Key Youth Demands for Plant-Rich Food Systems

Without accessible plant-based choices and clear messaging around the topic, food environments will remain focused on resource-intensive and animal-based diets by default. Additionally, plant-based diets are viewed as ‘the poor man’s diet’ in many cultures, while animal-based products are often viewed as essential for health and strength. The biggest educational gap is a lack of knowledge about the health and environmental benefits of plant-rich diets, as well as practical knowledge, including cooking skills and recipe ideas.

However, the problem is not the crops or the products themselves, but the nature of our current agrifood systems, which needs to be reformed in order to prioritize food sovereignty and sustainable production and consumption. Price disparity and affordability are especially burdensome in low-income regions, where the problem is often twofold: on the one hand, while diets in these regions are often already plant-heavy, the prices of basic staples such as rice, beans, and millet have skyrocketed in recent years, with prices varying according to context, seasonality, and external pressures, such as climate change impacts.¹¹ On the other side, the new generation of plant-based alternatives, including meat and fish substitutes, which can help to increase dietary diversity, often require advanced technology and research, which drives up the retail price.

Meat consumption is often deeply intertwined with social status, identity, and affluence.¹² Offering a meal that includes animal-based products is often seen as a sign of hospitality or honor, with the importance of meat increasing during special occasions such as feasts, ceremonies, and cultural gatherings such as weddings and baptisms. Such attachments are based on a combination of historical circumstances, symbolic meanings, and ingrained habits, which means that plant-based diets are sometimes stigmatized as a lifestyle choice, rather than viewed as a necessary shift.^{13 14} Change is often accompanied by apprehension and a lack of understanding, making it easier to reject new eating patterns, rather than questioning current traditions or reviving forgotten ones.

Beyond the lack of access to plant-based foods, another key challenge is the lack of variety and the reliance on a limited number of crops, which affects market stability and biodiversity, and reduces the resilience of local communities to adverse and prolonged climate impacts.

For example, current VAT and subsidy regimes heavily favor, both directly and indirectly, the conventional livestock industry, skewing prices and hampering the growth of the alternative-protein sector. Indeed 87% of global support for producers in the agricultural sector, which accounted for $540 billion in 2021, was found to be either price distorting or harmful to nature and human health. More than 80% of agricultural subsidies in Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy directly or indirectly favor animal-based foods.^{15 16} This hinders the possibilities for young entrepreneurs who would like to access the plant-based sector, especially if financial support is hard to find and obtain.

Global obesity and diabetes trends could be curbed by diets that are higher in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes – this means both reducing meat consumption and improving overall diet quality. Plant-based foods provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals, as well as protective phytocompounds and antioxidants, while having lower levels of saturated fat and cholesterol, compared to many animal-based products.

Plant-rich systems should promote the use of drought-tolerant and climate-resilient species such as millet, sorghum, legumes, amaranth, and groundnuts, among others, helping local communities to withstand prolonged climate challenges. A shift to plant-based diets can enhance biodiversity by encouraging the cultivation and consumption of more diverse crop species and varieties, moving away from an over-reliance on a few staple crops. By strengthening local supply chains, communities can boost farmer incomes and create new local economic opportunities, minimizing reliance on imports and building resilience. Plant-rich food systems should also revive indigenous and local foods and good traditions, thereby strengthening identity, resilience, and freedom.

Our current food systems could push global warming beyond 1.5°C, even if fossil fuels were eliminated tomorrow.²² A global shift toward the Planetary Health Diet, recently updated by the EAT-Lancet Commission, combined with sustainable production practices and a 50% reduction in food waste, is essential to bringing humanity back within planetary boundaries and could cut food emissions by more than half, compared to a business-as-usual trajectory.^{23 24} Less pasture and feed-crop acreage would allow forests and wetlands to recover, reduce pressure on ecosystems, and support biodiversity recovery. Water and nutrient inputs would also drop, reducing resource use and pollution.

The sector is also growing – for example, plant milk constituted a 14% share of all retail milk sales in mainstream US channels in 2024.²⁵ This growth also provides opportunities for significantly increasing youth employment in various sectors, from agriculture to research, with examples spanning Latin America²⁶ to Europe.^{27 28 29} Fostering plant-based food innovation is a key aspect of green growth. The economic benefits are not limited to the more industrialized sector of the plant-based economy, but also include opportunities for rural communities and youth entrepreneurs. Plant-rich systems can unlock agribusiness ventures for rural youth and women, creating dignified green jobs while boosting local economies.

Despite being dependent on other structural factors, including who owns and controls the land and agricultural inputs, and the extent to which marginalized groups are genuinely included in value chains and decision-making processes, by using fewer resources per calorie produced, plant-based diets potentially free up land and water resources to feed more people. At a more direct level, youth-led initiatives such as community gardens or school programs can be actively promoted, helping to ensure that young people become direct changemakers.

Policymakers should curb misleading advertising that promotes meat/dairy as ‘climate-friendly’ or otherwise downplays their impacts. Conversely, public campaigns that highlight the benefits of plant-rich diets, similar to existing health promotions for fruits and veggies, should be introduced. Since education and school facilities help to shape eating habits, they should lead by example in terms of offering sustainable and nutritious food choices. Nutrition should be integrated into school curriculums, the climate impacts of diets should be discussed, and cooking skills should be acquired in schools as well as at home.

Specifically, agricultural subsidies should be repurposed away from industrial livestock and towards the small-scale farming of fruits, vegetables, and legumes, including indigenous crops and traditional cereals. Another idea would be to institute fiscal measures such as taxing unhealthy animal-based foods (similar to a sugar tax) while subsidizing fruits, vegetables, and legumes to make them more affordable. By changing price signals, these policy levers would correct market distortions and make plant-forward choices more affordable, competitive, and accessible. Farmers need to be incentivised and valued, while at the same time promoting sustainable production of indigenous, climate-resilient plant-based foods that are locally available, thereby increasing awareness and promoting market access to these products, both locally and through international trade.

This includes integrating plant-rich meals into public-procurement programs (schools, hospitals, prisons, military, etc.), so that everyone has easy access to sustainable foods. Public procurement represents a practical, foundational policy for normalizing plant-rich diets, supporting local farmers, and, when implemented in elementary schools, shaping the habits of future generations. When children grow up seeing plant-based meals as the default, it normalizes plant-rich diets. Additionally, high-volume purchases by institutions can help to move an industry from niche to mainstream. When coupled with a shift in subsidies, this helps to increase the demand for farmers’ products, ensuring that they have reliable buyers for their diverse local crops. And lastly, offering healthy plant-based meals as the default in public institutions ensures access to affordable, nutritious food for young people, thereby addressing the barrier of high costs for low-income families.

In order to operationalise this support, training sessions for young people on the development of business plans can be put in place, and specific funding opportunities should be directed to young people who want to enter the sector.

Climate targets should be very clearly stated and need to be mandatory in order to be successful, with member states being unable to opt out. This addresses the risk of food systems being marginalized or ignored in national strategies. The transformation should aim to reduce emissions and increase resilience, encompassing not just a reduction in greenhouse gasses, but also enhancing the system’s ability to withstand climate shocks.