The potential benefits and pitfalls of alternative meat

The news is disturbing. The influential GM Watch group, an independent organisation to counter the GM-industry propaganda and lies, has in a tweet said: "Company genetically engineers fruit flies to be 'biofactories' for fake meat production. The flies are engineered to produce growth factors, then killed and ground up into a mass from which the desired protein for making lab-grown meat is extracted." The obvious reference was to the recent developments on fake meat production, but more importantly on how the protein-transition is being proposed.

This news comes at a time when a private company Solar Foods, which is setting up a plant for commercial-scale production of alternate proteins – making food directly from thin air, by using carbon dioxide, oxygen and hydrogen – in cultivating bacteria. The plant, which is coming up near Helsinki, in Finland, is likely to begin production this year. Quoted in the New Scientist, the company claims: "It will produce 100 tonnes per year, enough for 4 to 5 million meals."

Meanwhile, Singapore has become the first country to commercialise lab-grown meat. With less than 1 per cent of farmlands, Singapore is awfully short of food. It imports 90 per cent of its food requirements from 170 countries and therefore finds itself in a vulnerable position when it comes to ensuring food security. Nothing unusual for any food importing country. This makes me think of the difficult times when India was importing huge quantities of food prior to the advent of Green Revolution. India's first Prime Minister, late Jawaharlal Nehru, must have encountered a lot of arm-twisting and rudeness when the country was living on food imports, prompting him to say: "Nothing is more humiliating for any country than to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture."

Singapore is now planning to be a 'protein-hub of Asia' where 36 companies have invested $ 213 million to produce lab-grown meat, also known as 'cellular agriculture'. In addition, a large number of startups are being set up. There are already 17 firms selling plant based-protein products in Singapore, and the transition to lab-grown meat is therefore inevitable. As a step forward, the US-based company Good Meat was the first to clear the regulatory hurdle in Singapore and had started selling lab-grown chickens in Dec 2020. It has announced that in a few years the company will produce 13,000 tonnes of lab-cultivated beef and chicken, not requiring any slaughter. Another US company Eat Just has also been selling lab-grown chickens but finds the initial cost to be prohibitive. These companies believe that over the time, as production is scaled up, the prices will eventually come down.

Nevertheless, these companies are taking advantage of the raging debate over the gas emissions emanating from the livestock industry. A study published in the scientific journal Nature had said that to keep the global temperatures under control, dietary and technological changes are a must. While the consumption of beef has to come down by 75 per cent, pork by 90 per cent and number of eggs consumed daily by half, in reality the consumption of these meat products is actually on an upswing. The consumption of beef and pork in the rich countries is significantly higher, and it is quite clear that any lifestyle change that requires a shift in dietary habits may be difficult. Therefore, the shift to lab-grown meat, as the companies claim, will only help protect biodiversity, save land diversion for livestock rearing, and reduce the harmful climate impact.

In the past 50 years, the amount of meat being consumed has doubled. The share of Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) emissions from livestock forms nearly 60 per cent of the emissions from agriculture, beef being the worst with four times higher emissions than chicken. World over, at least 130 million chickens are being slaughtered every day for meat.

An interesting report, entitled: The Politics of Protein – examining claims about livestock, fish, 'alternative proteins' and sustainability, by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES Food) points to a polarised debate on protein transition. The debate globally is getting 'protein-centric', as if protein deficiency is what is leading to hunger and malnutrition. In this context, animals are consistently reduced to meat, and meat is reduced to protein, the report states, adding that the new found obsession with proteins has now taken over the scientific and political agenda. The idea that more proteins and less meat is a viable solution to achieve the 'protein transition' overlooks the food security and livestock needs of the world.

Livestock cannot be seen from the single prism of meat, while building up a narrative that ignores the multi-dimensional role it has played over the generations. Some years ago, when the debate over the relevance of GM crops was in the initial stages, I received an email from a US-based scientist. He was visibly upset over my questioning the GM technology. If the new technology can produce food for the planet, what is your objection he wanted to know? And then by of introduction, he mentioned that he was the scientist in NASA responsible for producing food for the astronauts in space. Responding to him, I had explained that it is not a question of producing enough food by the companies but what he must understand is that there are billions of small farmers who produce that food, and their livelihoods, income, food security and cultural upbringings would be lost.

I am not surprised to see the same argument being stretched endlessly. The problem that the world encounters by way of increased emissions from the livestock sector, which is primarily the fallout of the factory farming system that corporate are engaged in, requires the focus shifting to severely taming the factory farms. But instead, the increasing support for the technology-driven solutions that promotes fake meat industry actually strengthens the intensity, density and ferocity of the same industrial farming systems, which is the primary the culprit. Already, 170 companies are in the business of lab-grown meat, growing by 20 per cent every year, and some of the biggest giants in the livestock industry are also investing in 'cellular agriculture'. As the IFES Food report rightly says that the 'alternative proteins' are being hyped, and before you wake up to the threat another phase of food system industrialisation would be before us. I think the best way to counter this will be to open up for public debates and discussions on the misleading claims that are now being accepted as fact. Experts too need to take an initiative, be more pro-active, and try to ensure the public at large understands the serious dimensions of a new food culture being imposed. As I have repeatedly said, the romance of food that we have got used to, is seriously being undermined. And we seem to be largely unaware.

(The author is a noted food policy analyst and an expert on issues related to the agriculture sector. He writes on food, agriculture and hunger)