Every week, it seems, there is a new authoritative scientific study setting out the urgent need to change how we grow our food and what we eat in order to fight the climate crisis. While the strategic blueprint for change is clear, the on-the-ground tactical details on how we transition to new food systems, more plant-based eating and reduce the damage caused by animal and monoculture agriculture are less clear.
However, a new study in Frontiers In Sustainable Food Systems identifies significant opportunities and some threats for farmers and rural communities as the market shifts towards alternative proteins.
The researchers explored the potential impact of plant-based meats and cultivated meat (lab-based, no-kill meat, grown from animal cells in a bioreactor), by interviewing a broad range of US experts involved in the traditional food/farming sectors and new alt-protein businesses.
“Most interviewees thought it likely that alt-meat would … capture some or all of the anticipated growing demand for protein rather than one that displaced animal meat entirely,” the report says.
The opportunities included new markets for growing crops for plant-based meat companies, especially as companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods reach scale. Farmers can also diversify into higher value protein crops, such as peas, lentils and mung beans that can offer higher profit margins and additional income. Also, legume crops provide environmental benefits such as enhancing soil health, reducing the need for fertilizer and reducing runoff.
Researchers say that animal farmers could also diversify to produce plants, algae, mycoprotein, seaweed or other alternative protein products. Success stories include: former dairy farmers in the US and Europe working with the plant-based milk company Oatly, to transition to growing oats; former chicken farmers working with Mercy for Animals' Transfarmation project to convert poultry sheds for mushroom production; and Refarm'd which is working with former dairy farmers to create animal sanctuaries and produce plant-based milk.
In the emerging cultivated meat sector, opportunities include growing feedstock for cell culture mediums, and growing cultivated meat in bioreactors on farms similar to craft beer production.
Photo: Kgbo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Also, both plant-based and cultivated meat production facilities could create new employment opportunities in rural areas. Maple Leaf Foods recently constructed a new $310 million plant-based food facility in Indiana and Beyond Meat's production is based in Missouri.
The amount of land needed to grow ingredients and feedstocks for plant-based and cultivated meat is projected to be far less than that required for animal agriculture. If pasture or animal crop land becomes surplus because of a shift in consumer demand, landowners could receive payments for ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration or biodiversity conservation generated by habitat restoration.
The threats the study identified from new food sectors included loss of livelihood or income for some ranchers and livestock producers and for farmers growing crops for animal feed.
For farmers that are relatively locked into the animal feed sector, most of their assets “may be tied to corn and soy production in ways that could make it difficult to transition into alternatives or that would make transitions too costly.”
Transition risks were thought to be highest for chicken and pig farmers many of whom are locked into “consolidated, vertically-integrated systems by virtue of unfavourable contracts”, and hamstrung by existing debt. Interestingly, the study did not address the benefits of redirecting some of the massive government subsidies for agriculture to farmers wanting to transition into the plant-based and cultivated meat business.