Is cultivated meat a concern or an opportunity for farmers?
It is certainlly a significant departure from traditional means of meat production. No longer developing meat through farming livestock, cultivated meat production happens far from the field.
It has been presented by some stakeholders as a threat to farmers and their livelihoods. For example, cultivated meat’s alleged threat to ‘the relationship between food, land and humanity’ was a key reason behind the Italian government’s decision to ban its production last year.
Uncertainty about the impact of the new technology also remains a paramount concern among farmers.
“Innovation and new technology has always been central to the progress of British livestock farming and we must continue to drive the ambition of producing climate friendly beef and lamb that delivers carbon storage and environmental habitats. While the science of lab-grown meat is interesting, there are still too many unknowns about health and sustainability to be able to give further comment,” David Barton, livestock board chair at the UK’s National Farmers Union (NFU), told FoodNavigator.
A new report from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has looked at the potential impacts of cultivated meat on farmers. Farmers were, the report revealed, concerned about its impact on society as a whole. Nevertheless, many were open to compromise and saw opportunities within the sector.
What is the future of cultivated meat?
According to the report, the cultivated meat industry’s often aggressive stance on traditional meat, sometimes overtly stating an aim to replace it, had fostered distrust among farmers, who often feel their livelihoods are at stake.
Instead, the report worked on the basis that if cultivated meat were to go mainstream it would not replace traditional meat but exist alongside it. The report predicts that the transition from meat to cultivated meat, if it happens, will likely take place over a timeframe that businesses can adjust to.
Are UK farmers concerned about cultivated meat?
The report spoke to 80 farmers across the four UK nations, prioritising, according to the RAU’s Tom MacMillan, ‘depth of insight’ over ‘statistical power.’ This means that the farmers were spoken to in-depth, to get a handle on their views of issues at hand.
According to the report, while many consumers surveyed are optimistic about the potential of cultivated meat for society, but pessimistic about its potential for themselves, the farmers interviewed here often considered its wider societal impact first and foremost.
Some farmers were concerned about how cultivated meat would affect the community, for example.
“Farmers emphasised how many non-farming livelihoods depend on farming and, in some communities, how farming is therefore also crucial to whether there’s a school, a pub and so on. A new and potentially disruptive technology like cultured meat could affect that, but is hardly unique in doing so. As so many sectors are being transformed in the face of climate change, finding much better ways to help communities adapt and thrive is crucial,” the RAU’s MacMillan told us.
They also expressed concern that cultivated meat would concentrate all power in the industry into the hands of large corporations, leaving them with ‘less decision-making and negotiation power.’ This ‘seems likely,’ MacMillan told us, but stressed the potential impact of raising such concerns early in the industry’s development.
Will cultivated meat challenge European farmers?
A note to the European Council earlier this year outlined what delegations from European member states Italy, France and Austria perceived as the risks posed by cultivated meat to European farming.
For example, they suggested, cultivated meat challenges primary farm-based approaches. Questions on ethics, social security, sustainability, economics, transparency and public health remained unclear, they said. They questioned whether the novel food regulation was prepared for dealing with such a sector.
Interestingly, they queried whether cultivated meat would force traditional meat prices up. The RAU report suggests that real meat could be reformulated as a ‘premium’ product if cultivated meat becomes successful.
“That’s exactly why it is important to raise such concerns now, when start-ups, investors, advocates and governments can shape how the technology develops. While there are economic and technical pressures to consolidate, there are investment conditions, governance arrangements and policy interventions that can mitigate this.”
Finally, farmers were concerned about the lack of transparency in the industry, with commercial confidentiality hiding much important information about companies involved. While MacMillan pointed out that “we can’t expect full transparency from companies in an emerging industry like this, because their value depends on innovative IP,” he also suggested that some further transparency would help build trust among farmers.
“Ultimately, unless you can share enough information for others to be able to scrutinise your assumptions, you can’t expect people to have much confidence in the promises you make about the environmental or economic performance of your product.”
