From farming to cellular farming: Our future with cellular agriculture and cultured meat

Our food production systems will confront a challenge in a world where the population is predicted to grow to 9.5 billion by the year 2050 (Willett et al., 2019) Some of the problems of livestock production include deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, land usage, health issues and the ethical aspect of eating animals. Research about global food systems has exam- ined novel technologies and more sustainable solutions during the last decade. One of these novel solutions is called cellular agriculture, the production method where agricultural products are manufactured utilising cell culturing techniques (Tuomisto & Teixeira de Mattos, 2011).One of the promising products of the cellular agriculture is a cultured meat, meat that is grown from stem cells in a laborato- ry. With the production of cultured meat come certain challenge but also opportunities. For example, up until now, it seems that the energy use of producing cultured meat is substantially high- er than producing conventional meat, whereas, environmental impacts like water usage or CO2 emissions are lower for cul- tured meat (Mattick, Landis, & Allenby, 2015).