The final article in my series on the sustainability of Irish dairy and beef farming, though more accurately it has ventured into the sustainability of Irish agriculture more generally.

If you have read my previous articles on this topic, the findings of this one will hardly be surprising to you. As a result, I have tried to keep this one (relatively) short and sweet.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Since 2010, Teagasc have included a measure of economic viability in their annual National Farm Survey report series. Farms are classified under the headings “economically viable”, “economically sustainable” and “economically vulnerable”, which are defined as follows:

• Farms are considered economically viable if family farm income is sufficient to cover family labour (remunerated at the agricultural wage rate) and provide a 5% return on non-land assets

• Farms are considered economically sustainable if a farm is not economically viable, but a farmer and / or spouse is employed off-farm

• If a farm is neither considered economically viable or economically sustainable, then it is considered economically vulnerable

Before we move on, I have two brief comments to make on Teagasc’s definitions above.

First of all, it seems slightly strange to me that Teagasc equates economic sustainability with the supplementation of family farm income with off-farm income. In other words, a farm can be considered economically sustainable even if off-farm income is required to support the well-being of the farming family.

Teagasc’s definition of economic viability is more in line with what I would consider economically sustainable though, so this is more of a difference in semantics.

Secondly, the fluctuation in the classifications of economic performance - visible in the below graph - would indicate to me that these definitions are not particularly suitable for measuring the long-term economic sustainability of Irish farms.

For example, 28% of large farms were considered economically viable in 2023, which jumped to 43% in 2024. On paper such a leap might technically be possible when assessing the performance of a farm for a given year in isolation, but surely any reasonable measure of economic sustainability - or viability - must account for the fact that such dramatic fluctuations in viability are indicative of the inherent insecurity of farmers livelihoods, and should therefore be considered unsustainable.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, let us examine the evolution of farms under Teagasc’s classifications.

The proportion of large farms considered economically viable by Teagasc has increased significantly, from 26% in 2010 to 43% in 2024. Although not as marked an increase, the proportion of small farms considered economically viable has also risen from 16% in 2015 to 19% in 2022.

Over the same period, there has also been a decrease in the proportion of large farms considered economically sustainable, and a notable decrease in the proportion of large farms considered economically vulnerable.

The years where both the National Farm Survey and Small Farm Survey were conducted - 2015 and 2020 - allow us to examine the classification of the entire farming population.

In 2015 about 21% of Irish farms were considered economically viable. Come 2020, that proportion had increased to about 29%. Although some might consider these proportions low, the trend appears positive.

However, it is also worth considering the totals underlying these proportions. Again taking 2015 and 2020, we can see that there are 9,422 additional farms classified as economically viable by Teagasc, 1,644 additional farms classified as economically sustainable, and 14,528 fewer economically vulnerable farms.

Taken at face value, those figures again seem positive. However, summing them equates to a net decrease in farms of 3,462.

This means that, between 2015 and 2020, about 3,462 farms had disappeared - either subsumed by larger farms or the land is no longer being farmed at all.

As is often the case then, two things seem to be true at once. Simultaneously the financial welfare of many farmers has improved, yet financial hardship - and associated problems, such as the absence of an heir - is likely the cause of many farmers having to abandon the family farm.

All of this aligns with the longer term trends we discussed in my previous article - a decline in the number of Irish farmers and the systemic concentration of land and income.

A dairy cash cow

Unsurprisingly, given the income distributions we discussed previously, dairy farming is by far the most economically viable farming system in Ireland. On the other hand, beef farming is much less financially rewarding, with the vast majority of farms either reliant on off-farm income or classified as economically vulnerable.

The geographic concentration of farming practices in Ireland means there is also a geographic concentration of prosperity.

Similar pattern are visible when examining family farm income. For example, successful dairy farms make far more than other farms…

…and are, on average, must less reliant on direct payments - or subsidisation - under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

A consequence of this is that farms in the regions where dairying is dominant - such as the South East and South West - not only have higher family farm incomes, but are also far less dependent on subsidisation than farms in other regions.

None of this is to say that I am against subsidisation of the agricultural sector per se. In fact the opposite is true - as I argue below, I believe that we should be willing to pay for a sustainable agricultural sector, be that through the market or through taxation. However, I also believe that if we are going to subsidise a sector, it should be an environmentally and socially sustainable one.

Dairy farm operators also have by far the lowest incidence of off-farm employment, with only 11% engaged in further employment in 2024. Contrast this with Cattle Rearing and Finishing farm operators, who are employed off-farm in 47% and 55% of cases (Dillon et al., 2025).

It is true, however, that the spouses of dairy farmers are employed off-farm at a rate much more in line with other farms. In fact, in 2024 the highest incidence of off-farm employment for the spouse of a farmer was on dairy farms, at 50% (Dillon et al., 2025).

