TeleSur | – –
China currently imports approximately £10 billion worth of meat annually to help feed its 1.4 billion people.
China has signed a multimillion-dollar deal to purchase lab-grown meat from Israel.
The $300-million agreement has elicited positive feedback from environmental and animal rights groups because the meat — though grown using some animal cells — is produced in a laboratory, significantly reducing the practice of slaughtering animals.
The Asian superpower is not regarded as a world leader in environmental issues, so the deal with the three Israeli companies – SuperMeat, Future Meat Technologies and Meat the Future – is viewed by some groups as a sign that China is committed to reducing its carbon footprint.
Head of the Good Food Institute, Bruce Friedrich, said the deal was a “colossal market opportunity.”
He believes the deal “could put (clean) meat onto the radar of Chinese officials who have the capacity to steer billions of dollars into this technology”.
Just last year, the Chinese government issued an advisory, telling citizens to reduce their consumption of meat by 50 percent.
China currently imports approximately £10 billion worth of meat annually to help feed its 1.4 billion people.
UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that livestock production is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while Worldwatch Institute has estimated it could be as much as 51 percent.
The world’s water freshwater supply is also significantly impacted by traditional farming.
Additionally, about one billion people currently suffer from hunger globally and the population will reportedly reach 9.8 billion by 2050, making a high-animal diet unsustainable.
Via TeleSur
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Related video added by Juan Cole:
This is a hopeful and interesting technology, but it insanely early to be making multi-million purchase deals at this point. Research grants yes, but this technology is currently barely achievable in the lab, and the current main feed-stock to grow lab meat (Fetal Bovine Serum) makes lab meat exponentially more expensive than a hunk of cow right now.
I’m not saying that we may get to the point were lab meat is less expensive, but the technical challenge is similar to Fusion power, 20 years ago. Even alternatives to FSB cost ~$3000-$4000 a liter.
On the surface, this is sounds like progress, however, to me it sounds nauseating to think of eating lab created meat. Much better to go vegetarian. The larger issue is overpopulation intertwined with crony capitalism that is destroying this planet. Unless we address that, there shall be no hope.
I’m surprised that Israel is involved in this technology as I thought that kosher meat could only come from animals that were slaughtered according to Jewish law.
Well, they aren’t buying 300 million dollars of lab grown meat. Lab grown meat isn’t a commercially available product yet. They are investing 300 million dollars into an Israeli company that is exploring lab grown meat.
How sad that China, responsible enough to limit its population growth, cannot keep enough traditional features of its culture to avoid this wasteful and unnecessary emphasis on meat-eating, which is one of the worst features of “developed” countries’ consumption which for health and environmental reasons should be reduced, not increased.
“China currently imports approximately £10 billion worth of meat annually to help feed its 1.4 billion people.”
China is not in the habit of making pointless deals. If they decided to do this, you can bet it will grow
Lab grown: Missing Palestinians.