The Economist October 2ndf 2021 pp13|Leaders|The future of food|”Working up an appetite” “Consumers and government should embrace new ways to make food”
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Read The Economist for all the details.
Summary offered by 2244
“Agriculture uses half the world’s habitable land and accounts for more than 20% of global emissions.” Notable that three quarters of farmed land is “used for livestock.”
Sources of carbon dioxide emissions are the making of fertilizers and the use of carbon dioxide in food and for food production.
We know that with the growth in the world’s population demand for food will increase and that is compounded by a trend towards less environmentally friendly “meat-heavy diets.”
Enter the prospect of new ways to produce food. Namely “bioreactors that grow meat to indoor ‘vertical’ farms and new ways of producing fish.”
Such a change in production toward foods made from plants will reduce the strain on the environment as plant-based food has 1/50 to 1/10 the emissions associated with meat.
This is great but this “does not mean people will be willing to eat it.” But this does create an “opportunity to create delicious and sustainable new traditions.” All should be open to eating “crickets and give plant-based burgers, 3D-printed steaks and vat-grown artificial tuna a try.”
“Regulators...should streamline processes for approving cultured meat…[genetically modified] crops and speed up approval of edible insects for animal feed and human consumption.”