Academics requesting retraction of FAO report that misrepresents their research
Paul Behrens (Leiden University) and Matthew Hayek (New York University) have responded to an FAO report on livestock pathways which misrepresented the potential for dietary change to reduce emissions from the food system. The authors have sent a letter to the FAO calling for an urgent retraction on the basis of numerous framing, methodological, and data errors.
The errors, which arise in part from a misuse of Behrens' and Hayek's previous analyses, result in the FAO estimating an emission reduction between 6 to 40 times lower than the scientific consensus. Multiple modelling studies using different approaches find that dietary change is the largest opportunity for reducing many environmental pressures from the food system.
'It seriously distorts our findings'
'We are writing as co-authors of studies referenced in the FAO’s recent report Pathways toward Lower Emissions to express dismay,' write Behrens and Hayek in their letter. 'It seriously distorts the findings of our studies with respect to current food system emissions and the greenhouse gas mitigation potential of dietary changes.'
'The combination of the framing of the analysis, the report’s inappropriate choice of source data, and errors that seriously distort the findings of scientific papers of which we are co-authors, means that we are urgently requesting a retraction of this report, and a re-issuing of the report with more appropriate sources selected and methodological errors rectified.'
The researchers continue with an overview of the 'many error's in the FAO's report, which you can read in the letter.