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Essay / In vitro meat as a sustainable solution
The world's population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 with an estimated 48.6% increase in agricultural production to meet their food demands. Traditional livestock farming, which has now become highly industrialized, involves the painful slaughter of millions of animals and contributes to 12.8% of total GHG emissions in the EU, in addition to land and environmental degradation. water. Faced with problems such as the depletion of natural resources, animal welfare, global warming and the possibility of food shortages in the future, it is high time to think about a sustainable solution. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay The concept of in vitro meat involves extracting stem cells called myosatellite cells from an animal's muscle and planting them in a culture medium leading to its proliferation in a bioreactor. Over a period of 10 weeks, these cells form myotubes which contract to produce muscle fibers which can then be processed using common food technologies to create meat. Being ethical, potentially environmentally friendly and having adequate interest and regulatory bodies responsible for its application in the EU (Khan, n.d), this technology appears promising. But how will IVM technology compete with the established livestock industry? Despite the positive opinions, many social, technical and political challenges must be overcome for the technology to reach the market. IVM is a technology that has long been talked about, with the first patent on cultured meat by Willem van Eelan and NASA's work on turkey cells since the early 2000s. On the other hand, cloning animal, another direction of biotechnology, has been widely criticized due to the adverse health effects of clones. Thanks to advances in biotechnology, the biggest breakthrough in IVM technology occurred in 2013, when the first lab-grown beef burger was created by Mark Post and received positive feedback from critics. Through the TIS framework for IVM, the following actors have been identified: government bodies such as the European Commission, EFSA, research universities such as Maastricht University, University of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven and startups such as Mosa Meats in the Netherlands. In 2005, the Dutch government funded studies on culture media, muscle cell generation and bioreactor development at a few research universities and with funding from Switzerland's Bell Food Group and Merck's M Ventures and NGOs like Cultured Meat Foundation, the European Science Foundation, Google, PHW and scientists are working to make IVM technology a reality. Other major stakeholders include dairy and meat companies, farmers, animal welfare groups, the media, religious groups and the general public whose opinions determine the social acceptance of this technology . One of the main obstacles to the current commercialization of IVM is cost. Mosa Meats created the first hamburger priced at $331,000 per pound in 2013 and in 2017, Memphis Meats of California reduced the price to $2,400 per pound of cultured chicken. Although decent progress can be seen in reducing their costs, it is far from comparable to the price of regular meat. Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that the energy requirements for productionExtensive cultivation of meat could be detrimental to the environment, although studies carried out by the universities of Amsterdam and Oxford show that this technology could, however, reduce energy consumption. Although animal welfare groups like PETA support this technology, concerns have been raised about the growing medium used in the process. Is it completely cruelty-free? The answer is no, current growth media includes fetal bovine serum and the process may cause pain to the donor animal, but it certainly involves fewer animals than slaughterhouses. Also, experiments are being conducted to replace the cultured medium with herbal substitutes like Ultroser G. Taste and safety are major concerns for end consumers. The IVM tested was found to be quite firm than regular meat and Mark Post of Mosa Meats is working on adding fat cells to improve its texture. Although the technology promises to reduce the negative health effects associated with eating regular meat like heart disease, diabetes, etc. and prevent animal diseases like swine flu from affecting humans by controlling growing conditions, people are still worried about this due to possible allergic reactions. , the risk of contamination and the “unnatural” side associated with it. Since meat is a part of most cultures, the consumption of MVI is a controversial topic in some religions. Although Islamic and Jewish perspectives suggest that this meat could be considered Halal and Kosher respectively, religious sentiments need to be given more consideration once the product hits the market. News media promoted the technology by covering a TED talk on it and live in vitro hamburger testing at the 2013 London conference, and social media platforms conducted online polls to find out the public's opinion. An unfortunate impact of this technology is being felt on meat and dairy companies as well as farmers whose livelihoods depend on livestock. It appears that 4.4% of EU GDP and 8.3% of total employment in Europe depend on agriculture and livestock farming. Cargill and PHW's investments in this technology imply that the entire meat industry is not against its growth and that a panel discussion that brought together two farmers in the United States in 2017 found that farmers looked at the positive aspects of it and understood that it was still in development. In the future, pastures reclaimed by livestock farming could be used as feed for biofuels or could be converted back to their natural habitats. Government funding such as grants or grants could help R&D and small startups contribute to this technology. Mark Post expects the cost to drop to €9 for a lab-grown burger if produced at an industrial level and, thanks to technological advances such as genetic engineering and 3D printing, it could even become cheaper than regular burgers. However, studies show that almost 1,450 million people around the world are vegetarians out of necessity and such cost reduction could lead to an imbalance in the ecosystem as more people could afford it and ultimately, this could again lead to industrialization of highly processed foods. . Are we prepared for this? Further research will need to be conducted to understand people's needs and predict the future market so that this technology becomes.?