Research Paper
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Audience: Audiences interested in this paper may include: people in meat and agriculture industries, environmentalists, vegetarians, vegans, animal welfare advocates, scientists in the field of lab-grown foods, scientists in the field of alternatives to meat products, people who are concerned about dangerous substances in meat, people who either advocate for or against genetically modified foods, climate scientists, people involved in the decision making process for what to use land for (probably government-based), people in government who decide on policies about food and agriculture, organizations like the FDA who are involved in health regulations based on food and drugs, the CDC, and governmental employees involved in unemployment issues.
The Technological Wonder of Lab-Grown Meat: A Solution to Harms Perpetrated by the Livestock Industry?
There have been many arguments and controversies over the future of the meat industry because of concerns about the numerous harms it causes, with alternatives such as insect-based protein and lab-grown meat – the subject of this paper – proposed by researchers in the field. Lab-grown meat, or cultured meat, is meat produced by harvesting the surplus tissue created by encouraging the growth of a small sample of muscle cells from the target animal, such as a cow or pig. As a combined major biology/psychology student currently in my second year of university, I was initially exposed to the subject through casual perusal of popular press articles, but through the research involved in the writing of this paper became more invested in the topic due to discovering the alarming reality of how the meat industry negatively impacts our society. The harm caused by the livestock industry has been extensively documented by scholarly articles from such sources as the journals Livestock Science and Global Environmental Change. Counterarguments to the benefits of lab-grown meat compared to farm-grown meat can mostly be found from popular press articles rather than academic sources. These arguments either object to the fundamental nature of lab-grown meat, that it cannot be considered an equal to farm-grown meat because it did not come from an animal, or object to the environmental benefits – such as an article by the Discovery Institute, which argues that cultured meat is just as bad for the environment as traditional meat. However, based on the scientific evidence rather than what the popular opinion might be, the potential benefits of lab-grown meat to the environment, global economy, and moral health of society mean that I believe that it is both immoral and illogical to not endeavor to implement lab-grown meat as an alternative to the current livestock industry.
Agriculture, of which the livestock industry is fundamentally connected to, is a major contributor to the global warming effect which currently threatens human society. Nearly 18 percent of global greenhouse gases generated is linked to the livestock industry, including both direct greenhouse gas production such as methane as well as indirect effects caused by energy and transportation requirements (Mogensen et al., 2015). Methane as a greenhouse gas is roughly 21 times more potent than CO2 (Stavi & Lal, 2012), and ruminant animals farmed in the livestock industry such as cows and sheep are the second largest contributors to global methane production, alongside the fossil fuel industry (Bousquet et al., 2006). Because cultured meat would separate the animal from the meat, thus eliminating the digestive process that produces methane, methane emissions from cultured meat facilities would be basically negligible. A greenhouse gas that is indirectly created by the livestock industry is N2O, which is approximately 310 times more potent as a warming factor than CO2 (Stavi & Lal, 2012). N2O, or nitrous oxide, which is produced by various industrial procedures such as the production of nitric acid, a key ingredient in creating the fertilizers used to increase the yield of crops (“Emissions of Greenhouse Gases,” 2011). The major source of N2O in the US is from agriculture, of which 87% of the total amount comes from the use of fertilizers (“Emissions of Greenhouse Gases,” 2011). The most well-known gas involved in the greenhouse effect is CO2, which is primarily produced by the burning of fossil fuels for power and transportation as well as industrial processes including agriculture, as stated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2016. While livestock do not produce a notable amount of CO2 directly, the energy requirements associated with feeding the animals, processing meat, and transporting necessary materials does incur a significant atmospheric cost of about nine percent of global CO2 emissions as explained in a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2009). Lab-grown meat could potentially be produced on-site, which would eliminate much of the CO2 emissions from the long-distance transportation of farm-grown meat. As cultured meat is grown into ready-to-eat forms – currently in a ground beef style – it would not require energy to be expended in order to process it into edible form, unlike cows for example which need to be butchered before consumption. Sources such as an article by Evolution News, “Oh No: It Turns Out Lab-Grown Meat Causes Global Warming Too” (2019) argues that the implementation of lab-grown meat over live animal harvesting would not necessarily be a positive improvement on the current environmental status quo. However, the proposed environmental impact of lab-grown meat in the article that would supposedly be the same as current livestock practices is due to the greenhouse gas production of the energy sources that lab-grown meat would use. This argument neglects the fact that a change in energy generation, such as fossil fuel to solar, would largely negate this effect. Wesley Smith’s (2019) article also fails to consider the indirect greenhouse effect of transportation and processing as previously discussed. If these revisions are considered, livestock would produce vastly larger amounts of greenhouse gases – particularly methane – than lab-grown meat, as supported by Stavi & Lal’s 2012 research. Another indirect effect of the livestock industry on the environment that is often overlooked is in how it changes the ability of the land it uses to sequester greenhouse gases.
