Leveraging Cellular Agriculture to Tackle Climate Change
Raising livestock for meat, eggs and milk is the second-highest source of emissions and greater than all of transportation combined.
In recent years, researchers and environmentalists alike have paid increasingly more attention to the question of feeding the global appetite for meat without destroying our planet in the process.
Scientists have encouraged overhauling animal agriculture to protect forests and prevent the worsening of the depletion of scarce water, two concerns among hundreds raised by the livestock commodity chains (“Healthy Diets From Sustainable Food Systems”).
Fortunately, a unique combination of biotechnology and tissue engineering known as cellular agriculture offers a sustainable alternative to animal agriculture — one that is far less resource-intensive and carries a much lower carbon footprint.
A 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that industrial animal agriculture produced 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in regards to global climate change, greater than the contributions of the transportation sector (Bristow 205).
Though scientists have previously classified greenhouse gas contributors through their participation in agriculture, transportation, and land-use changes, this form of classification fails to address the subtle interconnections between industries that serve as the driving force of climate change.
Animal agriculture, for example, bleeds heavily over into other industries throughout the livestock commodity chain — from deforestation due to livestock feed production to the transportation of animal products. Large amounts of nitrous oxide are produced from chemical fertilizers applied to feed crops, along with methane gas produced from rumen fermentation and livestock waste, to name a few (Bristow 207).
The pre-existing consequences of animal agriculture, coupled with the soaring meat demand in countries like China, could be our global climate’s tipping point into chaos. Meat demand, specifically beef, is sky-rocketing as meat becomes more affordable for the global population.
According to experts, meat consumption is expected to rise around 63% by 2050 (Revell). Two peer-reviewed studies revealed that agricultural emissions — with livestock serving as a significant contributor — are expected to consume the global carbon budget by 2050, meaning the rest of the sectors would have to maintain a zero-carbon status. The high unlikelihood of such a situation, dubbed impossible by the authors, suggests the critical need for systemic change and reform of animal agriculture.
Not only does it take enormous amounts of water to grow crops, but a single cow drinks up to 50 gallons of water a day — often 100 gallons of water in hot weather — and it takes upwards of 2,400 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef (“Meat and the Environment”).
Animals raised for human consumption in the U.S. produce exponentially more excrement than its entire human population, producing more than 500 million tons of manure annually (“Meat and the Environment”).
This manure is often stored in waste lagoons or sprayed over fields as there are no animal sewage processing plants, contributing to pollution. In fact, runoff from livestock grazing serves as a leading cause of water pollution. Furthermore, over 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared in the past 50 years, and more than 90% of the cleared land is used for grazing livestock (“Meat and the Environment”).
Some researchers recommend reducing global meat consumption due to the risks that animal agriculture poses to the global climate, but face extensive pushback from proponents of meat and dairy consumption (Sengupta).
Last year, for example, the Animal Agriculture Alliance published a statement suggesting that reducing protein intake from meat could worsen malnutrition and increase food waste, stating that it would “distract from the highest priorities for addressing greenhouse gas emissions” in response to a report from 37 scientists encouraging decreased meat consumption (“Statement on Eat-Lancet”).
The question we’re left with is, how can we cut emissions caused by animal agriculture while preserving the health benefits of meat in a sustainable manner?
The answer lies in leveraging cellular agriculture, particularly in the global north.
In 2013, Dr. Mark Post showcased the first taste test for a lab-grown beef burger — one that cost over $300,000 to make. Though his dish only tasted “close” to beef, Dr. Mark Post paved the way for researchers and entrepreneurs to experiment with new technologies in the hopes of reinventing the future of food (Khan).
Flash forward to now, we have hundreds of startups and organizations working on their own lines of inexpensive lab-grown meat. Future Meat Technologies, founded in 2018, plans to bring their production price down to $10 per pound by 2022 (Kateman).
Cellular agriculture is the production of agricultural products from cell cultures (“What is Cellular Agriculture”). Products are harvested the same way as they are from an animal or a plant, but differ in how they are made (“What is Cellular Agriculture”). There are two main ways through which products of cellular agriculture are created — tissue engineering and fermentation.
In the process of tissue engineering, the muscle, fat, and connective tissue from the animal are extracted through a biopsy. Though it may seem like this step defeats the purpose of lab-grown meat, in theory, only one biopsy is ever needed for unlimited production.
The cells are then grown in a controlled cell culture medium to become meat — these cells become the same meat that comes directly from the animals. In the process of fermentation, a gene from an animal is introduced into a microorganism like yeast.
The cells are grown in controlled fermentation tanks, and the host cells are then separated from the purified animal proteins produced. Fermentation is essentially the process of obtaining the proteins in animal products using microorganisms.
“We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”
— Winston Churchill, 1931
According to a report published by Harvard University titled “90 Reasons to Consider Cellular Agriculture,” processes powered by cellular agriculture such as:
- Bovine meat production may require 99% less land, 96% less greenhouse gas emissions, 98% less water
- Poultry meat production may require 66% less land, 74% less greenhouse gas emissions, 92% less water
- Porcine meat production may require 82% less land, 85% less greenhouse gas emissions, 95% less water
- Seafood production may require 55% less land, 59% less greenhouse gas emissions, 86% less water
Overall, cellular agriculture production processes may require 80% less land, 76% less greenhouse gas emissions, and 94% less water than traditional animal agricultural practices.
Freed-up land areas can be used for reforestation and the preservation of biodiversity, allowing nature to regenerate and absorb more carbon dioxide emissions. Animal waste and pesticides are also avoided in the cellular agriculture processes, leading to a reduction in soil pollution, ocean dead zones, and groundwater contamination. Additionally, local cultured meat production facilities will also reduce ground transportation and shipping pollution (“What are the Benefits of Cellular Agriculture?”).
Cellular agriculture is of immense utility to reinvent the future of food. Leveraging this technology provides us with the potential to not only feed astronauts in space in a more sustainable manner, but also future colonies on Mars. There is also an opportunity to tackle medical conditions that arise during space travel like muscular atrophy through directly controlling the diet of astronauts using lab-grown meat.
Cellular agriculture also paves the way for a more personalized future; with personal cellular agriculture gadgets, individuals will likely be able to make custom products made of real meat in the comfort of their own home (Gasteratos).
Currently, Mosa Meat — where Dr. Mark Post currently serves as the Chief Scientific Officer — is working on a cultured beef burger, Eat Just is creating lab-grown chicken nuggets, Future Meat Technologies is working making cell-cultured chicken kebabs, among many organizations racing to develop affordable, tasty, and sustainable cellular agriculture food products.
At this stage, the world has only begun to understand and develop an interest in cellular agriculture.
However, the aforementioned evidence serves as a symbol of its unparalleled potential to change our world and the way we live in it. If this technology’s potential is equally matched with public interest and investment, we have an opportunity to tackle some of the toughest issues that animal agriculture presents to our planet’s climate and save what is left, for now and for the future.
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