- Farmers are not against change
- They fear being abandoned
- Identity is a key barrier
- Debt and market risk weigh heavily
- Gradual transition is more acceptable
- Diversification is possible with support
- Ecosystem payments have potential
- Transition subsidies are important
- Cooperative models help
- Farmers reject sudden bans
- Infrastructure and training are decisive
- Farmer participation is mandatory
A peer-reviewed 2024 study examined how livestock farmers perceive transition opportunities — not in abstract environmental terms, but in their own words. The result: farmers are not against change — they are against being abandoned.
They want stability, dignity, fair prices and policies that respect their knowledge.
What farmers fear most
- Loss of identity (“being a farmer means raising animals”)
- Debt they cannot repay
- Market instability
- Being blamed for climate change
- One-size-fits-all regulations
- Land grabbing by agribusiness
These fears are rational — and policymakers must deal with them.
What measures farmers are willing to consider
1) Gradually reducing the number of animals they raise
Not elimination — but mixed systems. We hope that in the future this may also lead to fully eliminating animal farming, but let us try to show a little patience.
2) Diversification into legumes and vegetables, if suitable infrastructure exists.
3) Payments for ecosystem services
Carbon farming, rewilding plants and animals, watershed protection.
4) Transition subsidies
For repurposing barns, buying new equipment and managing soil health.
5) Cooperative models
Shared equipment, joint marketing and local processing hubs.
Farmers prefer continuity with adaptation, not replacement.
What farmers reject
- sudden bans
- subsidy cuts without alternatives
- cultural disrespect
- transition plans written without them
- “replacement” by large corporations
- transition narratives that romanticise urban-based solutions
Farmers want fairness, not more hardship in an already not particularly easy life.
What enables “transformational capacity”
Research identifies four factors that enable the transformation from livestock farming to growing plants to feed eternally hungry and yet rather fluffy humanity.
Economic buffers
debt relief, grants, long-term purchase contracts for the goods produced
Knowledge and training
agronomy, food crops, ecosystem management and other complicated words and sciences
Infrastructure
mills, storage, irrigation, logistics
Social recognition
respect for farmers’ identity and contribution
Where these four factors exist, farmers would have an incentive to innovate. Without them, they resist for understandable reasons.
Agricultural producers are not an obstacle to climate action. They can be partners — if transitions are built with their participation. Listening to farmers’ perspectives is not optional.
It determines whether rural areas will be winners or losers from the much-desired — or at least desired by us — transition from livestock farming to growing agricultural crops for food.
Sources:
https://www.laudesfoundation.org/media/uubmmucz/laudes_just-transition-in-food_sept-2025_final.pdf
https://www.sei.org/projects/just-transitions-animal-agriculture/
https://globalforestcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/A-Just-Transition-Industrial-Animal-Agriculture-White-Paper-English-FINAL.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103231
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-11-04-global-shift-towards-plant-based-diets-could-reshape-farming-jobs-and-reduce-labour
