A report released today (Friday, July 12) from a team led by the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has investigated both the threats and opportunities of cultured meat, as seen by a range of UK farmers.
The report, titled ‘Culture Clash? What cultured meat could mean for UK farming’, explores how scientists and companies developing cultured meat could find “common cause” with farmers.
It argues that the challenges facing the emerging industry of cultured meat, as it is already possible to grow animal cells in a lab and make products like mince and nuggets, is to scale-up production and bring down costs, while convincing regulators and the public that the new technology is safe.
The report team suggest that using by-products from farming could bring this goal one step closer while also making cultured meat more environmentally sustainable and cheaper, both to produce and for the public to buy.
Elizabeth Creak chair in rural policy and strategy at the RAU, Prof Tom MacMillan, led the study.
“The environmental cost of meat production globally means we need to throttle back, and widening the range of safe, tasty, and affordable alternatives to traditional meat can help,” he said.
“While the jury is out on whether cultured meat will fit the bill, we’ve found that it needn’t spell disaster for farmers.
“The farmers who spoke to us for this study had lots of concerns about the technology but, for the most part, had many bigger challenges on their plates.
“Some were also interested in its opportunities, from supplying raw materials to even producing it on their farms.”
Cultured meat
MacMillan said some places around the world have banned cultured meat in the name of protecting farming.
“But instead of seeing this as ‘all or nothing’, we explored where there could be win-wins,” he said.
“Building bridges with farmers is certainly in the cultured meat companies’ interests, as some are starting to see. More surprisingly, we found that keeping the door open may serve farmers better too.”
Possible by-products that could be used in cultured meat production include the leftovers from making rapeseed oil, some of which currently goes to animal feed, and blood from traditional meat production, which is sometimes used as fertiliser or wasted.
Both are rich in amino acids which are the costliest and least sustainable ingredients used to grow cultured meat, the report said.
This research found that using these by-products, instead of synthetic amino acids, could reduce the environmental footprint of cultured meat by using less energy, water and land, and make the end product more affordable.
Linking cultured meat production and farming could also benefit some farmers and address concerns over the threat the new technology poses to traditional farming, which has led Italy and some US states to ban cultured meat, the team said.
Concerns
The team partnered with nine UK farms to find out what cultured meat might mean for their individual businesses.
Compared with challenges such as changing weather patterns and global commodity markets, the threat of competition from cultured meat felt like a “slow burn” to them.
Their main concerns were about wider social issues, such as big companies controlling the food system or the knock-on effects for rural communities, more than about the direct impact on their businesses.
One of the farmers who contributed to the study said: “The cultured meat industry needs to talk more about what they’re up to, rather than keeping everything behind closed doors.
“But I also think that us farmers could listen a bit more too.”
The study was guided by an advisory group including farming organisations and cultured meat businesses.
It also involved practical workshops with policymakers, funders, environmental groups, and cultured meat businesses to identify practical next steps.
