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I'd be interested to have an expert in this space comment on these lab grown meat startups. I'm all for it, but the pessimist in me thinks this all sounds too g

I'd be interested to have an expert in this space comment on these lab grown meat startups. I'm all for it, but the pessimist in me thinks this all sounds too good to be true.

smackeyacky 5y ago
Not a factory expert but work in agriculture. There are lots of issues with farming animals for meat and carbon output but most can be mitigated. The pathways are reduction of cattle in favour of sheep and goats, changing the gut biome of livestock and removing inefficient breeding stock so the farmers produce the same output with fewer animals. Genetic solutions are available now to address the last two. Factory meat will augment our supply of protein but they won't scale. The farmland used for livestock is mostly useless for the plant matter needed by the meat factories and the factories themselves are hardly going to be carbon neutral when you add in fertiliser and fuel for all that extra harvesting. I wouldn't be too keen on eating an extruded factory carrot, not sure I personally want to replace another natural product in my diet with some chemical mess. I am not alone on that. Full disclosure: my company makes a product that can be used to reduce carbon output of livestock farming.
- hunter-gatherer 5y ago
  > Factory meat will augment our supply of protein but they won't scale. The farmland used for livestock is mostly useless for the plant matter needed by the meat factories and the factories themselves are hardly going to be carbon neutral when you add in fertiliser and fuel for all that extra harvesting. Thanks for the response. I'm not sure I understand the above paragraph. Are you saying the plant matter needed to feed lab-grown meat cannot be grown on existing space used for livestock?
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    Yes, grazing land is not always good enough for the kind of high protein legumes and whatnot that make up artificial protein. Availability of affordable clean water, suitability of climate and soil type are all very different for cropping than livestock. Thats not to say a lot of land used for livestock isn't potentially dual purpose but as an example there is a lot of marginal grazing country that is perfectly good for low stock level grazing that would never reliably yield a crop. Climate change is making it worse (droughts etc) but trying to switch a significant portion of protein production to factories might make it worse when we could be working smarter with what we have. A lot of the artificial protein startups concentrate on burgers, when they really should be going after the poultry and pork industries if they want to show a difference. Those industries are heavily industrialised and needlessly cruel.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  How does your companies product compare to simply feed them more red sea weed, considering all externalities?

I'd be interested to have an expert in this space comment on these lab grown meat startups. I'm all for it, but the pessimist in me thinks this all sounds too good to be true.

smackeyacky 5y ago

Not a factory expert but work in agriculture. There are lots of issues with farming animals for meat and carbon output but most can be mitigated. The pathways are reduction of cattle in favour of sheep and goats, changing the gut biome of livestock and removing inefficient breeding stock so the farmers produce the same output with fewer animals. Genetic solutions are available now to address the last two. Factory meat will augment our supply of protein but they won't scale. The farmland used for livestock is mostly useless for the plant matter needed by the meat factories and the factories themselves are hardly going to be carbon neutral when you add in fertiliser and fuel for all that extra harvesting. I wouldn't be too keen on eating an extruded factory carrot, not sure I personally want to replace another natural product in my diet with some chemical mess. I am not alone on that. Full disclosure: my company makes a product that can be used to reduce carbon output of livestock farming.

hunter-gatherer 5y ago
> Factory meat will augment our supply of protein but they won't scale. The farmland used for livestock is mostly useless for the plant matter needed by the meat factories and the factories themselves are hardly going to be carbon neutral when you add in fertiliser and fuel for all that extra harvesting. Thanks for the response. I'm not sure I understand the above paragraph. Are you saying the plant matter needed to feed lab-grown meat cannot be grown on existing space used for livestock?
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Yes, grazing land is not always good enough for the kind of high protein legumes and whatnot that make up artificial protein. Availability of affordable clean water, suitability of climate and soil type are all very different for cropping than livestock. Thats not to say a lot of land used for livestock isn't potentially dual purpose but as an example there is a lot of marginal grazing country that is perfectly good for low stock level grazing that would never reliably yield a crop. Climate change is making it worse (droughts etc) but trying to switch a significant portion of protein production to factories might make it worse when we could be working smarter with what we have. A lot of the artificial protein startups concentrate on burgers, when they really should be going after the poultry and pork industries if they want to show a difference. Those industries are heavily industrialised and needlessly cruel.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
How does your companies product compare to simply feed them more red sea weed, considering all externalities?