We hear a lot about the damage that farming, and in particular emissions from ruminants are doing to the environment. However, what is often less discussed is the damage that livestock farming does to biodiversity. A report by WWF shows that the most damaging impacts from livestock production are on water quality, soil quality and biodiversity loss, caused particularly by the intensive crop production for animal feed and the release of nitrogen and phosphorous pollutants. In fact, 60% of global biodiversity loss can be attributed to livestock farming.
The UK is at the forefront of this problem, with a meat-reliant diet and economy to the extent that 85% of agricultural land is used for livestock farming (including feedstock), compared with 66% of agricultural land across the EU.
The solution?
The problem is clear: rearing livestock and feedstock for animal produce is damaging the environment and harming biodiversity. A significant number of people are already opting for plant-based diets, including high profile figures such as the Chief Executive of Greggs. But rather than attempting to influence the behaviour and the hearts and minds of the people through encouraging meat-free diets, it would perhaps be easier to change the technology and the product.
And there is a future technology waiting to be deployed, where consumers would not be denied a dietary choice: it is time for the Government to get behind research and development of in-vitro, or lab-grown meat.
In-vitro meat (commonly referred to as lab-grown, cultured, or clean meat) is a technique of cellular agriculture, where muscle cells are grown in a nutrient solution, and developed into fibres. This uses origin cells from any animal, and characteristics of the meat can be determined by adjusting the growing conditions. Public appetite for the practice is growing, with a dedicated restaurant in New York already taking bookings for their opening in several years.
The current technology still requires living animals as the source of the nutrients and stem cells necessary to sustain the cellular growth, but it is predicted that if everyone were to switch to lab meat, the planet could one day go from 1.5 billion cattle to a few thousand.
Challenges
There would however be a whole host of challenges to overcome to make this viable, sustainable, and achieve the goals of reducing environmental and ecological degradation currently caused by livestock farming.
The most obvious challenge would be the necessity for a broad national and international conversation, as well as extensive education around the concept of meat, food production, and lab meat. This would represent the country’s most significant dietary shift to date, and there would need to be a consensus and understanding of the product, the process, the implications and reasons for its existence, and most importantly the cultural and ethical side of the debate. What is produced? Why should people buy into the concept? Should non-meat eaters consume it? Can it really be called meat? These are all questions that would need to be considered, and government will inevitably need to develop and oversee a robust regulatory framework.
One of the most difficult aspects to realising the environmental benefits of lab-grown meat is around the energy inputs. The process itself is relatively energy intensive. Opponents to the technology argue that whilst the original methane emissions from ruminants are significantly worse than CO2, methane has an atmospheric lifetime of only around a decade. In comparison CO2 has a lesser global warming potential (GWP), but persists in the atmosphere for much longer, continuing to enhance the greenhouse effect for over a century.
In order to avoid replacing one greenhouse gas in the atmosphere with another, it will be key to ensure that energy inputs are produced from renewable and sustainable sources, and continue to enhance the technology to reduce energy consumption.
Another is the current costs and investment required. The Dutch company Mosa Meat, produced their first beef burger at a reported cost of $250,000, and state that their current process would amount to $9/burger at scale. As with many other promising environmental technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCUS), we cannot afford to wait for the prices of the technology to come down. Instead research, refinement and deployment should begin now, and in doing so will bring down costs later.
Outcome
Despite a significant number of challenges, in-vitro meat provides potential for the UK to embrace and become global leaders in a new technology, and revolutionise the relationship between meat and the environment. This could offer the opportunity for swathes of agricultural land to be freed up, allowing for more sustainable arable farming with a public-good based subsidy system, and a chance for biodiversity to thrive whilst consumers can continue to eat meat.
Olly Feaver is a Researcher at Policy Connect and has written this in a personal capacity. The views expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Bright Blue.