However, the low rate of off farm-employment by dairy farm operators themselves is, to me, indicative that this source of off farm income is less of a necessity for the survival of the farm and instead an evidence of the spouses of farmers pursuing their own ambitions.

Under pressure

Rather than repeating the much longer arguments I put forward in my previous article, let me instead briefly summarise the implications of the above dynamics.

As I have argued, the current agricultural model in Ireland is characterised by concentration. Concentration in farm size, with small farms disappearing, subsumed by larger farmers. Concentration in income, with the incomes of most farms trailing far behind those of large, successful dairy farmers. Concentration in regional prosperity, with farms in the South and East fairing farm better than their counterparts in the North and West. The list goes on.

Extrapolate these trends out to the extremities of time and suddenly we have a monopolistic or oligopolistic structure controlling two critical aspects of Irish life - the land beneath our feet and the food we eat. I struggle to see how such dynamics - producing success to the successful - could be considered economically sustainable.

Why are we witnessing these dynamics though? Well, here is my (extremely generalised) hypothesis.

The economic system within which we go about our day-to-day is driven by profit maximisation and thus is predicated upon cost-minimisation. In other words, there is constantly a downward pressure on cost in order to maximise profit margin.

Rather than blaming some system in the abstract though, let us make this more personal. Think about when you go to do your weekly shop - would you rather pay more or less for you litre of milk or your sirloin steak? That’s what I thought.

The same goes for pretty much everything we buy. We want more, and we want to pay less for it. More recently, outsourcing to lower cost economies is the mechanism that has facilitated this, for the most part. It also has the convenient benefit of disconnecting the consumer from the producer of the good or service, alienating us from the poor conditions of workers or the low level of compensation they might receive.

The concentration evidenced in Irish agriculture is simply a localised manifestation of the downward pressure produced by our current economic system.

Now that is not to say that prices go always down. In fact the opposite is true. Our economic model specifically targets a stable inflation rate of about 2%. In apparent opposition to my hypothesis then, it is also true that milk and beef prices are higher now than they were 10 or 15 years ago (Statista, 2025; Bord Bia, 2026).

What is also important to remember though is that other costs involved in farming have also increased. Efficiency and scale become the critical factors then in turning a profit. Thus, over time, smaller farmers are squeezed out by larger farmers who have - amongst other things - the capacity to realise profit from the efficency of mass production. As a result, a large proportion of Irish farms - which are small - are loss-making and heavily dependent on subsidisation. Gradually, these farms are disappearing.

Fighting the tide

The current Irish dairy and beef farming systems are evidently economically unsustainable, with the livelihoods of both current farmers and prosperity of future generations threatened by the dynamics of concentration.

This is notwithstanding the fact that the fundamental link between the environment and the economy means that any system regarded as environmentally unsustainable is inherently economically unsustainable too.

At the root of this is the fact that, as John Gibbons aptly puts it, “food is in many regards too cheap” (Virgin Media News, 2022). Any sustainable agricultural system will require a fundamental, conscious shift in how we make economic decisions - ultimately, we will have to be willing to pay more for the food we eat.

This is even more important given we need to reduce agricultural output - as I have argued for - in order to realise an environmentally sustainable agricultural model. In other words, the price we pay should also account for the environmental damage not done by farming less intensively.

Is such an economic vision achievable though? Or, am I roaring into the howling gales of an economic system whose primary objective - profit maximisation - will overpower any change that opposes it?

Descending again from the abstract, let us return to the personal perspective. For example, would you, dear reader, be willing to go to your local supermarket and intentionally spend more on your groceries? Speaking for myself, certainly I am willing to pay a premium price for some products, but even that takes quite a conscious effort. Would I be willing to pay more for everything though? Maybe some day, but I am certainly a long way off that, particularly if I want such an instinct to completely replace a tendency towards thriftiness.

This raises an important question. Are thriftiness - searching for better value or a cheaper price - and the related obsession with “more” inherently human qualities? If so, would it be any surprise that an economic system that emphasises cost-minimisation emerged from such characteristics? Or, are these learned behaviours, reinforced by the incentives of the current economic system?

Either way, I remain hopeful. We are self-conscious animals. We can reflect on our behaviours and “unlearn” those that we perceive as negative. With time and effort, we can even overcome our instincts.

All that remains then is for the connection to be made that the current Irish beef and dairy farming systems are unsustainable. If you have read this series of articles, I think you might just agree.

References

Bord Bia (2026). Cattle Price Dashboard. [online] www.bordbia.ie. Available at: https://www.bordbia.ie/farmers-growers/prices-markets/cattle-trade-prices/cattle-price-dashboard/.

Dillon, E., Donnellan, T., Moran, B. and Lennon, J. (2025). Teagasc National Farm Survey 2024. [online] Teagasc. Available at: https://teagasc.ie/wp-content/uploads/uploads/media/website/publications/2025/NFSReport2024.pdf [Accessed 1 Dec. 2025].

