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That is great news! Beyond Meat is not the only player on the block, though. The challenges in the alt.ag. sector lie in the development of mass production tec
by wuschel 10y ago
That is great news! Beyond Meat is not the only player on the block, though.
The challenges in the alt.ag. sector lie in the development of mass production technology. From the side of the market, consumers need an extra benefit (animal cruelty free products are not enough) in order to be converting. Outside of the startups, the time to maturity is hypothesized to be 5-15 years.
Tyson is a very forward looking company, very much worried about the future of protein food supply. I had the pleasure of meeting some of their folks, and at least the top level very well outlined the problems we are going to face.
Current business model in the sector is focused on high volume production with strong attrition, little regard to animal ethics (low regulations) and consolidation among manufacturers.
Just the numbers make me shudder:
* Livestock produces 18% of greenhouse emissions
* Feed animals occupy 70% of arable land on our planet.
With the classic animal protein supply chain being almost max'ed out in terms of capacity (and energy+matter conversion effiency), we have some grim perspectives here.
Disclaimer: I work in the alt tag tech startup sector.
- refurb 10y agoI'm not sure why this is a scary stat: "Feed animals occupy 70% of arable land on our planet." If we didn't raise animals on that land it would just go fallow. It's not like we need more land to grow crops.
- wuschel 10y agoWell, good point, I typed my comment up fairly quickly. It is a lot of land occupied by a very recource hungry industry and less efficient industry e.g. you need 100x more water to make animal protein when compared to plant protein. We use 25% of our freshwater consumption for animal protein production - not even mentioning other recourses. With a growing number of people on the planet, efficiency is key.
- mrob 10y agoIf that water is from rain then it's a renewable resource, and if it's not used it will just flow to the sea and be wasted. There are places like Wales, with a wet climate and hilly terrain that are poorly suited to arable cultivation but ideal for livestock. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Wales However, freeing up more land for plants means we could grow the same amount of food using less intensive cultivation techniques, eg. rotating in nitrogen-fixing crops instead of relying on energy-intensive Haber process fertilizers.
- lkbm 10y ago> If that water is from rain then it's a renewable resource, and if it's not used it will just flow to the sea and be wasted. This is simply not true. A large amount of rainwater goes to (or would go to) replenishing aquifers, which we use to provide our drinking and irrigation water. Unharvested rainwater is not wasted--it replenishes our natural freshwater storage. Additionally, not all water used is captured rainwater. Some comes from those aquifers being replenished by rainwater, and some comes from fossil aquifers, which DON'T get replenished on a human timescale and are truly non-renewable. If all our livestock were grown in places like Wales, maybe the idea of "use it or lose it" holds true, but we've got a lot of cattle sitting atop the Ogallala Aquifer in the US, and you can find similar situations many places where we raise livestock.
- skykooler 10y agoWe do need rainforest though, and it is currently being cut down to provide land for cattle.
- thinkcontext 10y agoMore fallow land would be a good thing. Poor herd management contributes greatly to desertification and reduced carbon capture. Biodiversity is harmed by loss of habit and humans killing top predators.
- wuschel 10y agoAddendum: official statement from Beyond Meat at http://beyondmeat.com/whats-new/view/why-i-am-welcoming-tyson-foods-as-an-investor-to-beyond-meat http://beyondmeat.com/whats-new/view/why-i-am-welcoming-tyso...