“Plant-based foods are the future.” That is not a statement you would expect from a right-wing farming minister in a major meat-producing nation. Denmark produces more meat per capita than any other country in the world, with its 6 million people far outnumbered by its 30 million pigs, and it has a big dairy industry too. Yet this is how Jacob Jensen, from the Liberal party, introduced the nation’s world-first action plan for plant-based foods.
“If we want to reduce the climate footprint within the agricultural sector, then we all have to eat more plant-based foods,” he said at the plan’s launch in October 2023, and since then the scheme has gone from strength to strength. Backed by a €170m government fund, it is now supporting plant-based food from farm to fork, from making tempeh from broad beans and a chicken substitute from fungi to on-site tastings at kebab and burger shops and the first vegan chef degree.
Globally, animal farming produces 12%-20% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and significant cuts in meat and dairy consumption in rich countries is essential to tackling the climate crisis, scientists say. However, attempts to curb the huge impact of livestock on the environment in other countries have usually descended rapidly into bitter culture wars and tractors on the streets in protest.
So how did Denmark’s plan to promote beans and vegetables come to get widespread support and funding?
Food is deeply personal and has enormous cultural significance, making it a minefield for climate action. So the transition away from meat and towards plant-based eating had to be approached delicately, says Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl, head of the Vegetarian Society of Denmark and one of the key actors in delivering the Danish plan. Dragsdahl says, appropriately enough, that carrots not sticks were crucial to getting agreement on the policy.
“One of the key reasons was talking about what we want more of, instead of talking about what we want less of, that is how we got broader support,” he says. “There was a delicate balance. People had to feel welcome, even when they had not just differing opinions, but maybe even different versions of the truth. This was a tricky but important balance, because that’s how you secure the continued participation of people.”
Getting farmers on board was vital and the Vegetarian Society had been putting on friendly events for food producers. Then, in 2021, it was invited to help the Danish Agriculture and Food Council (DAFC) produce the plant-based food strategy.
Anders Martin Klöcker, the DAFC innovation director, says: “I am proud of that, because it was an unusual alliance.” Nonetheless, landing the action plan was tricky.
“It was controversial,” says Klöcker. “You have a farming sector which has been predominantly based on animal products for centuries. They have difficulty understanding that now we should shift the diet.”
The plant-based food plan was part of a bigger farming deal that also supported animal agriculture. “We consider it a ‘both-and’ not an ‘either-or’,” says Klöcker. “We don’t want it to be polarised. We consider [plant-based food] a market that’s interesting, which is also growing.”
The support from farmers shifted the politics, says Dragsdahl: “It clearly helped make the right-wing parties more neutral, and thereby also made the central parties more daring – it was really important.”
A politician who had a key role in finalising the action plan was Zenia Stampe, agriculture spokesperson for the centrist Social Liberal party. The task was initially daunting, she says: “Farming is still a big part of our identity and while climate was such a hot topic then, agriculture was not a part of that debate at all.”
Stampe remembers an “eye-opening” early meeting with Dragsdahl, where she learned that a quarter of Denmark’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, with livestock and feed crops occupying 80% of farmland.
“But the [Vegetarian Society and other allied groups] knew it was such a big taboo in Denmark, so they turned it around and presented plant-based food as a business opportunity,” she says. “I think that is the key to understanding why this succeeded.”
The plant-based action plan also avoided using the terms vegan and vegetarian, which can be polarising, and did not set targets for cutting meat consumption or livestock numbers. It dished out its first grants last year.
The new fully-government-funded degree at Copenhagen Hospitality College now has its first 26 students, who can choose either vegetarian or vegan paths. Thais Brask-Simonsen from catering company Compass Group says: “Vegetarian cuisine is booming, and both restaurants and canteens are screaming for this expertise.” Student Magda says connecting food and sustainability is vital: “I want to contribute by making some insanely tasty green food that makes people not miss meat.”
The Vegetarian Society also has funding to work on better menu design. “You still find many places where there’s one vegan item at the bottom of the menu, which is just called vegan dish of the day, so it’s only chosen by very few people,” says Dragsdahl. “But if you call it something delicious, put it first on the menu, and maybe even have three vegan options, and then three meat options, many more people choose the veggie options.”
One grant, won by the Association of Agricultural Colleges, is an appeal to the belly of farmers themselves. It is training the chefs that feed the student farmers in plant-based cooking, as well as include more pulses in the curriculum. “It should help normalise plant-based meals,” says Dragsdahl.
Other grants focus on developing new plant-based products, and improving the taste and texture of meat and dairy alternatives. Klöcker would like to see more focus on product development, which he says has to go hand-in-hand with building demand to create successful businesses, and more focus on export opportunities – 85% of Danish food is sold overseas.
A new €7bn green farming deal in 2024 saw a commitment from the Danish government to work towards an EU-wide action plan for plant-based foods. It has already been credited with influencing Portugal’s recent decision to produce an action plan for a low-carbon diet, and Denmark takes over the rotating presidency of the European Commission in July.
Denmark was a leader in wind energy and in banning trans fats in food. But whether its plant-based food plan, still in its nascent stage, is similarly successful remains to be seen. So far it has certainly made farming the hottest climate issue in Denmark, but will it ultimately shift diets?
“The theory of change is hopefully that the plan and fund will lead to an actual transformation, with less intensive livestock,” says Dragsdahl.
Stampe is unsure: “I hope so. But to be honest, I don’t know yet. There will always be some people, saying: ‘Yeah, if you eat less meat, then I will eat more!’”
The deal in 2024 saw sticks added to the carrots, with a world-first tax on emissions from livestock, a plan to convert 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) of low-lying farmland into natural areas and to establish 250,000 hectares of new forest.
But Stampe says animal farming still gets far more government support than plant-based production. “The solutions to the climate crisis are not in the margins,” she says. “It is in the big shifts. So not from one type of animal production to another type of animal, but from animal-based to plant based food.”
Klöcker accepts that even the best-produced animal products have bigger climate footprints than plant-based ones, and like Stampe sees a generational shift with younger people eating less meat.
“But we have to have a market to do anything at all,” he says, and he does not think a transition to more plant-based eating will be fast.
Klöcker points out that it took 30 years of nurturing supply and demand for organic food to reach today’s 12% market share in Denmark: “The worst thing would be a farmer or food company realising that [plant-based products] they developed don’t have a market – then you might really lose them for good.”
Dragsdahl is more optimistic, but says continuing a measured approach will be essential: “There is a strong majority of Danes who are open to eating less meat. They understand it might be good for their health and the environment, but we should really not push it too hard or too far. Because then these people will just say: ‘Fuck off, it’s my plate.’”