Statista (2025). Ireland: Farm gate price of cow’s milk 2021. [online] Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1192350/farm-gate-price-cows-milk-ireland/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2026].

Teagasc (n.d.). National Farm Survey Reports. [online] Teagasc. Available at: https://teagasc.ie/rural-economy/rural-economy/national-farm-survey/national-farm-survey-reports/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2026].

Virgin Media News (2022). ‘Food is in many regards too cheap’ - John Gibbons on the Farming Producing Problem in Ireland. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YbOWSjV-SOg [Accessed 15 Jan. 2026].

Last time out we took a look at the planetary boundaries. Amongst other things, we learnt that we’ve breached 7 out of a total 9:

There’s a dimension that was missing from that discussion though - societal wellbeing.

If the planetary boundaries represents the ceiling above which we should not go beyond, then societal boundaries represents the foundation below which we cannot sink

Grab yourself a doughnut…

You may have heard of Kate Raworth’s (2017) ‘Doughnut Economics’ framework. It attempts to tie these two sets of boundaries - the planetary and the social - together.

The visualisation is sleek, the concept intuitive. The inner ring represents the ‘social foundation’, below which lies human deprivation. Exceeding the outer ring - the ‘ecological ceiling’ - results in planetary degradation. Between the social foundation and the ecological ceiling lies the goldilocks zone - the ‘safe and just space for humanity’.

The ecological boundaries are drawn directly from planetary boundaries research. Measures of the social foundation were initially extracted from 40+ reports submitted to the UN Rio+20 conference in 2012, but have since aligned increasingly with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Raworth, 2025).

The latest iteration of Raworth’s framework proposes 21 dimensions, with 35 indicators to measure ecological overshoot and social shortfall (Fanning & Raworth, 2025).

So, how is humanity doing? Do we exist in that ‘safe and just operating space’, or have we overshot our ecological boundaries and fallen short of the social foundation? If you read my last article on the planetary boundaries, you can probably guess…

We have overshot the ecological ceiling across most dimensions1, and are falling short across all dimensions of the social foundation.

What about economic growth?

‘Hold on a second now. What about economic growth? That’s the most important measure of prosperity, right? Why bother with the “Doughnut” when we can just strive for economic growth.’

As I said, the latest iteration of Raworth’s “Doughnut” framework contains 35 indicators of ecological overshoot and social shortfall. Not a single one pertains directly to economic growth2.

However, it’s not that Raworth’s analysis omits economic growth per se. Instead she rejects economic growth as a useful goal altogether. In fact, this is the foundation upon which the entire “Doughnut” framework is founded3.

Yet to contemporary economists, politicians - even society, in its broadest sense - economic growth seems very important. There’s certainly an argument to be made that the overarching goal of the modern economy is to promote growth4.

But why? Why has economic growth become such a ubiquitous measure? Why is it seen as synonymous with the notions of “progress”, “wellbeing” or “welfare”?

To answer this question, Raworth (2017) paints a complex picture of development in economic practice and politics. To summarise, Simon Kuznets first developed measures of national income in the 1930s, which apparently proved useful for navigating the Great Depression in the US and managing the economy during the Second World War. In fact, they were so successful that, soon, economic growth was being viewed as a panacea for any social, economic or political issue of the day.

For example, Simon Kuznets also famously went on to hypothesise that as national incomes grow there would be an initial increase in income inequality, followed by a decrease. In other words, don’t worry about inequality, just keep growing the economy and it will all balance out in the long run. What a convenient “finding”5!

Raworth then goes on to hypothesise why the story of economic growth was so attractive. Undoubtedly there are many factors at play here, but she highlights one particularly interesting idea: that growth being “good” is a metaphor embedded deeply in Western culture6. It is undeniably an easier story to sell. Imagine a politician promoting a “steady-state economy” rather than “economic growth”.

Basically, according to Raworth, politicians rummaged through their economic toolbox, chose an undoubtedly useful tool, but also decided to throw out the rest of the toolbox.

The irony? The “inventor” of the first measure of national income - Kuznets himself - was all too aware of the limitations of assessing national welfare using a measure of national income (Kuznets, 1934). In a chapter entitled Uses and Abuses of National Income Measurements Kuznets lists some of these limitations, including:

• An inability to account for or value non-market goods or services, such as the environment or parental care;

• An inability to account for the distribution of income - id est income inequality - within or across nations;

• An inability to account for the ‘intensity and unpleasantness of effort’ going into the earning of income; and, most pertinent to our present discussion;

• A tendency towards confounding changes in national income with changes in national welfare.

That’s not to mention the fact that measures of national income pay no attention to the capital stock from which income is generated or who owns said capital, and that all forms of income are treated the same - productive investment is counted the same as consumption.

In the words of Kuznets himself:

The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income…

Fundamentally, GDP is a measure of the flow of money through an economy. As Kuznets highlighted, it is not to be used as an indicator of national wellbeing.