Issues caused by the livestock industry that the implementation of lab-grown meat has the potential to solve are how it affects the environment and humanity’s potential for growth through its clearing of land for pasture and agriculture, and its use of massive amounts of valuable resources such as water and food. While some academic sources suggest growing animal feed on cropland rather than pasture land to reduce land usage of the livestock industry (Roos et al., 2017), lab-grown meat has the potential to reduce land usage even further. In a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, production of feed for livestock uses up almost 80% of available land for agriculture (2009). From an article by Matt Simon of Wired, “according to David Welch, director of science and technology at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that promotes lab-grown meat,” cultured meat would use 90% less land than current practices (2019). If lab-grown meat replaced livestock entirely then all this land would be available for food production for humans, mitigating at least a portion of the widespread starvation occurring around the globe. The newly available land could also be used for other developments such as housing, industry, and power. Water, along with food and oxygen, is required for humans to survive. Just as lab-grown meat would increase the amount of food available for human consumption, lab-grown meat also requires only 2% of the water livestock expends (Simon, 2019). One argument made against lab-grown meat is in terms of its cost vs. the cost of farmed meat. Currently, one pound of lab-grown beef costs about 2400 dollars (Nelson, 2018). At this price, it is obviously unfeasible as a product marketed to the general public. However, an article by the Genetic Literacy Project states that two different companies involved in the production of cultured meats, Memphis Meats and Future Meat Technologies, hope to reduce costs to around $5 per pound by 2020 or 2021 (Nelson, 2018). At this level of cost, lab-grown meat will be about as expensive as a burger made of “normal” meat, making the product a valid possibility from a business standpoint. It is debatable whether it will be easy to mass produce lab-grown meat and even if it is possible, it would likely take quite a long time to reach equivalent levels of production. The US exported ~$7.3 billion worth of beef in 2017 (“Top U.S. Agricultural Exports,” 2018), and the meat and poultry industry contributes to roughly $1 trillion of the country’s total economic output (Dunham, 2016). If it is assumed that other countries have a similar percentage of their total economic output devoted to meat, this means that a shift from livestock to lab-grown could result in significant global economic damage to the country involved. A shift to cultured meat could also result in mass unemployment due to the 5.4 million jobs currently provided by the meat industry (Dunham, 2016). Even if an equivalent number of jobs was opened in the new lab-grown meat industry, the skills required for the new field are unrelated to the skills utilized by workers in the livestock industry. This means that workers who originally worked in the livestock industry would be unable to find new jobs in the lab-grown meat industry. These economic issues indicate that the change from live to lab-grown would either have to be implemented extremely gradually to allow the population to be educated or re-educated in the appropriate fields. If these millions of jobs were suddenly lost it would be unfair to the workers currently employed by the industry and would result in a massive increase in civil unrest and unemployment rates.
Aside from concrete environmental and economic benefits, lab-grown meat stands to provide the benefit of a healthier and more ethical society. About 3 million cattle were slaughtered in 2018, and about 2.8 million were slaughtered in 2017 (“Number of cattle slaughtered,” 2018). If past and future years have similar numbers, then that means that 3 million cattle could be spared from death per year if livestock were replaced by lab-grown products. A national poll by The Vegetarian Resource Group found that roughly 7% of the US population are full-time vegetarians, with about half of this number vegan as well (“How many adults in the U.S,” 2016). These ~3.7 million vegan and ~4.3 million vegetarian people (“How many adults in the U.S,” 2016) could enjoy meat again, if their reasoning around becoming vegetarian was to avoid animal cruelty and exploitation rather than personal taste. Another benefit is that lab-grown meat is hormone and antibiotic free, so anyone concerned with the effects of these chemicals in their food can enjoy the taste of meat without resorting to buying expensive products. Other citizens may support lab-grown meat because of concerns about health issues caused by the livestock industry. These health issues include the introduction of toxic chemicals to increase growth rate and increasing rates of foodborne illness and antibiotic resistant microbes. Molecules such as organochlorines, PCBs, and dioxins, are contaminants that can be found in the feed used to encourage the growth of the animals. These molecules have been found to be concentrated in high amounts in humans and are linked to increased rates of cancer and neurobehavioural impairment (Nierenberg & Gracés, 2005). The report by Nierenberg and Gracés (2005) also stated that the risk of catching a foodborne illness from chicken was 5000 times higher than the risk of catching a foodborne illness from vegetables and fruit. According to the World Health Organization and the FAO, antibiotics used for the health of animals raised for food are linked to the development of antibiotic resistant microbes (Nierenberg & Gracés, 2005). As reported by the Center for Disease Control, antibiotic resistant microbes have caused 23 000 yearly deaths in the US alone (“Antibiotic/antimicrobial resistance,” 2013). Lab-grown meat is a solution to all three of these health crises because it is grown in sterile conditions, and without the use of any persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs and dioxins. However, while cultured meat does not currently require the use of hormones for growth, it is still unclear if the application of these chemicals is necessary for mass-production.
The researched effects of the livestock industry include direct greenhouse gas production and indirect environmental effects due to land and power requirements. The harmful impact of the livestock industry also extends farther than just the environment, with vast amounts of land, water, and food - that would otherwise be available for direct human use - consumed by the livestock industry. A more morality-based cost to society’s consumption of animal-based meat is the deaths of animals to obtain said meat, and the unnecessary cruelty shown to these animals in order to maximize production and increase profits. Health concerns based on data on the livestock industry such as its effect on antibiotic resistance, foodborne illness, and chemical toxicity, are also factors to be considered. It can logically be determined that the nature of lab-grown meat and its infrastructure, that of being compact in size, contained and controlled to prevent unnecessary interaction with the surrounding environment, and absent of any live animal, would mitigate - if not eliminate entirely – these issues. While promising in theory, large-scale testing of the technology has not occurred. Problems that may arise in the future of the technology are feasibility of mass-production, use of hormones in growth process, increased strain on power industry – particularly power generation through the burning of fossil fuels – and the greenhouse effect this could cause, and the potential loss of income for current employees of the livestock industry and their host countries. While cultured meat is supported by organizations and persons who work against the livestock industry such as Mark Post, it is railed against by sources such as Donna Haraway and John Miller (Dilworth & McGregor, 2014). After reviewing available sources from a range of different opinions and regions, I conclude that while lab-grown meat is still a technology in its infancy, its potential to improve the quality of life for humanity as a whole makes it a worthwhile investment.
References
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