Are farmers concerned about their livelihoods?
While farmers’ most substantial concerns were in regard to the overall impact of cultivated meat, they also expressed some concern over how it would affect them.
For example, whether the market would aim more towards replicating low or high-quality meat and thus, which market they would face competition in.
While the report suggested that premium cuts, such as steak, could remain in demand even after cultivated meat had become prominent, farmers stressed that raising cows simply for steaks, without using the rest of the carcass, was not financially viable.
Another concern that farmers had was the potential of cultivated meat to undermine the value of their livestock, their main assets. Furthermore, much of their capital is tied up in land and buildings.
According to MacMillan, cultivated meat is unlikely to cut the value of livestock itself overnight. It is livestock housing and equipment, that could have decades of life left, and which are more likely to become stranded assets. Cultivated meat manufacturers should work with farmers to come up with a ‘creative solution’ to the problem.
Challenges and opportunities on individual farms
The report also profiled several individual farms, asking whether the rise of cultivated meat would prove more or less beneficial to them than business as usual.
One farm assessed, a strawberry farm, was performing badly under business as usual because of labour shortages. Cultivated meat thus provided them with an opportunity as they could use their manufacturing facilities, and waste from their crops, to make cultivated meat. Another farm, an arable farm in England, has large barns which could be used to make cultivated meat.
However, not all farms were as open to the change. One farm, an Irish sheep farm, saw a business-as-usual future as beneficial to them. The farmer was sceptical of cultivated meat and the potential it could give too much power to large corporations. Another, which sells regeneratively farmed meat, fears that carcase imbalance may create direct competition from other farmers if they are forced to sell similar products by the rise of cultivated meat.
Other farmers were uncertain whether cultivated meat would provide an opportunity or a threat.
What are the opportunities for farmers in cultivated meat?
Despite these many concerns, however, UK farmers also saw many opportunities in cultivated meat, in how they could adapt their livelihoods to suit this brave new world. ‘Farmers are used to the unpredictable,’ the report pointed out.
One of the chief opportunities for farmers suggested by the report is to sell key ingredients to cultivated meat companies. Key components of the growth media, such as glucose and amino acids, can be derived from agricultural and animal by-products. Ingredients such as pectin and cellulose can be used in the scaffolding of structured cultivated meat. Also, farmers could source animal cells from their livestock for cultivated meat.
The report suggests that these have the potential to work as substitutes for expensive pharmaceutical-grade ingredients. However, whether or not this would actually save money is still uncertain.
“The actual savings would depend on all sorts of factors, including how growth media made from these ingredients performs experimentally,” MacMillan told us.
The researchers looked at the cost and environmental impact of producing cell culture media with pharmaceutical-grade ingredients compared with farm ingredients. Substituting the amino acids in a widely used basic growth medium with amino acids sourced from bovine blood, hoof and horn meal and oilseed rape meal, the researchers assumed other components of the growth medium would come from other sources at pharmaceutical-, food- or feed-grade prices.
While certain assumptions had to be made about how much difference the use of these ingredients would make in growth media, due to the lack of experimental work relevant to the topic, the fact that they did well on paper means that they warrant further investigation, MacMillan told us.
Farmers could also produce cultivated meat themselves. While the report suggested that this would cost 30% more than factory production, MacMillan assured us that farmers could still make a profit.
“It is no shock that small-scale, decentralised production, like on a farm, costs more than producing cultured meat in a big factory. What surprised me was that our analysis suggested it would only cost 30% more. When you take into account other opportunities, like the potential to use surplus energy or to sell a premium product directly, it suggests on-farm production could be plausible.” There would need to be a drive towards capital cost reduction for this production to be realistic, suggested the report.
However, most of the farmers said that they would never make cultivated meat their sole business, as they would find it hard to give up caring for their animals, whom they love.