Raworth’s carries this logic forward to argue that we cut out the middle-man - economic growth - and measure what we really care about. Hence, the measures of social foundation and ecological ceiling in the “Doughnut”.

She wouldn’t be the first to develop an alternative measure of human development or progress. Take the Human Development Index (HDI) produced by the UN. It supplements GNI per capita with measures related to education and life expectancy. Yet, for all that complication, the HDI is highly correlated with GDP per capita7.

Here’s another measure - Self-reported Life Satisfaction, measured by Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre - compared to GDP per capita. The same story emerges.

Fanning and Raworth (2025) find a similar correlation in their own work. From the period 2000 - 2022, real GDP almost doubled. Over that same period, the measures of social shortfall in the “Doughnut” framework have also improved, albeit at a much more marginal rate8.

Given these apparent correlations, why bother changing anything? If growing GDP is going to produce higher levels of wellbeing, life satisfaction, equality, or whatever measure of welfare you use, shouldn’t we just stick with what’s tried and tested?

Say it with me: correlation doesn’t equal causation. Growing GDP doesn’t necessarily cause increases in wellbeing - it’s just associated with it.

Certainly targeting the growth of a single indicator - especially one as simple as GDP - is convenient, particularly when improvements in society seem to co-occur. But should that mean that economic growth becomes our goal? Is it the most effective way to reach the social foundation?

If the actual goal is to improve social wellbeing would we not be better to aim directly for that instead? Raworth argues just that: set out explicitly to reach the ‘safe and just operating space’ - don’t just grow GDP and cross your fingers.

But…don’t doesn’t growth alleviate poverty?

To be clear, material deprivation is related to wellbeing. I don’t think I need to cite a scientific source to support that statement.

Although Raworth (2017) scolds the goal of economic growth in and of itself, she acknowledges the same:

In many low-income but high-growth countries…when that growth leads to investments in public services and infrastructure, its benefits to society are extremely clear. Across low- and middle income countries (where national income is less than $12,500 per person per year) a higher GDP tends to go hand-in-hand with greatly increased life expectancy at birth, far fewer children dying before the age of five, and many more children in school. Given that 80% of the world’s population live in such countries…significant GDP growth is very much needed and it is very likely coming. With sufficient international support these countries an seize the opportunity to leapfrog the wasteful and polluting technologies of the past. (p. 254)

A la the relationships between economics growth and the various measures of wellbeing highlighted above, effectively.

However, rather than setting perpetual economic growth as a target, Raworth instead includes a measure of income related to a societal poverty line9. The goal is explicit: to ensure that no one falls below the societal poverty line, as opposed to growing the size of the economy and assuming that material deprivation will diminish. To be more specific, she assumes a causal relationship between economic growth and reductions in material deprivation - and thus an increase in wellbeing - but that that relationship should be specifically leveraged to reduce poverty.

Effectively, she advocates for growth to a certain point in order to reduce material deprivation. After that point though, countries should focus on other goals.

What about those with higher incomes?

Wouldn’t everyone be better off having more money though, no matter how well-off they are? Well, it’s complicated…

The consensus - which aligns with intuition - seems to be that both relative and absolute income levels matter to wellbeing (Frank, 2012). This is counter to the infamous Easterlin Paradox, which states that only relative income matters.

The implications of this is that, technically, continued economic growth should produce continued improvements in wellbeing. In other words, nations - no matter how well-off - should continue to grow their economies.

However, the evidence also suggests that returns on income are diminishing. In other words, each additional amount of income one earns will result in progressively less additional wellbeing.

Relatedly, it’s also important to remember that income is not the only determinant of wellbeing. Take the trajectories of self-reported life satisfaction of some of the worlds highest income countries - including little old Ireland!

Despite tremendous growth in GDP per capita, self-reported life satisfaction has stagnated or fallen in these nations from 2011 to 202410. Clearly then, there are other factors involved in determining wellbeing, factors that even the hallowed economic growth cannot solve. Shocker!

Hence why, according to Raworth, there is a level of income that is enough. After that point, as I mentioned above, she believes that countries should target other goals - specifically, the ones she outlines in her “Doughnut” framework.

What about the environment?

Let’s briefly go over what we’ve discussed so far: Economic growth certainly is associated with, and in some instances - such as the reduction of material deprivation - causes improved wellbeing. However, targeting economic growth in the hope that benefits will trickle down to all of society is at best indirect, and at worst mistaken (Piketty, 2006). Instead, Raworth (2017) argues that we need to be much more explicit about the goal of reaching the social foundation.

That’s only half the story though. We have yet to discuss the outer boundary of the “Doughnut” - the ecological ceiling. Specifically, we have yet to discuss the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation.

