Dr Irina Herzon is a senior lecturer in agroecology in the Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki. She holds a degree in Biology and a PhD in Crop Production (agroecology). Her interdisciplinary research and teaching cover a wide range of sustainability challenges in food production, bridging ecological understanding with social processed. The ongoing research (funded by the Academy of Finland) focuses on defining sustainable niche for farmed animals in food systems in Finland from multiple disciplinary and stakeholder perspectives and covering production and consumption sides. Dr Herzon has been active in science-policy interface work as a member of numerous ministerial working groups, the EU focus groups, and was a member in Finnish Nature Panel. She was awarded membership of the University’s Teachers' Academy in recognition to her pedagogical activities across the University and beyond, also internationally. She represents the University in a Biodiversity Education Network in Finland. Her family co-owns a beef producing farm, with high nature values, but the family’s diet is mostly vegetarian in recognition of many sustainability challenges of livestock production and health benefits of mostly plant-based diets.

A photo of a cow standing by a pond by Luuk Steenbrink via Unsplash.
Essay
What can the Dublin Declaration teach us about credible scientific advocacy?
The Dublin Declaration is a pro-livestock statement that emerged from a Summit held in Ireland on the societal role of meat. While the Declaration has had influence in EU spaces, it has also attracted considerable criticism for its limited engagement with the climate, nature and social implications of the current livestock system, and for its authors’ apparent connections to the meat industry. Irina Herzon, who co-authored a response to the Declaration published in Nature Food in August, argues that, irrespective of those connections, the Declaration provides an example of a flawed scientific advocacy that should make us wary. Here, she sets out how selective evidence and unwarranted polarisation can compromise the integrity of academic engagement. 
Read