Cellular agriculture and the future the meat industry

CELLULAR AGRICULTURE AND THE FUTURE THE MEAT INDUSTRY

By Musinguzi Muhsin Msc AHN musingubya@yahoo.com

17th Oct 2016

The world population is growing steadily, by the year 2050 it is estimated that the world population will be more than 9.7 billion (UN DESA, 2015) this will put Food, Agriculture and Nutrition related disciplines at the forefront of saving the world form food and nutrition insecurity, poverty and declining health status of people around the world. Global demand for human food, feed and fibre is predicted to nearly double with the number of people at risk of hunger increasing from 881 million to more than a billion. With the current world population of 7.4 billion, malnutrition is still a problem over 1/9 people have suffered from chronic malnutrition between 2012 and 2014 (UN FAO, 2015). Scientists have surprised the world by growing meat, eggs dairy products, leather and other

animal based products in the laboratory from non-animal substrates to cater for the future needs.

This practice is termed as cellular agriculture and might become the future of tomorrows farming.

Cellular agriculture is the development of agricultural products especially animal products from cell cultures in the lab rather than getting them from animals. Man will be producing real dairy without exploiting cows, eggs without hens and meat leather, gelatin, and silk without having sentient animals born to be exploited and slaughtered. Increasing concern of animal rights and welfare have increased popularity of cellular agriculture demanding the cut down of animal exploitation whereas on the other hand safety issues have emerged concerning consumption of cultured animal products. Though Conventional agriculture has led to Environmental, and public health problems, man-devised means of producing food through alternative channels have not been much embraced due to safety concerns which only needs consumers to be made sure that lab grown foods are safe.

In the beginning man did not think about the possibility of growing animal products through cellular agriculture until a Alexis Carrel, (1873 –1944) French biologist’s discovered that animal tissue life was possible to continue outside the body when he kept a living chick heart in a petri dish. His work inspired the scientists all over the world to rethink its application health and agriculture until in 2013, Professor Mark Post created the first cell-cultured hamburger in London he cooked and tested it on a live television broadcast. Majority of the muscle strands were grown

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in media with fetal bovine serum and so he is currently working to make the burger completely animal free.

Research institutes like NASA have showed the relevancy of cellular agriculture by conducting in vitro experiments to produce cultured turkey meat. Modern Meadow has also grown lather by Bio fabrication using collagen, a protein you found in animal skin. Currently lab-grown meat is still expensive and has not yet reached the supermarket. Still the acceptability of lab grown meat is still questionable due to lack of knowledge about it. Sarah Webb (2006) says “As consumers become educated, lab grown meat will gain appeal.� With the growing popularity for low cholesterol, high protein foods, the market for egg whites has grown. But along with egg whites’ rising popularity, there is also a growing concern for the environmental, animal welfare, and public health compromises of industrial-scale egg production which all act in favor of cellular agriculture.

I still have a feeling that the cellular agriculture has not been exploited to its potential I believe there is a possibility of growing human organs outside the body for instance if one has a hole in the heart instead of opting for heart transplant the same heart can be repaired by growing some of its part in vitro then grafting the heart with the grown part still the same can be applied to accident victims who happen to lose some parts of the skin. Making dairy products, egg whites and leather without exploiting or killing animals is a very important innovation has the potential bring together vegans, vegetarians and people whose religions, culture and taboos restrict them from some animal products since products will be from animal free substrates. all these stand as untapped potential for cellular agriculture.

Webb, Sarah (2006-01-08). "Tissue Engineers Cook Up Plan for Lab-Grown Meat (The Year in Science: Technology)". Discover. Retrieved 2016-07-07.

FAO (2014), State of food insecurity in the world 2014, http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/2014/en/ Retriieved 27/04/15

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Figure 1 Hen free egg white by Clara foods (Clara food photo)

Figure 2 Hen free egg white by Clara foods (Clara food photo)

Lab grown meat………………………………………………………………………………… http://www.foodnavigator.com/var/plain_site/storage/images/publications/food-beveragenutrition/foodnavigator.com/market-trends/animal-welfare-will-be-decisive-criterion-for-labgrown-meat/10080116-1-eng-GB/Animal-welfare-will-be-decisive-criterion-for-lab-grownmeat.jpg

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