The evidence is conclusive at this stage. Economic growth - in its current form - has caused, is causing, and will cause more environmental degradation. To quote from a previous article:

Towards the end of 20th century though, scientists began to notice that we were drifting from these favourable environmental conditions [Holocene-like]. They also concluded that humanity was to blame. Since then, the evidence has mounted. We have been emitting too large a volume of greenhouse gasses for the planetary systems to handle. We have been consuming natural resources at a rate faster than they can be replenished. We have disrupted the nutrient flows that are so critical for fostering life.

In fact, practically every indicator of planetary health has deteriorated as humanity has “progressed”.

Unsurprisingly, Fanning and Raworth (2025) uncover similar findings. Over the same period noted in Figure 7 - where real GDP has almost doubled and social shortfall has contracted - ecological overshoot has increased.

This trend, alongside more detailed research by Fanning et al. (2022) on the development trajectories of nations would seem to indicate that further ecological overshoot is likely to manifest.

They found that, in general, nations tended to follow a path of transgressing environmental boundaries before achieving social thresholds…

… and a path of escalating ecological overshoot that yields diminishing returns in reducing social shortfall.

In other words, the way nations currently grow and develop degrades and destroys the environment.

Now, there are those who might point to a graph like this…

Or this…

…and they might say something along the following lines: “Economic growth can be decoupled from carbon emissions” or “Economic growth leads people to clean up the environment”.

In some ways they would be correct too. We have indeed achieved relative decoupling of global economic growth and global carbon emissions and, as we can see above in Figure 12, there are several countries who have achieved absolute decoupling between economic growth and their consumption-based carbon dioxide emisisons11.

Also, there does indeed appear to be some evidence of a so-called ‘Environmental Kuznets Curve’ across some measures of ecological health - an example of which can be seen in Figure 13.

These green shoots must be caveated though.

First of all, relative decoupling or even marginal absolute decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth are simply not enough. Absolute decoupling at a dramatic rate is required.

Second of all, carbon dioxide is only one greenhouse gas - albeit the largest contributor to global warming. We need to achieve dramatic absolute decoupling of all greenhouse gas emissions from economic activity.

And finally, air pollution - and others measures that potentially exhibit some Kuznets Curve-like behaviour - or climate change pertain only to some measures of ecological health. All dimensions require our unwavering attention12.

To summarise: Economic growth is driving environmental degradation. Full stop. Whereas there may be an argument - though a weak one in my opinion - in favour of striving for economic growth in order to improving societal wellbeing, there is no such argument to be made for the relationship between economic growth - in its current form - and environmental health. In fact, as we have seen, the opposite is true.

Can we actually reach the the ‘safe and just operating space’?

I think the case is pretty strong then that economic growth - as it is currently conceived - is not going to lead us to the ‘safe and just operating space for humanity’. That’s not to say that economic growth is inherently “bad", it’s just that if we want to eradicate social shortfall and reign in ecological overshoot, if these are the actual goals, then we are going to have to be much more explicit in targeting them.

The question then arises though, whether there is any way we can reach the ‘safe and just operating space’ at all?

Rather unsurprisingly, Raworth (2017) thinks we can - her life’s work is predicated on that assumption after all. But she does cite several factors that will play a key role in whether we do or not:

• The size of the human population will need to stabilise;

• A far more equitable distribution of resources will be required;

• People will have to embrace a mindset of sufficiency, and abandon the pursuit of abundance;

• Dense urbanisation - supported by “clean” technology - will have to accelerate, and;

• Governance structures at every scale will have to be designed to deal with the nature of the challenges highlighted by the “Doughnut”

Quite a laundry list then.

More quantitative research - though there is a limited amount - has since gone on to confirm that it does indeed seem possible for humanity to reach the ‘safe and just operating space’, even if such as space could be a ‘vanishingly thin ring’ according to O’Neill et al. (2018).

Similarly to Raworth, O’Neill et al. (2018) argue that humanity will have to adopt a model of sufficiency in resource consumption. However, that alone won’t be enough. They argue that for such a space to be reached, provisioning systems13 must be fundamentally restructured so that the social foundation can be reached with a much lower level of resource use.

Schleiser et al. (2025) come to a similar conclusion. Theoretically, reaching the ‘safe and just operating space’ is possible, but many criteria must be met. Assuming a human population of 10.4 billion people, minimal consumption, ubiquitous adoption of an effectively vegan diet and completely defosilized energy systems seem to be a necessity.

How do we get there?

So we know that reaching the ‘safe and just operating space’ is theoretically possible. But how do we get there?

All we have to do is redesign governance structures, transform distribution systems to be more equitable, accelerate sustainable urbanisation, minimise consumption, overhaul food systems and defosilize energy systems. Easy.

Doing one of those on their own is quite the task. Might achieving all of them be insurmountable?

