By 2050, our food systems will have to meet the dietary requirements of an estimated ten billion people, many of whom will be significantly wealthier than they are today and aspire to the food choices that are currently only available to the wealthiest countries on the planet. For many of us, that means meat.
According to the latest data by the World Animal Foundation, as of 2023, more than 350 Million Metric Tonnes of Meat Is Produced Annually in the World (OECD) indicating a rise in meat production over the last 50 years owing to the rise in the middle classes globally having a significant effect on our planet. Greenhouse gasses emitted by animals in the field, during shipping and processing, and by the deforestation of land for grazing and feed, means producing more and more meat to satisfy demand simply isn’t a sustainable option. In the fourth episode of BBC World News and bbc.com series, Follow the Food, we look at more sustainable alternatives.
Future of Protein
Lisa Sweet, the head of Future of Protein at the World Economic Forum, predicts that it will be impossible to feed our growing population the same amount of protein we are currently accustomed to in the West.
She explained: “At the World Economic Forum, we’ve been looking at the context of protein and really trying to unpack and understand what that should look like in the future. Right now, there’s a very limited number of protein sources consumed by the vast majority of the population around the world, and there is tremendous opportunity to diversify that significantly.
“Consumers have a tremendous voice and a tremendous power through market-pull. The more they ask for sustainably produced animal-based protein, and the more they ask for plant-based proteins, it will help to diversify their diet, intaking other critical nutrients, and the more that market will actually shift.”
Meat Alternatives
Plant-based meat alternatives is set to become a US $85 billion industry in just 20 years, and it is a massive shift in the agricultural model that we’re used to, but what does that mean to our farmers, our environment and us as the consumer?
In the US, 70% of all soybeans and 36% of all corn goes into feeding animals for livestock production. In Warren County, Illinois, Nicole Atchison and her company Puris, a pea-protein producer, are leading an agricultural revolution based on the in-demand Yellow Field Pea – the key ingredient behind many plant-based meats.
“The transformation from pea to food is a lot more efficient than the same transformation of soybeans or corn into an animal feed, then the animals growing, then turning that animal into protein,” Atchison told BBC’s Follow the Food. However she doesn’t believe meat alternatives will ever replace regular meat.
“We have a long way to go to really chip into the meat protein production, but if we get to a place where 40% of our proteins come from plants versus so much of it coming from animals, then doing so would allow us to have sustainable food for a ten billion population on Earth,” she added.
Sustainable Livestock Farming
We produce and consume more animal protein than ever before in history, but the land to farm ratio remains the same. With livestock demanding a disproportionate amount of the world’s agricultural land to produce a small proportion of protein, our farmers and innovators need to find more sustainable solutions before it’s too late.
In Wiltshire, UK, seed manufacturer Germinal are hoping the creation of a new grass variety might unlock better protein absorption in livestock, making meat more sustainable.
Sheep and cows are unable to extract much of the protein from grass as a result of what occurs in the rumen, where the rumen microflora are trying to capture the protein. ‘Ruminants’ is the name given to grazing animals that have a unique digestive system which allows them to better capture energy and protein from fibrous plants like grass. Inside their stomachs, there are four compartments to ferment, store and regulate the tough grass to then absorb their protein.
“The cow will graze by wrapping its tongue around the grass and ripping it out. Then it will chew the cud and swallow it. When it hits the rumen, it begins to break down and decompose. Protein floods into the rumen, and the rumen microflora try to capture it, turning it into amino acids, which can then be converted into meat and milk. However they only capture about a quarter, the rest comes out as ammonia and nitrous oxide, two very nasty greenhouse gases,” Paul Billings, Managing Director of Germinal GB explains.
“Here, we use Aber High Sugar Grass which has an increased sugar content compared to standard grass. Standard grass would have about 15 to 18% sugar, so this is about 5 to 7% higher. What that does is, when that grass goes into the rumen and those cells open up and that protein floods out, at exactly the same time in synchrony, you get greater levels of sugar, and that feeds those rumen microflora. Studies have shown that on average, we are getting 6% extra higher milk yield from our Aber Sugar Grass and up to 20% daily-life weight-gain improvement.”
Climate Neutral Eggs
In the Netherlands, Ruud Zanders, Co-Founder of Kipster Farm, has devised an ingenious solution to tackling the environmental damage done by another one of our dietary protein staples – eggs. In doing so, he claims to have created the world’s first climate-neutral egg.
Annually, we produce over seventy 75 million tonnes of eggs but, for each dozen laid, 2.7 kilograms of C02 is released into the atmosphere.
Ruud explained: “The most important part with all animal-based products is, if you look to the carbon footprint, the feed of these animals. Traditional feed of chickens is a lot of corn and a lot of grains. I think that is the biggest problem because 70% of all the agricultural land in the world, we are using that for animals.”
“What we are doing is making a feed with 100% waste products. We use popcorn, waffles, bread, pasta, biscuits and rice wafers. Some people think the animal needs corn or grains, which is true, but all of these products are made from grain and corn.”
To feed all 20,000 chickens, Kipster Farm is repurposing a thousand tonnes of human-grade, quality food annually, that would otherwise end up as a waste.
With the recycled feed reducing an egg’s carbon footprint by 70%, the rest of the reductions come from their use of solar energy, farming only smaller and lighter hens that require less feed, and using potato starch – a waste product from the production of potatoes – to make the packaging.
Aquaculture
With roughly half the planet’s habitable land already taken up for agriculture, we don’t have the space to continue to increase production at the rate it’s going. So where else will our protein come from?
Lisa Sweet, the head of Future of Protein at the World Economic Forum, explains how we should start looking at, not just what is on the land, but what is under the waters:
“Aquaculture is huge and it has tremendous potential. People tend to think about beef, chicken, pork as their main sources of animals, but fish and ‘blue food’ is a tremendous source of not only protein, but a whole suite of nutrients that are really beneficial to health and development. One thing that is really exciting about aquaculture is the number of species that are out there, that are not tapped into, that can bring greater diversity.”
In Connecticut, USA, Bren Smith, Co-founder of Greenwave, is doing just that by sustainably producing high protein seaweed and seafood that requires zero inputs.
Bren explained: “It’s the most sustainable form of food production on the planet because it doesn’t take any water, fertiliser or feed to grow our crops. That’s so important because, on land, prices for fertiliser and water and land go up, but the price of our crops are going to stay stable, which moves it to the centre of the plate.”
And with more than 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by oceans, the potential to source more of our protein from them is vast.
“If you were to take less than 5% of US waters, according to the World Bank, you could create the protein equivalent of 3 trillion cheeseburgers. That is a lot of food in a small area.”
