WHAT
is Cellular Agriculture?
Cellular agriculture is the practice of creating farming animal products, rather than using animals themselves. It focuses on cultivating cells outside of an animal in a sterile environment.
It is cutting edge technology that combines medical and food science. By applying advances in tissue engineering and cell culture in medical science, scientists are now able to revolutionize the supply chain of animal products. [1]
Cultured meat emerges from the field of cellular agriculture. Through the use of cellular agriculture, cells or cell lines can be taken from animals to create meat. The product is identical to real meat, but it doesn’t contain antibiotics, E-coli, salmonella, or waste contamination which are all a part of standard meat production. [2]
WHERE
is it being done?
Although Cellular Agriculture is a global effort, most of the investing companies are in the Bay Area of California
*Click for the companies' home pages*
WHEN
did it first develop?
1971 The first successful cultivation of muscular fibers.[16]
[1] Willem van Eelen entered a partnership to create in vitro meat process 1990s
2017 Memphis Meats followed with the world’s first cultured poultry [4]
While cellular agriculture is still in its early age, the field of cellular agriculture seeks to deliver products that require no, or significantly reduced animal involvement. [4]
HOW
is cellular agriculture done?
The 3 Main Methods
"There's no way to produce enough meat for 9 billion people. Yet we can't ask everyone to become vegetarians. That's why we need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources." -Bill Gates[13]
WHY
is Cellular Agriculture important?
Changing Traditional Technology
Cellular agriculture is an important, and revolutionary technology that presents opportunities to improve animal welfare, enhance human health, and decrease the environmental footprint of meat production. While it's still in it’s beginning stages of research and production, cellular agriculture has made huge impacts on cellular technology. Research in cultured meats continues to build off of the technology in the past such as cellular innovations like Recombinant DNA technology, which has been used since the 1970’s. Recombinant DNA technology allows for protein production of one organism to be shared by another. For example, a cow’s information for producing milk proteins could be put into the genome of yeast and that yeast will produce milk proteins. [3] These technologies are similar to those in cellular agriculture and are replacing biological systems with mechanical ones.[4]
Building a Better Future
While cellular agriculture is still in its early age, the field of cellular agriculture seeks to deliver products that require no, or significantly reduced animal involvement.[5] Not only is animal agriculture one of the leading causes of deforestation, water and air pollution, and loss of biodiversity, but it is also the second largest contributor to human made greenhouse emissions. Applying more innovative technologies to animal agriculture would have an immense benefits to preserving the environment.[6] Cellular agriculture potentially can reduce water usage and greenhouse emissions, enabling the production of a more sustainable supply of meat in comparison to traditional agriculture techniques. Another potential benefit is the ability to produce meat that is less prone to biological risk and disease, thus, contributing to improved nutrition and overall well being.[7]
Hoping to Accomplish More
With the exponential growth of the livestock industry, turning to cultured meat can have many benefits in the future. Scientists, startups, and investors hope to address the enormous public health, animal welfare, and sustainability issues associated with traditional animal agriculture. Potential health benefits of Cellular Agriculture could include new meat that contains specific added nutrients. Cultured meat would also be produced away from harmful farming environments where animal borne diseases could threaten consumers. On a global scale, cultured meats could help produce more food and help address poverty issues around the world.[8] As a result of increasing population growth, the global demand for food is expected to increase by 70%. If cellular agriculture is advanced to a global scale and cultured meats are used to feed humans, it could feed 3.5 billion people, further addressing the growing issues of sustainability humans and the planet have.[9]