Quoting Schleiser et al., ‘Theoretical evidence that a ‘‘Doughnut’’ state exists is no evidence that it is possible to transition towards a “Doughnut” state'. That’s a rather depressing thought. Yet the difficulty in achieving the aforementioned changes at a collective level - and achieving them quickly - leads me to conclude that, whilst reaching the ‘safe and just operating space’ might be possible, it is unfortunately not probable.

For example, the UN - the multilateral institution - is supposedly the governance structure under which we address the existential issues highlighted by the "Doughnut”. Yet it is considered increasingly dysfunctional. The fact that we are only on track to achieve a small fraction (18%) of the measures outlined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals - which every member nation has committed to achieving by 2030 - is further evidence that our best attempt at international governance is at best faltering, if not failed.

Change will require overcoming an incredible amount of vested interest and inertia: What’s in it for the wealthy to redistribute their riches? Could you conceive of a world where you have enough? If you have more in that world than you do today, you’ve missed the point14. How many people do you know who follow a vegan diet? Would you consider it? What happens to all those in the agricultural sector who depend on the production of animal-based products for their livelihoods? Why would fossil-fuel companies want to accelerate the shift towards renewable energy15? Have you opted for an electric vehicle? Do you even need at a car at all?

Clearly, implementing the changes that Raworth and others advocate for will be extremely difficult. It’s one thing to wish for a better world. It’s something entirely different to bring that change to bear. A ray of hope remains though - we know it is possible.

A way forward?

The big takeaway from Raworth’s work is that economic growth is not a useful goal. It is not targeted enough in comprehensively reducing social shortfall and - in its current conception - drives environmental degradation.

Striving for economic growth creates a circular logic where growth itself is considered the yardstick of success. Growth for growths sake is striven for, even hailed. Growth becomes an end in itself.

But the economy is not an end itself, it is a means to an end. As such, Raworth argues that we measure what really matters - human and planetary wellbeing. She challenges us to become ‘growth agnostic’. If the flow of money through the economy grows whilst we reduce social shortfall and ecological overshoot, great! But the aim in itself should not be economic growth.

Whilst I have focussed on what I believe to be the key message of Raworth’s work, it is worth noting that her book Doughnut Economics: Seven Way to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist is much wider ranging in its critique.

There are some observations which I believe are excellent - such as her proposal to view the economy as a system embedded in a broader set of social and planetary systems:

However, in other areas I would be more critical. For example, she is overzealous in attacking what she calls ‘mainstream economics’. Effectively, as Schokkaert (2019) points out, Raworth seems to lay the blame for social shortfall and ecological overshoot at the door of “bad” economics.

The idealist in my gravitates instinctively towards such a paradigmatic criticism - but is it really a credible one? No doubt ideas can be powerful and misused, but it does seem an oversimplification to blame all our misgivings on “bad” - or the often conflated neoliberal - economics. Could one set of ideas really be to blame for all that has gone wrong in the world? For example, there is no neoliberal dogma that suggests everyone must consume animal-based diets yet, despite widespread awareness that they are bad for the planet, their popularity persists16.

Schokkaert (2019) also notes instances where, in her eagerness to denounce ‘mainstream economics’ she adopts questionable perspectives. For example, he highlights a particular instance where Raworth (2017, p. 3) lauds activists for plastering ‘accusatory posters’ all over the American Economic Association’s annual get-together in 2015, and occupying ‘sedate panel discussions’. Yet, the agenda for the conference actually included discussions on some of the very issues - such as inequality, public health and cognitive science - that Raworth cares most about, presented by some of those that Raworth celebrates throughout her book, such as Thomas Piketty and Richard Thaler.

Relatedly, Raworth (2017) also has a habit of classifying economists she considers interesting as ‘non-mainstream’, despite, as Schokkaert (2019) notes, several of those she considers to be in this category actually being central figures in contemporary economic theory, such as Thomas Piketty, Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler. Capital in the 21st Century, Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge are hardly to be considered obscure literature at this stage17.

I would also question the use of the categories of ‘mainstream’ and ‘non-mainstream’ altogether. It seems reductionist, given that the diffusion of ideas can often be modelled as an S-curve. All new ideas begin as what Raworth might consider non-mainstream. That doesn’t make them inherently good, in the same way that popular ideas aren’t inherently bad. Would Raworth be so disparaging of ‘mainstream economics’ if her “Doughnut” framework went on to become widely adopted? Given that she actually discusses S-curve trajectories in her book, this would seem an even greater oversight.

In her wide-ranging criticism of modern ‘mainstream economics’, Raworth risks throwing the baby out with the bath water in my opinion.

First of all, popular economic theory and practice has a lot to say about the issues that she is concerned about. For example, Noah Smith highlights that the Production Possibilities Frontier - a “mainstream” economic tool used to evaluate the trade off between two dimensions - could be and is used to measure the trade-off between economic output and environmental degradation. Yet it receives no mention in Raworth’s book.

