Could cultured meat reduce environmental impact of agriculture in Europe?

This paper assesses the potential of cultured meat to reduce environmental impacts of livestock production in Europe. Cultured meat (i.e. in vitro meat or lab-grown meat) is produced by cultivating livestock muscle cells in a growth media. The environmental impacts of hypothetical large-scale production of cultured meat were compared to the impacts of livestock production in the EU-27. The results showed that if all meat produced in the EU-27 was replaced by cultured meat, the GHG emissions, land use and water use would be reduced by two orders of magnitude compared to current meat production practices. When the opportunity costs of land use were included, the environmental benefits were even higher. More research and development is required before the product can be commercialised. Further effort is needed to gain public acceptance for this technology.

TUOMISTO Hanna Leena;  ROY Avijit G.; 

2013-01-10

INRA

JRC73514