Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl on winning the largest government investment in plant-based foods

Rune-Christoffer is an impressive person. In addition to being almost 10ft tall, he led the Vegetarian Society of Denmark’s efforts in getting the Danish government to invest over 110 million Euros in plant-based foods and develop an Action Plan to boost plant-based foods in the country. 

Given this is one of the most significant policy wins the animal advocacy and plant-based movement has seen in recent years, we chat about how they built the political will to achieve this. We speak about the importance of building coalitions, developing relationships with politicians, and even engaging with the animal agriculture industry. We also speak about their plans to scale this work in the EU so stick around to the end if you want some optimistic and ambitious next steps.

Resources: 

• Denmark’s Action Plan for Plant-Based Foods
• Strategy of the Plant-Based Food Grant
• Plant-Based R&D strategy made in collaboration with farmers
• Ishmael – Daniel Quinn
• Meat: A Natural Symbol – Nick Fiddes 
• Meat: A Benign Extravaganza – Simon Fairlie
• In Defense of Food – Michael Pollan

00:00:00:00 | Intro
00:02:26:23 | A recent mistake others can learn from
00:04:30:12 | Action Plan for Plant-based Foods
00:08:20:01 | The Plant-Based Food Grant
00:17:22:12 | Key things that helped on the way to success
00:24:59:13 | Whole-Food and Plant-Based diet
00:28:35:17 | Building relationships
00:37:06:14 | Stance of the Meat industry
00:41:40:18 | Organic Denmark
00:46:57:16 | Collaboration with other organisations
00:51:54:04 | Tactical tips
00:58:31:03 | Plan for expanding through EU
01:10:45:20 | Working with more challenging countries
01:17:49:12 | Closing questions

With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing!

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