More fundamentally though, in targeting all of ‘mainstream economics’, Raworth may be neglecting the very methods and isolating the very people by which the changes she advocates could come about. This is particularly important to note, given Raworth herself very little to say on that matter. She just says that things need to be done. Not how to do them.

To be clear, Raworth’s “Doughnut” framework is unashamedly normative. She literally states that she intended it to be so, outlining in her book that she believes a drift towards a positive - or descriptive - understanding of economics has been a negative development. I disagree with this perspective. I would agree with Schokkaert (2019) when he says that Raworth’s work is an important contribution to normative economic ideology, but I believe you also need to incorporate the descriptive perspective. That way, you can actually help to bring about the changes you so desire.

For example, Raworth paints a beautiful picture of the community-based, socially adaptable human as an alternative to the rational economic man. From a descriptive perspective, she is absolutely correct - we are not entirely financially motivated or self-interested. But in her desire to paint such a hopeful picture, she overlooks the fact that, sometimes, we are. She runs the risk of assuming that everyone cares about reducing social shortfall and ecological overshoot as much as she does.

You need goals - provided by the normative perspective - and an understanding of how to bring them about - provided by the descriptive perspective. It’s no good saying that free-riding is bad and that it must stop. You also need to suggest solutions18.

In her defence, I doubt Raworth would claim her book to be a panacea. She has also gone on to do significant amounts of work implementing the “Doughnut” framework through the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL). DEAL could probably be considered the descriptive element corresponding to the “Doughnut”, the normative framework that sets the goals.

And what a magnificent set of goals Raworth has outlined. What a challenge she has set us. You may not like her or agree with everything she says, but it is hard to deny that her ambition is admirable - for all to live a decent life within the planet’s boundaries. I believe that her “Doughnut” might just guide us there. To deface Emily Dickinson: hope is a sweet treat with a hole in its centre.

References

1. Fanning, A. L., O’Neill, D. W., Hickel, J and Roux, N. (2022). The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations. Nature Sustainability, 5 (1), pp. 26-36.

2. Fanning, A. L. and Raworth, K. (2025). Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries monitors a world out of balance. Nature. [online] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09385-1.

3. Frank, R. H. (2012). The Easterlin Paradox Revisited. Emotion, 12(6), pp. 1188-1191

4. Kuznets, S. (1934). National Income, 1929-1932, 73rd US Congress, 2nd Session, Document No. 124. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/natincome_1934/19340104_nationalinc.pdf

5. O’Neill, Daniel W., et al. A Good Life for All within Planetary Boundaries. Nature Sustainability, 1 (2), pp. 88–95, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0021-4.

6. Piketty, T. (2006). Kuznets: Yesterday and Tomorrow. In: Understanding Poverty. Oxford University Press.

7. Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-century economist. London: Random House Business Books.

8. Raworth, K (2025). The Evolving Doughnut, Doughnut Economics Action Lab. https://doi.org/10.64981/XGRX2738.

9. Schlesier, H., Malte Schäfer and Desing, H. (2024). Measuring the Doughnut: A good life for all is possible within planetary boundaries. Journal of Cleaner Production, 448(141447). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141447.

10. Schokkaert, E. (2019). Review of Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics. London: Random House, 2017, 373 pp. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, [online] 12(1), pp.125–132. https://doi.org/10.23941/ejpe.v12i1.412.

The universities we attend append Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science prefixes to courses in economics. News headlines would convince you that the work of economists can be taken as gospel. Decision-makers rely on the advice of economists to make “evidence-informed decisions”.

Economics is usually treated as a science. But should it be?

What is a “science”?

The Oxford Dictionary definition for science as a discipline is:

The systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained

Now, someone defining something as thus doesn’t make it so. However, for the purposes of this article it captures what I consider makes something a science: a systematic approach to testing hypotheses about the world, and learning from the evidence.

I want to clarify that I’m not questioning the “scientific-ness” of all economics. There has been plenty of excellent science done in the field of economics, particularly in microeconomics1.

What warrants more consideration though is the “scientific-ness” of macroeconomics. Specifically, I am questioning the reliability of macroeconomic forecasts - particularly forecasts relating to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)23. As a result, I am also questioning the emphasis we put on GDP forecasts generally - the time spent developing them, their coverage in the news, and their influence on our decision making.

How do GDP forecasts perform?

To summarise: pretty poorly.

The Irish Central Bank is THE monetary authority in Ireland. You would like to think they understand what is going on in the economy. Yet, their predictions for the subsequent year’s economic performance are consistently wrong. Not only slightly either - often by quite a lot. In fact, sometimes they predict growth, and recession materialises (or vice versa).

In fairness to the economists at the Central Bank, all of the Quarterly Bulletins I reviewed constantly caveat their predictions with uncertainty (though this is often unquantified). They also provide scenarios on certain occasions (such as for Brexit and Covid-19).

Nonetheless, these Quarterly Bulletins exist, and within them is a forecast for the following years GDP growth. So, it would seem only fair that we compare the performance of these forecasts with actual GDP growth4.

