexander Wezel

► To cite this version:

René Baumont, Diego Morgavi, Alexander Wezel. Editorial: Challenges of food and feed for the future. Animal, 2025, 19 (Supplement 1), pp.101418. 10.1016/j.animal.2025.101418. hal-04934722

HAL Id: hal-04934722

https://isara.hal.science/hal-04934722v1

Submitted on 7 Feb 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# Editorial: Challenges of food and feed for the future

R. Baumont<sup>a,*</sup>, D. Morgavi<sup>a</sup>, A. Wezel<sup>b</sup>

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

## Introduction

The "Food and Feed for the Future" workshop, sponsored by the OECD Cooperative Research Programme on Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems and organised by the French Animal Production Federation (AFZ), INRAE and CSIRO, was held on the 1st of September 2023 at ISARA in Lyon (France). The proceedings are available as a PDF eBook (https://doi.org/10.25719/AFZ.2024.001). The workshop was aimed at all stakeholders interested in understanding and forecasting the future of food and feed, and provided an opportunity to present and discuss the challenges and opportunities for protein production from animals, plants and novel protein sources (such as insects, yeast, microalgae, cellular agriculture) and their contribution to the development sustainable food systems. The present supplement includes a selection of five invited papers presented during the workshop.

## Introduction to the papers of this issue

Meeting the nutritional needs of the population while minimising environmental impacts is the key issue for sustainable agri-food systems. In their study, Aubin et al. (2025) examine the environmental trade-offs of meeting the nutritional requirements of adult human populations with a diet lower in animal proteins. The paper highlights that optimised diets that are healthier and also affordable for low-income populations reduce several environmental impacts, such as climate change, but increase impacts on biodiversity and water use. Dietary recommendations and agricultural practices must evolve to meet human health goals whilst remaining within planetary boundaries.

In terms of agricultural practices, Dumont et al. (2025) investigate five case studies to examine the principles, barriers and enablers of agroecological livestock production systems. The analysis of the case studies highlights how agroecology is giving space to different equilibrium among principles, adapting to the needs of farmers and local communities. However, policy, inadequate infrastructures and, to a lesser extent, market and technological

issues were frequently reported as being among the main disabling factors to the scaling out and scaling up of agroecological systems.

Using the case of milk and plant-based beverages, Maree et al. (2025) highlight the need for holistic, sector-specific sustainability assessments that include nutrition, environment and socio-economics. The paper addresses the shortcomings of existing measures in these three dimensions and makes recommendations. The paper advocates localised and holistic measures of sustainability that are both sector and context specific to avoid masking poor performance through single metrics.

In terms of new foods, cell-based foods are benefiting from increasing media interest, growing investment and marketing approvals in some countries, but need further investigation in terms of feasibility, economic interest and environmental impact. Olenic et al. (2025) focus on a key aspect of cellular agriculture: cells. The development of cell-based products, including cultured meat, requires an understanding of the properties of the cells used for this purpose. The paper reviews the scientific literature on several relevant cell types to facilitate research in cellular agriculture, including mesenchymal stromal cells, myoblasts and pluripotent stem cells.

Finally, Hocquette et al. (2024) point out that few studies have addressed the safety, nutritional properties and environmental impact of cell-based novel food, making it impossible to verify the claims made by companies in the sector with complete transparency. This lack of knowledge and the complexity of the ethical aspects related to societal, legal and political issues make the future of 'cultured meat' uncertain compared to other potential sustainable solutions for land-based animal food production.

## Conclusion

Different options need to be considered to address the shift towards sustainable food systems: firstly, the development of more sustainable land-based food systems that combine plant and animal food production based on agroecological principles. New technologies, such as cellular agriculture, could contribute to the solution, but many technical, economical and societal issues remain to be resolved.

<footnote><sup>a</sup>Université Clermont Auvergne, INRAE, VetAgro Sup, UMR Herbivores, Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France</footnote>

<footnote><sup>b</sup>Isara, AgroSchool for Life, Agroecology and Environment Research Unit, Lyon, France</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: rene.baumont@inrae.fr (R. Baumont).</footnote>
**Ethics approval**

Not applicable.

**Data and model availability statement**

Not applicable.

**Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process**

During the preparation of this work the author(s) did not use any AI and AI-assisted technologies.

**Author ORCIDs**

René Baumont: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3802-0651.

Diego Morgavi: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3883-0937.

Alexander Wezel: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5088-5087.

**CRediT authorship contribution statement**

R. Baumont: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. D. Morgavi: Writing – review & editing. A. Wezel: Writing – review & editing.

**Declaration of interest**

The authors have not stated any conflicts of interest.

**Acknowledgements**

Not applicable.

**Financial support statement**

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit section.

**Transparency Declaration**

This article is part of a supplement entitled Selected keynote lectures of the "Challenges of Food and Feed for the Future" workshop (Lyon, France) supported by the animal Consortium.

**References**

Aubin, J., Vieux, F., Le Féon, S., Tharrey, M., Peyraud, J.L., Darmon, N., 2025. Environmental trade-offs of meeting nutritional requirements with a lower share of animal protein for adult subpopulations. Animal 19, 101182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101182.

Dumont, B., Barlagne, C., Cassart, P., Duval, J.E., Fanchone, A., Gourdine, J.-L., Huguenin-Elie, O., Kazakova, Y., Klötzli, J., Lüscher, A., Oteros-Rozas, E., Pomies, D., Rivera Ferre, M.G., Rossing, W.A.H., Stefanova, V., Swartebroeckx, A., Zagaria, C., 2025. Principles, barriers and enablers to agroecological animal production systems: a qualitative approach based on five case studies. Animal 19, 101367. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101367.

Hocquette, J.F., Chriki, S., Fournier, D., Ellies-Oury, M.P., 2025. Review: Will "cultured meat" transform our food system towards more sustainability? Animal 19, 101145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101145.

Maree, E., Blignaut, J.N., Du Toit, C.J.L., Meissner, H.H., Ederer, P., 2025. Review: The need for holistic, sector-tailored sustainability assessments for milk- and plant-based beverages. Animal 19, 101348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101348.

Olenic, M., Deelkens, C., Heyman, E., De Vlieghere, E., Zheng, X., van Hengel, J., De Schauwer, C., Devriendt, B., De Smet, S., Thorrez, L., 2025. Review: Livestock cell types with myogenic differentiation potential: Considerations for the development of cultured meat. Animal 19, 101242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101242.

**Article history:**

Received 1 December 2024

Revised 26 December 2024

Accepted 6 January 2025