Two observations stood out to me:

• Firstly, there is considerably more “noise” in actual GDP growth compared to forecast GDP growth (see Figure 1). What I mean by this is that the forecast GDP growth line is much more smooth.

• Secondly, the Central Bank forecast that the economy would shrink in 2 of the 19 years between 2005 and 2023. It actually shrunk in 4 of those years. It only correctly predicted that the economy would shrink in one year - 2009.

Lets put some figures on that noise I mentioned above. The Mean Absolute Deviation of forecast GDP from actual GDP was 4.81%. The Median Absolute Deviation was 3.48%.

In plain English, please? Well, in the case of the Median Absolute Deviation, it means that a GDP growth forecast for any given year deviates from actual GDP growth by ±3.48% on average. Given the magnitude of GDP growth forecasts examined here - which range from -2.3% to 7.3% - this is a very large level of deviation.

Suppose I was an economist trying to make a prediction about GDP based on data from 2005 to 2023, what would these deviations mean for me? Figure 2 shows us just. The shaded blue area around the forecast line provides a range of uncertainty (margin of error5) for forecast GDP growth.

Almost immediately you can see that the margin of error for 6 of the 19 years includes a figure less than 0%. In other words, a forecast would be so uncertain that it wouldn’t be possible to tell whether the economy was going to grow or shrink6. Hardly anything to hang your hat on.

You can also see that actual GDP growth is outside the range of forecast GDP growth in 9 of the 19 years. This again reflects the level of noise in actual GDP growth in comparison to forecast GDP growth.

So what?

If GDP forecasts are so inaccurate, why do we bother with them?

In my opinion, the main reason is the perceived alleviation of uncertainty. The future is inherently uncertain. We decide to ignore this, thinking that we can predict it. We do this to soothe the dread that uncertainty entails. A “scientific” forecast about the future offers us some respite - something we can lean on when making decisions. In reality though, GDP forecasts tell us very little about the future state of the economy.

But does it really matter if they are inaccurate? Does it matter that we spend time trying to predict the unpredictable? Does it matter that people might use these inaccurate forecasts to make decisions? I would argue that yes, yes it does:

• Predicting the Unpredictable: Often, forecasts are linear extrapolations of some current trend. In other words, they often say “if things continue as they are this might happen…”. What’s the problem with that logic? Well, things aren’t guaranteed to continue as they are. Consider just some of the major world events that have occurred in the last 20 years highlighted in Figure 2.

  What forecasts might tell us though, is what macroeconomists think about the economy. Maybe there’s some value in understanding that? Consider the 2008/09 Financial Crash illustrated in Figure 2. In 2007, macroeconomists obviously felt overly optimistic about the economy. By 2009 they evidently felt more pessimistic than actual economic performance warranted in 2010.

  I am personally skeptical of the usefulness of macroeconomic forecasts, but that doesn’t mean others are. The problem is that this can lay shaky foundations upon which to base decisions.

• Fragile Foundations: What happens then when we treat the prediction of the unpredictable as a science? We create an illusion of validity. We attach irrational credibility to these predictions, and they can lead decision makers astray.

  Now it would be very difficult to measure the costs of inaccurate GDP forecasts, but we can at least imagine some of the potential negative impacts. Suppose I am a Government official who decides to reign in healthcare investment in anticipation of an (incorrectly) predicted economic downturn? Or if I was a CEO who prematurely made employees redundant in anticipation of an (incorrectly) predicted recession? Or if I stretched my liquidity too far in anticipation of (incorrectly) predicted economic growth next year?

  The treatment of macroeconomic forecasts as scientific implies that macroeconomists understand the dynamics of an economy. In reality, they don’t. GDP forecasts tell us as much about the future as…well, divination.

What should people do instead?

I apologise for my vagueness here, but this will hopefully be the topic of (many) future posts. In general though, I would consider the following as guiding principles.

Spend less time in trying to predict the future (in situations where you can’t), spend more time planning for what should be done if certain scenarios arise7 and develop systems that are at least robust, if not anti-fragile8 (borrowing Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s term here).

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Acknowledgements

The loved ones subjected to my ramblings yet graciously offering to read my drafts.

Hemingway was used to simplify some language.

Methodology

Data Sources

The following data sources were used as part of this article:

• Irish Central Bank Quarterly Bulletins (Note: The Quarterly Bulletin prior to the forecast year is used for the Forecast GDP change. For example, for 2006 Quarterly Bulletin Q4 was used)

• CSO Gross Value Added at Constant Basic Prices by Sector of Origin and Gross and Net National Income at Constant Market Prices (NA006)

The following table details the series of forecast and actual GDP change data used for this article:

Calculations

The following table details the deviation between forecast and actual GDP growth calculated for each year considered in this article:

The following table details a selection of summary statistics mentioned throughout the article: