Cultured MeatA pragmatic solution to the problems posed by industrial animal farming

Policy paper

Industrial livestock production presents a growing problem on a global scale in terms of an-

imal welfare environmental sustainability and human health One solution might be cul-

tured meat in which animal tissue is grown in a controlled environment using cell culture

technology therebymaking the raising and killing of animals for food unnecessary This ap-

proach shows great potential ofmeeting all the requirements of a humane sustainable and

healthy form of meat production

However a great deal of scientific technical cultural and legislative challenges must be

overcomebefore culturedmeat can reach cost-competitiveness Lack of funding is themain

barrier to further development and considerable upfront investment is needed for cultured

meat to attain commercially viable retail prices

We therefore strongly support increased funding of cultured meat initiatives This entails

in order of priority research and development of technology suitable for mass production

promoting fact-based public discussion regarding the technology and its societal implica-

tions and eventual marketing of end products to consumers

April 2016

Policy paper by Sentience Politics

Preferred Citation Rorheim A Mannino A Baumann T and Caviola L(2016) Cultured Meat Apragmatic solution to the problems posed by industrial animal farming Policy paper by SentiencePolitics (1) 1ndash14

First release April 2016 Last update 2016

Website sentience-politicsorg

Policy paper by Sentience Politics

Preferred Citation Rorheim A Mannino A Baumann T and Caviola L(2016) Cultured Meat Apragmatic solution to the problems posed by industrial animal farming Policy paper by SentiencePolitics (1) 1ndash14

First release April 2016 Last update 2016

Website sentience-politicsorg

Contents

Introduction 1

Current impacts of livestock-basedmeat 1

Culturedmeat in comparison 3

Challenges to culturedmeat development 5

Conclusions 7

References 9

ADRIAN RORHEIM Research Associate Sentience PoliticsADRIANO MANNINO President Sentience PoliticsTOBIAS BAUMANN Director of Strategy Sentience PoliticsLUCIUS CAVIOLA Executive Director Eective AltruismFoundation

Cultured Meat

Introduction

Each year tens of billions of sentient animals[1] arereared in industrial conditions in order to producemeat This global enterprise is currently the planetrsquosmain source of human pandemic diseases[2][3][4][5]and likely among its greatest concentrations of human-inflicted suering[6][7][8] Curbing this ongoing moralcatastrophe should thus be of high concern for peopleaiming to eectively help as many sentient beings aspossible[6][9][10][11][12] Moreover animal agriculturecontributes to climate change and makes ineicient useof a significant portion of our available resources[13]

Addressing this massive challenge would ideally in-volve a worldwide shi to a vegetarian lifestyle but sucha shi is unlikely to take place in our lifetimes Humansaround the world namely place a high value on meat interms of taste nutrition and tradition evidenced in partby a clear rise in global meat consumption over the pasthalf century mdash a trend strongly associated with economicempowerment of developing countries[14][15][16] Eventhough vegetarianismhas alsowitnessed steady growth inrecent years its growth pales in comparison to the globaldemand for meat with the latter predicted to increase by73within 2050[17]Meanwhile plant-basedmeat substi-tutes have despite decades of costly improvements notbeen suiciently eective at replacing meat in peoplersquosdiets[18] It would thus be a significant gain if wewere ableto introduce a cruelty-free replacement for meat with theability to rival conventional livestock-production

Enter culturedmeat an innovative way of synthesizingmeat from animal tissue samples Compared with con-ventional methods of meat production mdash which involvethe breeding raising feeding and slaughter of living ani-mals mdash culturedmeat instead involves using a cell sampleto grow desired tissue in a controlled environment mak-ing use of biotechnology originally developed for medi-cal research and organ transplants Proponents of cul-tured meat argue that this technology holds considerablepromise as a replacement for conventional meat Indeedculturedmeat seems likely tooer vast benefits in termsofanimal welfare[19][20] environmental impact[21][22][23]

and human healthThe concept of producing meat intended for human

consumption independent of a complete living organismhas been a subject of speculative interest since at least1931[24] but proof of concept has existed in various formsonly since the early 2000rsquos[25] Cultured meat technologyis still in its experimental stage and has so far been lim-ited to producing a small number of processedmeat itemsin laboratory settings for demonstrative purposes[26][61]Current research is focused on refining production meth-ods in order to lower cost improve scalability and mini-mize dependence on animal sources

In this paper we begin by presenting the rationale be-hind developing animal-free meat products Moving onwe explore cultured meat and its ethical economic envi-ronmental and human health implications We then re-view the most pressing challenges facing public accep-tance and technical feasibility of cultured meat produc-tion and conclude by proposing a number of funding rec-ommendations

Current impacts of livestock-basedmeat

Environmental

Greenhouse gas emissions The main causes of climatechange are usually attributed to transportation andhousing This however ignores another signifi-cant contributor according to the UN Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO) animal agricultureis responsible for 145 of the worldrsquos total GHGemissions[27] It is therefore as bad for the environ-ment as the combined impact of every motor ve-hicle in the world which collectively represent at15[28] Methane whose global warming potentialis 25 times greater than that of carbon dioxide[29]makes up 44 of the animal industryrsquos total emis-sions Most of this methane is emitted by ruminantssuch as cows sheep and goats as a natural byprod-uct of their digestive processes The United NationsEnvironment Programme (UNEP) maintains that a

Cultured Meat

reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of at least50by 2050 is necessary in order to avoid theworstimpacts of climate change[30]

Resource ineiciency Livestock farming takes up 70of arable land around the globe and 30 of theearthrsquos land surface[2] 70 of deforested areas inthe Amazon rainforest are used as pastures and alarge part of the remaining 30 is used to raiseanimal feed crops (ibid) The rate at which live-stock animals convert feed to energy and proteinmeanwhile is disturbingly ineicient cows for ex-ample normally convert less than 5 of their pro-tein and energy intake into edible meat[14] Takinginto account thewater consumption for productionmore than 15000L of water are needed for 1kg ofbeef[31][32]

Water pollution The livestock sector uses a great deal ofwater for feed production animal rearing and sani-tation Water recycled from livestock manure is cur-rently responsible for around 33of global nitrogenand phosphorous pollution 50of antibiotic pollu-tion and 37 of toxic heavy metals contaminatingthe worldrsquos freshwater Animal feed production alsocontributes to water pollution around 37 of pesti-cides that end up in the water supply are from live-stock production[2]

Human health

Infectious disease transmission Livestock pose a signif-icant disease risk to humans Around 60 ofall known human diseases and 75 of the mostdamaging emerging diseases are zoonotic (animal-transmitted) in origin[2][3] Most pathogens of re-cent concern ndash such as bovine spongiform en-cephalopathy (BSE) and all forms of influenza(swine avian etc) ndash are transmitted through live-stock in particular[4][5] Increases in global demandfor animal products have already led to intensi-fication of industrial livestock farming[33][2] andthis trend is expected to magnify as millions ofhouseholds are lied out of poverty in developingcountries[16] This has greatly increased overall riskof zoonotic disease transmission both from live-stock to humans and among same-species animalherds[2][34]

Antibiotic resistance In animal agriculture antibioticsare widely used in sub-therapeutic doses in orderto promote animal tissue growth and as a low-

cost preventative biosecurity measure intended tocope with the aforementioned disease transimis-sion problem However this practice ndash which hasresulted in substantial antibiotic contamination ofwaterways[35] ndash is now considered a leading causeof the global rise of antimicrobial-resistant (mul-tiresistant) pathogen strains[36][37][38] The WorldHealth Organization considers this one of todayrsquosbiggest threats to global health[39][40][37]

Animal welfare

Non-human sentience There is scientific consensus re-garding animal sentience and their capacity tosuer[41] and this is oicially recognized in EUlegislation[42] The opposing view that consciousexperience is only possible in human brains is notsupported by current evidence[43][44] It followsthat any needless suering inflicted upon animalsunder human care whether through direct action orinactionneglect is morally indefensible and mustbe stopped

Suering in factory farms Intensive animal farming isinescapably associated with systematic disregardfor their welfare[45][46][47] Animal farming is al-ready very ineicient in terms of land and suste-nance resources[48][49] and high market demandfor meat thus results in farmers striving to make allaspects of production more cost-eective Main-taining the wellbeing of animals is oen time-consuming yet not strictly necessary to producemeat at an aordable level The result is that an-imal welfare measures are commonly reduced toan absolute minimum or largely ignored in factoryfarms[45][46][47][50][51][52][53][7] An example ofthis eect is the ldquobroiler chickenrdquo a chicken breedoptimized for morbid obesity and rapid matura-tion Kept in intensive farming conditions through-out the industrialized world these birds frequentlyexperience lifelong suering[54][45] from their legscollapsing under their own morbid weight[12][11]and from chronic sickness due to poorly venti-lated overcrowded andor tightly confined livingconditions[55]

Poor legal protection Despite UN and EU guidelinesto ensure animal welfare[57][42] actual legislationon a national level is oen weak andor poorlyenforced[45][55] Moreover established laws areroutinely disregarded by manufacturers in Europe

2

Cultured Meat

alone at least 80of piglets are routinely subjectedto painful mutilations like tail amputations and cas-tration mdash both without anaesthesia[56][50] This ig-nores EU directives requiring that member statesldquo shall since animals are sentient beings pay fullregard to the welfare requirements of animalsrdquo in-cluding their freedom from pain injury discomfortand distress[42] It is not uncommon for large meatproducers to refuse public inspection of their farmsand slaughterhouses and part of what is currentlyknown about animal abuse in the meat industry isthus a result of investigations by animal charitiesboth undercover[58] and in cooperation with farm-ing contractors[114]

Culturedmeat in comparison

Environmental impact

Predictive environmental analyses Assessing the re-source eiciency of industrial processes that donrsquotyet exist involves making many informed assump-tions many of which will later turn out incorrectLife cycle analyses have so far predicted that cul-tured meat would require 99 lower land use and82 ndash 96 lower water use than its animal agri-culture equivalents[21] Subsequent analyses haveplaced energy use predictions much higher due tothe large amounts of electrical energy that wouldbe needed to provide suicient heat to the cultur-ing process[22] Overall however cultured meatis expected to be significantly more resource ei-cient than animal agriculture especially when pre-dictions of future meat consumption are taken intoaccount[23]

Environmental pollution The aforementioned life cycleanalyses predict that cultured meat would produce78 ndash 96 less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissionsthan conventional meat[21] Replacing all meat pro-duction with cultured meat could reduce EU emis-sions by two orders of magnitude[59] Again theseare speculative figures and should be regarded assuch Excluding animals from meat productionwould also eliminate the need for manure disposaland management which currently involves the useof manure lagoons[60] Cultured meat would re-place these highly problematic sources of pollutionwith closelymonitored and quality-controlled filtra-tion systems[61]

Human health

Sterile production Due to the aseptic and strictly con-trolledenvironment required for itsproduction pro-ducing meat from cell cultures is safer than conven-tional production through animal husbandry[62]Conventional risks of zoonotic infection are by-passedwhen no live animals are directly involved inproduction[63][64][65] The only current producerof cultured meat reports that antibiotics are not re-quired during production[61] In line with currentmedical standards initial tissue samples from biop-sies require screening for infectious agents beforeeventual use in cultured meat production Theend product is thus safer during storage prepara-tion and consumption than its conventional coun-terparts

Composition of end product Another benefit of strictmanufacturing control is that it allows for significantmodification of the final product during production(as opposed to relying mainly on post-productionprocessing) at levels currently unattainable in con-ventional meat production[66] A wide range of al-terations to the final productrsquos nutritional compo-sition taste and texture is thus made available byeg co-culturingwith other cell types or introducingadditives during the culturing process[67] Geneticmodification[63] can be used for the same purposebut runs the risk of rejection by consumers due topublic concern over GMO safety

Commercial

Product safety The fact that it is virtually impossible togrow cultured meat outside of a sterile environ-ment couldmake it a preferred alternative for manyconsumers who are worried about food safety[68]In particular the roughly 65 of European con-sumers who are worried about biological risks (con-tamination from antibiotics and zoonoses)may pre-fer cultured meat over other options[69] Howeverthe same surveys also showed technological risks(chemical additives and cloning) to beof higher con-cern among consumers than biological ones Thepotential benefits of food safety in cultured meatproducts are thus uncertain

Innovative product attributes Strict control over themanufacturing process would allow for productsto be nutritionally fortified[63][66][67][70][71] andcontain less unhealthy fats[65] Thismay present an

3

Cultured Meat

opportunity to meet consumer demand for health-ier foods[69] and to help prevent malnourishmentin poorer populations Producers could also ex-periment with a range of characteristics that con-sumers would find interesting such as novel fla-vors colors and textures[72] Culturing also allowsfor the production of exotic or otherwise rare animalmeats[64][70] which in addition to being of poten-tial commercial interest may replace much of thelegal[73] and illegal[74] markets for exotic animals

Improved ethical profile European consumers expressan increasing concern over the impacts ofmeat pro-duction on food safety the environment and ani-mal welfare[67][68][75][76][77][78][79][80] There issomeevidenceof consumers beingwilling to pay ex-tra for safety-labelled products due to this concernparticularly regarding products from well-knownbrands[81] In recent years animal welfare in partic-ular is identified as a deciding factor for consumersin evaluating the ethical profile of brands withcost being the main barrier to buying more prod-ucts regarded as ethical in this regard[82][83][84]Thus already-established meat producers may finda chance to improve public perception of theirbrand in termsof food safety andanimalwelfare byadopting cultured meat technology[85] Indeed atleast one leading international brand is already con-sidering this opportunity[86]

Market expansion potential In the likely event that cul-tured meat turns out to be significantly more cost-eective to manufacturers when compared to nor-mal production methods we should also expect aproportional decrease in the market value of meatproducts opening up for significantly lower retailprices on meat products[60] This presents a poten-tial win-win more low-income consumers would beable to aord meat products with a higher nutri-tional and caloric density than many staple foodscurrently provide and producers would in turn ben-efit from the increased revenue following expansioninto this huge new target market

Animal welfare

No need for slaughter Perhaps cultured meatrsquos greatestpotential benefit over conventional production isthe fact that it does not rely on slaughtering an-imals at any point in the manufacturing processEach of the individual parent cells involved in cul-

tured meat production can multiply a vast numberof times and each donor animal possesses billionsof such cells in their bodies The number of an-imals required for tissue samples are thus ordersof magnitude less than for conventional meat pro-duction Depending on the method and type ofcell used a single ldquoparent cellrdquo could theoreticallysupply the annual global demand for meat prod-ucts before needing replacement[87] However nat-ural variations in characteristics between cell sam-ples (ie those extracted from living animals) ren-ders them impractical for use in early phases of ba-sic research It is therefore more likely that genet-ically modified cell lines would be used during theinitial research phase as these cells are more ho-mogenous between batches They would not how-ever be necessary for use in actual food produc-tion Even so a genetically altered cell line could bemadephysically immortalmeaning that a single tis-sue sample from one livestock animal would theo-retically be enough tomeet endless future demand

Minimal harm Cells can be collected by drawing a smallamount of stem cells from an animal using a biopsyneedle a typeof syringe This commonmedical pro-cedure takes only a few minutes can be performedunder local or full anaesthesia and poses little riskof long-term complications[88] mdash altogether caus-ingnegligibleharmcompared towhatanimals in themeat industry are normally forced to endure on alifelong basis

Concerns over culture medium At the moment foetalbovine serum (FBS) is a key component of the stan-dard culture medium used in biotech labs to pro-vide growing cell cultures with nutrients Obtain-ing this ingredient requires slaughtering a preg-nant cow and draining blood from the heart ofits live unanesthezised fetus ndash a decidedly inhu-mane process[89] which has so far posed a ma-jor problem for the ethical profile of cultured meatIdeal culture medias should be free of animal-sourced ingredients and prototypes of culture me-dia based on plants fungi and microalgae have re-cently been demonstrated[26][71][90] Microalgaeproduction has also been accounted for in spec-ulative life cycle analyses of large-scale culturedmeat production systems[59][22] While further re-finement is needed for plant-based media to com-pete with the eectiveness of FBS they nonethe-

4

Cultured Meat

less provide a promising proof-of-concept that in-gredients sourced from slaughtered animals are nota requirement for cultured meat production More-over the fact that FBS is used in practically all theworldrsquos biotech labs in spite of its oen heteroge-nous composition between batches (which oenleads to inconsistent data if more than one batch isused in a given study) means that there is already astrong incentive in the biotech industry to develophighly consistent culture media which can bemass-produced from rawmaterials

Challenges to cultured meat develop-ment

Current status

Funding for basic research Much of the basic biotech-nology research needed to mass produce culturedmeat has yet to be done including studies on opti-mal cell lines and culturemedia[91] There are as yetno scientific disciplines departments or institutesdevoted entirely to the research and developmentof ldquobiofabricationrdquo or ldquocellular agriculturerdquo as dis-tinct areas of study[92] Most research into cellularagriculture to date has thus been undertaken as iso-lated projects and have consequently not been metwith widespread academic interest This point is il-lustrated by the fact that all cultured animal prod-ucts of recent fame (ground beef leather milk etc)have been manufactured in laboratory conditionsusing costly techniques adapted ad-hoc from re-lated fields in biotechnology that normally exist inrelative isolation Ongoing initiatives with promis-ing long-term strategies are currently held back by asevere lack of funding

Few researchers Contrary to what is oen portrayed innews media coverage very little scientific atten-tion is being given to the research and develop-ment of cellular agriculture ndash including culturedmeat ndash as of March 2016 One expert estimateplaces the number of entirely devoted researchersat about 5 individuals worldwide with another 50-100 known researchers in related fields expressingvarying degrees of interest in working on cellularagriculture[91]

Lack of regulatory preparedness Although some euro-peancountrieshavementionedculturedmeat in the

context of novel foods[109][110][111] the relative in-fancy of the science behind it means that currentfood industry regulations are generally not preparedfor commercial production at any significant scale

Genetic modification Genetic modification (GM) is notstrictly necessary at any point in the production ofcultured meat It may however be needed duringinitial phases of research (see Concerns over culturemedium) as well as potentially ensuring economicviability at somepoint in the future and should thusnot be ruled out as a potential tool[91] Any use ofGM in theproductionof culturedmeat shouldneces-sarily involve rigorous transparency and opennessto public inquiry to alleviate any concerns related tothe safety of GM foods

Product mimicry Twoculturedmeatproductshavebeendemonstrated so far bothmade frombeef cells onehamburger[93] andonemeatball[94] Bothwere de-scribed as unambiguously meat-like in taste yetlacking in certain qualities likemoisture and fat Theteams behind each demonstration report that exist-ing technology can be used to improve taste tex-ture and nutritional composition[90][61] Diicul-ties in replicating complex textures such as steakchicken breast and bacon have so far limited tex-tures to that of mince meat Significant improve-ments are needed to overcome these diicultiesyet only one study is going on at the moment[95]Improving ground beef products to the point ofmarket-competitive texture ismuch less challengingand therefore remains theprimary focus fornow[61]This approach seems most likely to secure culturedmeat aplace amongpopularmeat products on storeshelves which will be crucial in gaining acceptancefor all subsequent cultured products as soon as theyare introduced

Culture medium Althoughprototypesof animal-free cul-ture media exist and have been used to producemuscle tissue[26][71][90] progress in this area isseverely hindered by the fact that optimal cell lineshave not yet been found as individual cell lines of-ten require distinct medium formulations to pro-liferate Biomass from microalgae seems the pre-ferred source for the nutrients needed in culturemedia however algae production at scales largeenough to meet the requirements of cultured meatposes a number of technical challenges many ofwhich (including the scaling upof cost-eicient pho-

5

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

Introduction

Each year tens of billions of sentient animals[1] arereared in industrial conditions in order to producemeat This global enterprise is currently the planetrsquosmain source of human pandemic diseases[2][3][4][5]and likely among its greatest concentrations of human-inflicted suering[6][7][8] Curbing this ongoing moralcatastrophe should thus be of high concern for peopleaiming to eectively help as many sentient beings aspossible[6][9][10][11][12] Moreover animal agriculturecontributes to climate change and makes ineicient useof a significant portion of our available resources[13]

Addressing this massive challenge would ideally in-volve a worldwide shi to a vegetarian lifestyle but sucha shi is unlikely to take place in our lifetimes Humansaround the world namely place a high value on meat interms of taste nutrition and tradition evidenced in partby a clear rise in global meat consumption over the pasthalf century mdash a trend strongly associated with economicempowerment of developing countries[14][15][16] Eventhough vegetarianismhas alsowitnessed steady growth inrecent years its growth pales in comparison to the globaldemand for meat with the latter predicted to increase by73within 2050[17]Meanwhile plant-basedmeat substi-tutes have despite decades of costly improvements notbeen suiciently eective at replacing meat in peoplersquosdiets[18] It would thus be a significant gain if wewere ableto introduce a cruelty-free replacement for meat with theability to rival conventional livestock-production

Enter culturedmeat an innovative way of synthesizingmeat from animal tissue samples Compared with con-ventional methods of meat production mdash which involvethe breeding raising feeding and slaughter of living ani-mals mdash culturedmeat instead involves using a cell sampleto grow desired tissue in a controlled environment mak-ing use of biotechnology originally developed for medi-cal research and organ transplants Proponents of cul-tured meat argue that this technology holds considerablepromise as a replacement for conventional meat Indeedculturedmeat seems likely tooer vast benefits in termsofanimal welfare[19][20] environmental impact[21][22][23]

and human healthThe concept of producing meat intended for human

consumption independent of a complete living organismhas been a subject of speculative interest since at least1931[24] but proof of concept has existed in various formsonly since the early 2000rsquos[25] Cultured meat technologyis still in its experimental stage and has so far been lim-ited to producing a small number of processedmeat itemsin laboratory settings for demonstrative purposes[26][61]Current research is focused on refining production meth-ods in order to lower cost improve scalability and mini-mize dependence on animal sources

In this paper we begin by presenting the rationale be-hind developing animal-free meat products Moving onwe explore cultured meat and its ethical economic envi-ronmental and human health implications We then re-view the most pressing challenges facing public accep-tance and technical feasibility of cultured meat produc-tion and conclude by proposing a number of funding rec-ommendations

Current impacts of livestock-basedmeat

Environmental

Greenhouse gas emissions The main causes of climatechange are usually attributed to transportation andhousing This however ignores another signifi-cant contributor according to the UN Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO) animal agricultureis responsible for 145 of the worldrsquos total GHGemissions[27] It is therefore as bad for the environ-ment as the combined impact of every motor ve-hicle in the world which collectively represent at15[28] Methane whose global warming potentialis 25 times greater than that of carbon dioxide[29]makes up 44 of the animal industryrsquos total emis-sions Most of this methane is emitted by ruminantssuch as cows sheep and goats as a natural byprod-uct of their digestive processes The United NationsEnvironment Programme (UNEP) maintains that a

Cultured Meat

reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of at least50by 2050 is necessary in order to avoid theworstimpacts of climate change[30]

Resource ineiciency Livestock farming takes up 70of arable land around the globe and 30 of theearthrsquos land surface[2] 70 of deforested areas inthe Amazon rainforest are used as pastures and alarge part of the remaining 30 is used to raiseanimal feed crops (ibid) The rate at which live-stock animals convert feed to energy and proteinmeanwhile is disturbingly ineicient cows for ex-ample normally convert less than 5 of their pro-tein and energy intake into edible meat[14] Takinginto account thewater consumption for productionmore than 15000L of water are needed for 1kg ofbeef[31][32]

Water pollution The livestock sector uses a great deal ofwater for feed production animal rearing and sani-tation Water recycled from livestock manure is cur-rently responsible for around 33of global nitrogenand phosphorous pollution 50of antibiotic pollu-tion and 37 of toxic heavy metals contaminatingthe worldrsquos freshwater Animal feed production alsocontributes to water pollution around 37 of pesti-cides that end up in the water supply are from live-stock production[2]

Human health

Infectious disease transmission Livestock pose a signif-icant disease risk to humans Around 60 ofall known human diseases and 75 of the mostdamaging emerging diseases are zoonotic (animal-transmitted) in origin[2][3] Most pathogens of re-cent concern ndash such as bovine spongiform en-cephalopathy (BSE) and all forms of influenza(swine avian etc) ndash are transmitted through live-stock in particular[4][5] Increases in global demandfor animal products have already led to intensi-fication of industrial livestock farming[33][2] andthis trend is expected to magnify as millions ofhouseholds are lied out of poverty in developingcountries[16] This has greatly increased overall riskof zoonotic disease transmission both from live-stock to humans and among same-species animalherds[2][34]

Antibiotic resistance In animal agriculture antibioticsare widely used in sub-therapeutic doses in orderto promote animal tissue growth and as a low-

cost preventative biosecurity measure intended tocope with the aforementioned disease transimis-sion problem However this practice ndash which hasresulted in substantial antibiotic contamination ofwaterways[35] ndash is now considered a leading causeof the global rise of antimicrobial-resistant (mul-tiresistant) pathogen strains[36][37][38] The WorldHealth Organization considers this one of todayrsquosbiggest threats to global health[39][40][37]

Animal welfare

Non-human sentience There is scientific consensus re-garding animal sentience and their capacity tosuer[41] and this is oicially recognized in EUlegislation[42] The opposing view that consciousexperience is only possible in human brains is notsupported by current evidence[43][44] It followsthat any needless suering inflicted upon animalsunder human care whether through direct action orinactionneglect is morally indefensible and mustbe stopped

Suering in factory farms Intensive animal farming isinescapably associated with systematic disregardfor their welfare[45][46][47] Animal farming is al-ready very ineicient in terms of land and suste-nance resources[48][49] and high market demandfor meat thus results in farmers striving to make allaspects of production more cost-eective Main-taining the wellbeing of animals is oen time-consuming yet not strictly necessary to producemeat at an aordable level The result is that an-imal welfare measures are commonly reduced toan absolute minimum or largely ignored in factoryfarms[45][46][47][50][51][52][53][7] An example ofthis eect is the ldquobroiler chickenrdquo a chicken breedoptimized for morbid obesity and rapid matura-tion Kept in intensive farming conditions through-out the industrialized world these birds frequentlyexperience lifelong suering[54][45] from their legscollapsing under their own morbid weight[12][11]and from chronic sickness due to poorly venti-lated overcrowded andor tightly confined livingconditions[55]

Poor legal protection Despite UN and EU guidelinesto ensure animal welfare[57][42] actual legislationon a national level is oen weak andor poorlyenforced[45][55] Moreover established laws areroutinely disregarded by manufacturers in Europe

2

Cultured Meat

alone at least 80of piglets are routinely subjectedto painful mutilations like tail amputations and cas-tration mdash both without anaesthesia[56][50] This ig-nores EU directives requiring that member statesldquo shall since animals are sentient beings pay fullregard to the welfare requirements of animalsrdquo in-cluding their freedom from pain injury discomfortand distress[42] It is not uncommon for large meatproducers to refuse public inspection of their farmsand slaughterhouses and part of what is currentlyknown about animal abuse in the meat industry isthus a result of investigations by animal charitiesboth undercover[58] and in cooperation with farm-ing contractors[114]

Culturedmeat in comparison

Environmental impact

Predictive environmental analyses Assessing the re-source eiciency of industrial processes that donrsquotyet exist involves making many informed assump-tions many of which will later turn out incorrectLife cycle analyses have so far predicted that cul-tured meat would require 99 lower land use and82 ndash 96 lower water use than its animal agri-culture equivalents[21] Subsequent analyses haveplaced energy use predictions much higher due tothe large amounts of electrical energy that wouldbe needed to provide suicient heat to the cultur-ing process[22] Overall however cultured meatis expected to be significantly more resource ei-cient than animal agriculture especially when pre-dictions of future meat consumption are taken intoaccount[23]

Environmental pollution The aforementioned life cycleanalyses predict that cultured meat would produce78 ndash 96 less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissionsthan conventional meat[21] Replacing all meat pro-duction with cultured meat could reduce EU emis-sions by two orders of magnitude[59] Again theseare speculative figures and should be regarded assuch Excluding animals from meat productionwould also eliminate the need for manure disposaland management which currently involves the useof manure lagoons[60] Cultured meat would re-place these highly problematic sources of pollutionwith closelymonitored and quality-controlled filtra-tion systems[61]

Human health

Sterile production Due to the aseptic and strictly con-trolledenvironment required for itsproduction pro-ducing meat from cell cultures is safer than conven-tional production through animal husbandry[62]Conventional risks of zoonotic infection are by-passedwhen no live animals are directly involved inproduction[63][64][65] The only current producerof cultured meat reports that antibiotics are not re-quired during production[61] In line with currentmedical standards initial tissue samples from biop-sies require screening for infectious agents beforeeventual use in cultured meat production Theend product is thus safer during storage prepara-tion and consumption than its conventional coun-terparts

Composition of end product Another benefit of strictmanufacturing control is that it allows for significantmodification of the final product during production(as opposed to relying mainly on post-productionprocessing) at levels currently unattainable in con-ventional meat production[66] A wide range of al-terations to the final productrsquos nutritional compo-sition taste and texture is thus made available byeg co-culturingwith other cell types or introducingadditives during the culturing process[67] Geneticmodification[63] can be used for the same purposebut runs the risk of rejection by consumers due topublic concern over GMO safety

Commercial

Product safety The fact that it is virtually impossible togrow cultured meat outside of a sterile environ-ment couldmake it a preferred alternative for manyconsumers who are worried about food safety[68]In particular the roughly 65 of European con-sumers who are worried about biological risks (con-tamination from antibiotics and zoonoses)may pre-fer cultured meat over other options[69] Howeverthe same surveys also showed technological risks(chemical additives and cloning) to beof higher con-cern among consumers than biological ones Thepotential benefits of food safety in cultured meatproducts are thus uncertain

Innovative product attributes Strict control over themanufacturing process would allow for productsto be nutritionally fortified[63][66][67][70][71] andcontain less unhealthy fats[65] Thismay present an

3

Cultured Meat

opportunity to meet consumer demand for health-ier foods[69] and to help prevent malnourishmentin poorer populations Producers could also ex-periment with a range of characteristics that con-sumers would find interesting such as novel fla-vors colors and textures[72] Culturing also allowsfor the production of exotic or otherwise rare animalmeats[64][70] which in addition to being of poten-tial commercial interest may replace much of thelegal[73] and illegal[74] markets for exotic animals

Improved ethical profile European consumers expressan increasing concern over the impacts ofmeat pro-duction on food safety the environment and ani-mal welfare[67][68][75][76][77][78][79][80] There issomeevidenceof consumers beingwilling to pay ex-tra for safety-labelled products due to this concernparticularly regarding products from well-knownbrands[81] In recent years animal welfare in partic-ular is identified as a deciding factor for consumersin evaluating the ethical profile of brands withcost being the main barrier to buying more prod-ucts regarded as ethical in this regard[82][83][84]Thus already-established meat producers may finda chance to improve public perception of theirbrand in termsof food safety andanimalwelfare byadopting cultured meat technology[85] Indeed atleast one leading international brand is already con-sidering this opportunity[86]

Market expansion potential In the likely event that cul-tured meat turns out to be significantly more cost-eective to manufacturers when compared to nor-mal production methods we should also expect aproportional decrease in the market value of meatproducts opening up for significantly lower retailprices on meat products[60] This presents a poten-tial win-win more low-income consumers would beable to aord meat products with a higher nutri-tional and caloric density than many staple foodscurrently provide and producers would in turn ben-efit from the increased revenue following expansioninto this huge new target market

Animal welfare

No need for slaughter Perhaps cultured meatrsquos greatestpotential benefit over conventional production isthe fact that it does not rely on slaughtering an-imals at any point in the manufacturing processEach of the individual parent cells involved in cul-

tured meat production can multiply a vast numberof times and each donor animal possesses billionsof such cells in their bodies The number of an-imals required for tissue samples are thus ordersof magnitude less than for conventional meat pro-duction Depending on the method and type ofcell used a single ldquoparent cellrdquo could theoreticallysupply the annual global demand for meat prod-ucts before needing replacement[87] However nat-ural variations in characteristics between cell sam-ples (ie those extracted from living animals) ren-ders them impractical for use in early phases of ba-sic research It is therefore more likely that genet-ically modified cell lines would be used during theinitial research phase as these cells are more ho-mogenous between batches They would not how-ever be necessary for use in actual food produc-tion Even so a genetically altered cell line could bemadephysically immortalmeaning that a single tis-sue sample from one livestock animal would theo-retically be enough tomeet endless future demand

Minimal harm Cells can be collected by drawing a smallamount of stem cells from an animal using a biopsyneedle a typeof syringe This commonmedical pro-cedure takes only a few minutes can be performedunder local or full anaesthesia and poses little riskof long-term complications[88] mdash altogether caus-ingnegligibleharmcompared towhatanimals in themeat industry are normally forced to endure on alifelong basis

Concerns over culture medium At the moment foetalbovine serum (FBS) is a key component of the stan-dard culture medium used in biotech labs to pro-vide growing cell cultures with nutrients Obtain-ing this ingredient requires slaughtering a preg-nant cow and draining blood from the heart ofits live unanesthezised fetus ndash a decidedly inhu-mane process[89] which has so far posed a ma-jor problem for the ethical profile of cultured meatIdeal culture medias should be free of animal-sourced ingredients and prototypes of culture me-dia based on plants fungi and microalgae have re-cently been demonstrated[26][71][90] Microalgaeproduction has also been accounted for in spec-ulative life cycle analyses of large-scale culturedmeat production systems[59][22] While further re-finement is needed for plant-based media to com-pete with the eectiveness of FBS they nonethe-

4

Cultured Meat

less provide a promising proof-of-concept that in-gredients sourced from slaughtered animals are nota requirement for cultured meat production More-over the fact that FBS is used in practically all theworldrsquos biotech labs in spite of its oen heteroge-nous composition between batches (which oenleads to inconsistent data if more than one batch isused in a given study) means that there is already astrong incentive in the biotech industry to develophighly consistent culture media which can bemass-produced from rawmaterials

Challenges to cultured meat develop-ment

Current status

Funding for basic research Much of the basic biotech-nology research needed to mass produce culturedmeat has yet to be done including studies on opti-mal cell lines and culturemedia[91] There are as yetno scientific disciplines departments or institutesdevoted entirely to the research and developmentof ldquobiofabricationrdquo or ldquocellular agriculturerdquo as dis-tinct areas of study[92] Most research into cellularagriculture to date has thus been undertaken as iso-lated projects and have consequently not been metwith widespread academic interest This point is il-lustrated by the fact that all cultured animal prod-ucts of recent fame (ground beef leather milk etc)have been manufactured in laboratory conditionsusing costly techniques adapted ad-hoc from re-lated fields in biotechnology that normally exist inrelative isolation Ongoing initiatives with promis-ing long-term strategies are currently held back by asevere lack of funding

Few researchers Contrary to what is oen portrayed innews media coverage very little scientific atten-tion is being given to the research and develop-ment of cellular agriculture ndash including culturedmeat ndash as of March 2016 One expert estimateplaces the number of entirely devoted researchersat about 5 individuals worldwide with another 50-100 known researchers in related fields expressingvarying degrees of interest in working on cellularagriculture[91]

Lack of regulatory preparedness Although some euro-peancountrieshavementionedculturedmeat in the

context of novel foods[109][110][111] the relative in-fancy of the science behind it means that currentfood industry regulations are generally not preparedfor commercial production at any significant scale

Genetic modification Genetic modification (GM) is notstrictly necessary at any point in the production ofcultured meat It may however be needed duringinitial phases of research (see Concerns over culturemedium) as well as potentially ensuring economicviability at somepoint in the future and should thusnot be ruled out as a potential tool[91] Any use ofGM in theproductionof culturedmeat shouldneces-sarily involve rigorous transparency and opennessto public inquiry to alleviate any concerns related tothe safety of GM foods

Product mimicry Twoculturedmeatproductshavebeendemonstrated so far bothmade frombeef cells onehamburger[93] andonemeatball[94] Bothwere de-scribed as unambiguously meat-like in taste yetlacking in certain qualities likemoisture and fat Theteams behind each demonstration report that exist-ing technology can be used to improve taste tex-ture and nutritional composition[90][61] Diicul-ties in replicating complex textures such as steakchicken breast and bacon have so far limited tex-tures to that of mince meat Significant improve-ments are needed to overcome these diicultiesyet only one study is going on at the moment[95]Improving ground beef products to the point ofmarket-competitive texture ismuch less challengingand therefore remains theprimary focus fornow[61]This approach seems most likely to secure culturedmeat aplace amongpopularmeat products on storeshelves which will be crucial in gaining acceptancefor all subsequent cultured products as soon as theyare introduced

Culture medium Althoughprototypesof animal-free cul-ture media exist and have been used to producemuscle tissue[26][71][90] progress in this area isseverely hindered by the fact that optimal cell lineshave not yet been found as individual cell lines of-ten require distinct medium formulations to pro-liferate Biomass from microalgae seems the pre-ferred source for the nutrients needed in culturemedia however algae production at scales largeenough to meet the requirements of cultured meatposes a number of technical challenges many ofwhich (including the scaling upof cost-eicient pho-

5

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of at least50by 2050 is necessary in order to avoid theworstimpacts of climate change[30]

Resource ineiciency Livestock farming takes up 70of arable land around the globe and 30 of theearthrsquos land surface[2] 70 of deforested areas inthe Amazon rainforest are used as pastures and alarge part of the remaining 30 is used to raiseanimal feed crops (ibid) The rate at which live-stock animals convert feed to energy and proteinmeanwhile is disturbingly ineicient cows for ex-ample normally convert less than 5 of their pro-tein and energy intake into edible meat[14] Takinginto account thewater consumption for productionmore than 15000L of water are needed for 1kg ofbeef[31][32]

Water pollution The livestock sector uses a great deal ofwater for feed production animal rearing and sani-tation Water recycled from livestock manure is cur-rently responsible for around 33of global nitrogenand phosphorous pollution 50of antibiotic pollu-tion and 37 of toxic heavy metals contaminatingthe worldrsquos freshwater Animal feed production alsocontributes to water pollution around 37 of pesti-cides that end up in the water supply are from live-stock production[2]

Human health

Infectious disease transmission Livestock pose a signif-icant disease risk to humans Around 60 ofall known human diseases and 75 of the mostdamaging emerging diseases are zoonotic (animal-transmitted) in origin[2][3] Most pathogens of re-cent concern ndash such as bovine spongiform en-cephalopathy (BSE) and all forms of influenza(swine avian etc) ndash are transmitted through live-stock in particular[4][5] Increases in global demandfor animal products have already led to intensi-fication of industrial livestock farming[33][2] andthis trend is expected to magnify as millions ofhouseholds are lied out of poverty in developingcountries[16] This has greatly increased overall riskof zoonotic disease transmission both from live-stock to humans and among same-species animalherds[2][34]

Antibiotic resistance In animal agriculture antibioticsare widely used in sub-therapeutic doses in orderto promote animal tissue growth and as a low-

cost preventative biosecurity measure intended tocope with the aforementioned disease transimis-sion problem However this practice ndash which hasresulted in substantial antibiotic contamination ofwaterways[35] ndash is now considered a leading causeof the global rise of antimicrobial-resistant (mul-tiresistant) pathogen strains[36][37][38] The WorldHealth Organization considers this one of todayrsquosbiggest threats to global health[39][40][37]

Animal welfare

Non-human sentience There is scientific consensus re-garding animal sentience and their capacity tosuer[41] and this is oicially recognized in EUlegislation[42] The opposing view that consciousexperience is only possible in human brains is notsupported by current evidence[43][44] It followsthat any needless suering inflicted upon animalsunder human care whether through direct action orinactionneglect is morally indefensible and mustbe stopped

Suering in factory farms Intensive animal farming isinescapably associated with systematic disregardfor their welfare[45][46][47] Animal farming is al-ready very ineicient in terms of land and suste-nance resources[48][49] and high market demandfor meat thus results in farmers striving to make allaspects of production more cost-eective Main-taining the wellbeing of animals is oen time-consuming yet not strictly necessary to producemeat at an aordable level The result is that an-imal welfare measures are commonly reduced toan absolute minimum or largely ignored in factoryfarms[45][46][47][50][51][52][53][7] An example ofthis eect is the ldquobroiler chickenrdquo a chicken breedoptimized for morbid obesity and rapid matura-tion Kept in intensive farming conditions through-out the industrialized world these birds frequentlyexperience lifelong suering[54][45] from their legscollapsing under their own morbid weight[12][11]and from chronic sickness due to poorly venti-lated overcrowded andor tightly confined livingconditions[55]

Poor legal protection Despite UN and EU guidelinesto ensure animal welfare[57][42] actual legislationon a national level is oen weak andor poorlyenforced[45][55] Moreover established laws areroutinely disregarded by manufacturers in Europe

2

Cultured Meat

alone at least 80of piglets are routinely subjectedto painful mutilations like tail amputations and cas-tration mdash both without anaesthesia[56][50] This ig-nores EU directives requiring that member statesldquo shall since animals are sentient beings pay fullregard to the welfare requirements of animalsrdquo in-cluding their freedom from pain injury discomfortand distress[42] It is not uncommon for large meatproducers to refuse public inspection of their farmsand slaughterhouses and part of what is currentlyknown about animal abuse in the meat industry isthus a result of investigations by animal charitiesboth undercover[58] and in cooperation with farm-ing contractors[114]

Culturedmeat in comparison

Environmental impact

Predictive environmental analyses Assessing the re-source eiciency of industrial processes that donrsquotyet exist involves making many informed assump-tions many of which will later turn out incorrectLife cycle analyses have so far predicted that cul-tured meat would require 99 lower land use and82 ndash 96 lower water use than its animal agri-culture equivalents[21] Subsequent analyses haveplaced energy use predictions much higher due tothe large amounts of electrical energy that wouldbe needed to provide suicient heat to the cultur-ing process[22] Overall however cultured meatis expected to be significantly more resource ei-cient than animal agriculture especially when pre-dictions of future meat consumption are taken intoaccount[23]

Environmental pollution The aforementioned life cycleanalyses predict that cultured meat would produce78 ndash 96 less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissionsthan conventional meat[21] Replacing all meat pro-duction with cultured meat could reduce EU emis-sions by two orders of magnitude[59] Again theseare speculative figures and should be regarded assuch Excluding animals from meat productionwould also eliminate the need for manure disposaland management which currently involves the useof manure lagoons[60] Cultured meat would re-place these highly problematic sources of pollutionwith closelymonitored and quality-controlled filtra-tion systems[61]

Human health

Sterile production Due to the aseptic and strictly con-trolledenvironment required for itsproduction pro-ducing meat from cell cultures is safer than conven-tional production through animal husbandry[62]Conventional risks of zoonotic infection are by-passedwhen no live animals are directly involved inproduction[63][64][65] The only current producerof cultured meat reports that antibiotics are not re-quired during production[61] In line with currentmedical standards initial tissue samples from biop-sies require screening for infectious agents beforeeventual use in cultured meat production Theend product is thus safer during storage prepara-tion and consumption than its conventional coun-terparts

Composition of end product Another benefit of strictmanufacturing control is that it allows for significantmodification of the final product during production(as opposed to relying mainly on post-productionprocessing) at levels currently unattainable in con-ventional meat production[66] A wide range of al-terations to the final productrsquos nutritional compo-sition taste and texture is thus made available byeg co-culturingwith other cell types or introducingadditives during the culturing process[67] Geneticmodification[63] can be used for the same purposebut runs the risk of rejection by consumers due topublic concern over GMO safety

Commercial

Product safety The fact that it is virtually impossible togrow cultured meat outside of a sterile environ-ment couldmake it a preferred alternative for manyconsumers who are worried about food safety[68]In particular the roughly 65 of European con-sumers who are worried about biological risks (con-tamination from antibiotics and zoonoses)may pre-fer cultured meat over other options[69] Howeverthe same surveys also showed technological risks(chemical additives and cloning) to beof higher con-cern among consumers than biological ones Thepotential benefits of food safety in cultured meatproducts are thus uncertain

Innovative product attributes Strict control over themanufacturing process would allow for productsto be nutritionally fortified[63][66][67][70][71] andcontain less unhealthy fats[65] Thismay present an

3

Cultured Meat

opportunity to meet consumer demand for health-ier foods[69] and to help prevent malnourishmentin poorer populations Producers could also ex-periment with a range of characteristics that con-sumers would find interesting such as novel fla-vors colors and textures[72] Culturing also allowsfor the production of exotic or otherwise rare animalmeats[64][70] which in addition to being of poten-tial commercial interest may replace much of thelegal[73] and illegal[74] markets for exotic animals

Improved ethical profile European consumers expressan increasing concern over the impacts ofmeat pro-duction on food safety the environment and ani-mal welfare[67][68][75][76][77][78][79][80] There issomeevidenceof consumers beingwilling to pay ex-tra for safety-labelled products due to this concernparticularly regarding products from well-knownbrands[81] In recent years animal welfare in partic-ular is identified as a deciding factor for consumersin evaluating the ethical profile of brands withcost being the main barrier to buying more prod-ucts regarded as ethical in this regard[82][83][84]Thus already-established meat producers may finda chance to improve public perception of theirbrand in termsof food safety andanimalwelfare byadopting cultured meat technology[85] Indeed atleast one leading international brand is already con-sidering this opportunity[86]

Market expansion potential In the likely event that cul-tured meat turns out to be significantly more cost-eective to manufacturers when compared to nor-mal production methods we should also expect aproportional decrease in the market value of meatproducts opening up for significantly lower retailprices on meat products[60] This presents a poten-tial win-win more low-income consumers would beable to aord meat products with a higher nutri-tional and caloric density than many staple foodscurrently provide and producers would in turn ben-efit from the increased revenue following expansioninto this huge new target market

Animal welfare

No need for slaughter Perhaps cultured meatrsquos greatestpotential benefit over conventional production isthe fact that it does not rely on slaughtering an-imals at any point in the manufacturing processEach of the individual parent cells involved in cul-

tured meat production can multiply a vast numberof times and each donor animal possesses billionsof such cells in their bodies The number of an-imals required for tissue samples are thus ordersof magnitude less than for conventional meat pro-duction Depending on the method and type ofcell used a single ldquoparent cellrdquo could theoreticallysupply the annual global demand for meat prod-ucts before needing replacement[87] However nat-ural variations in characteristics between cell sam-ples (ie those extracted from living animals) ren-ders them impractical for use in early phases of ba-sic research It is therefore more likely that genet-ically modified cell lines would be used during theinitial research phase as these cells are more ho-mogenous between batches They would not how-ever be necessary for use in actual food produc-tion Even so a genetically altered cell line could bemadephysically immortalmeaning that a single tis-sue sample from one livestock animal would theo-retically be enough tomeet endless future demand

Minimal harm Cells can be collected by drawing a smallamount of stem cells from an animal using a biopsyneedle a typeof syringe This commonmedical pro-cedure takes only a few minutes can be performedunder local or full anaesthesia and poses little riskof long-term complications[88] mdash altogether caus-ingnegligibleharmcompared towhatanimals in themeat industry are normally forced to endure on alifelong basis

Concerns over culture medium At the moment foetalbovine serum (FBS) is a key component of the stan-dard culture medium used in biotech labs to pro-vide growing cell cultures with nutrients Obtain-ing this ingredient requires slaughtering a preg-nant cow and draining blood from the heart ofits live unanesthezised fetus ndash a decidedly inhu-mane process[89] which has so far posed a ma-jor problem for the ethical profile of cultured meatIdeal culture medias should be free of animal-sourced ingredients and prototypes of culture me-dia based on plants fungi and microalgae have re-cently been demonstrated[26][71][90] Microalgaeproduction has also been accounted for in spec-ulative life cycle analyses of large-scale culturedmeat production systems[59][22] While further re-finement is needed for plant-based media to com-pete with the eectiveness of FBS they nonethe-

4

Cultured Meat

less provide a promising proof-of-concept that in-gredients sourced from slaughtered animals are nota requirement for cultured meat production More-over the fact that FBS is used in practically all theworldrsquos biotech labs in spite of its oen heteroge-nous composition between batches (which oenleads to inconsistent data if more than one batch isused in a given study) means that there is already astrong incentive in the biotech industry to develophighly consistent culture media which can bemass-produced from rawmaterials

Challenges to cultured meat develop-ment

Current status

Funding for basic research Much of the basic biotech-nology research needed to mass produce culturedmeat has yet to be done including studies on opti-mal cell lines and culturemedia[91] There are as yetno scientific disciplines departments or institutesdevoted entirely to the research and developmentof ldquobiofabricationrdquo or ldquocellular agriculturerdquo as dis-tinct areas of study[92] Most research into cellularagriculture to date has thus been undertaken as iso-lated projects and have consequently not been metwith widespread academic interest This point is il-lustrated by the fact that all cultured animal prod-ucts of recent fame (ground beef leather milk etc)have been manufactured in laboratory conditionsusing costly techniques adapted ad-hoc from re-lated fields in biotechnology that normally exist inrelative isolation Ongoing initiatives with promis-ing long-term strategies are currently held back by asevere lack of funding

Few researchers Contrary to what is oen portrayed innews media coverage very little scientific atten-tion is being given to the research and develop-ment of cellular agriculture ndash including culturedmeat ndash as of March 2016 One expert estimateplaces the number of entirely devoted researchersat about 5 individuals worldwide with another 50-100 known researchers in related fields expressingvarying degrees of interest in working on cellularagriculture[91]

Lack of regulatory preparedness Although some euro-peancountrieshavementionedculturedmeat in the

context of novel foods[109][110][111] the relative in-fancy of the science behind it means that currentfood industry regulations are generally not preparedfor commercial production at any significant scale

Genetic modification Genetic modification (GM) is notstrictly necessary at any point in the production ofcultured meat It may however be needed duringinitial phases of research (see Concerns over culturemedium) as well as potentially ensuring economicviability at somepoint in the future and should thusnot be ruled out as a potential tool[91] Any use ofGM in theproductionof culturedmeat shouldneces-sarily involve rigorous transparency and opennessto public inquiry to alleviate any concerns related tothe safety of GM foods

Product mimicry Twoculturedmeatproductshavebeendemonstrated so far bothmade frombeef cells onehamburger[93] andonemeatball[94] Bothwere de-scribed as unambiguously meat-like in taste yetlacking in certain qualities likemoisture and fat Theteams behind each demonstration report that exist-ing technology can be used to improve taste tex-ture and nutritional composition[90][61] Diicul-ties in replicating complex textures such as steakchicken breast and bacon have so far limited tex-tures to that of mince meat Significant improve-ments are needed to overcome these diicultiesyet only one study is going on at the moment[95]Improving ground beef products to the point ofmarket-competitive texture ismuch less challengingand therefore remains theprimary focus fornow[61]This approach seems most likely to secure culturedmeat aplace amongpopularmeat products on storeshelves which will be crucial in gaining acceptancefor all subsequent cultured products as soon as theyare introduced

Culture medium Althoughprototypesof animal-free cul-ture media exist and have been used to producemuscle tissue[26][71][90] progress in this area isseverely hindered by the fact that optimal cell lineshave not yet been found as individual cell lines of-ten require distinct medium formulations to pro-liferate Biomass from microalgae seems the pre-ferred source for the nutrients needed in culturemedia however algae production at scales largeenough to meet the requirements of cultured meatposes a number of technical challenges many ofwhich (including the scaling upof cost-eicient pho-

5

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

alone at least 80of piglets are routinely subjectedto painful mutilations like tail amputations and cas-tration mdash both without anaesthesia[56][50] This ig-nores EU directives requiring that member statesldquo shall since animals are sentient beings pay fullregard to the welfare requirements of animalsrdquo in-cluding their freedom from pain injury discomfortand distress[42] It is not uncommon for large meatproducers to refuse public inspection of their farmsand slaughterhouses and part of what is currentlyknown about animal abuse in the meat industry isthus a result of investigations by animal charitiesboth undercover[58] and in cooperation with farm-ing contractors[114]

Culturedmeat in comparison

Environmental impact

Predictive environmental analyses Assessing the re-source eiciency of industrial processes that donrsquotyet exist involves making many informed assump-tions many of which will later turn out incorrectLife cycle analyses have so far predicted that cul-tured meat would require 99 lower land use and82 ndash 96 lower water use than its animal agri-culture equivalents[21] Subsequent analyses haveplaced energy use predictions much higher due tothe large amounts of electrical energy that wouldbe needed to provide suicient heat to the cultur-ing process[22] Overall however cultured meatis expected to be significantly more resource ei-cient than animal agriculture especially when pre-dictions of future meat consumption are taken intoaccount[23]

Environmental pollution The aforementioned life cycleanalyses predict that cultured meat would produce78 ndash 96 less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissionsthan conventional meat[21] Replacing all meat pro-duction with cultured meat could reduce EU emis-sions by two orders of magnitude[59] Again theseare speculative figures and should be regarded assuch Excluding animals from meat productionwould also eliminate the need for manure disposaland management which currently involves the useof manure lagoons[60] Cultured meat would re-place these highly problematic sources of pollutionwith closelymonitored and quality-controlled filtra-tion systems[61]

Human health

Sterile production Due to the aseptic and strictly con-trolledenvironment required for itsproduction pro-ducing meat from cell cultures is safer than conven-tional production through animal husbandry[62]Conventional risks of zoonotic infection are by-passedwhen no live animals are directly involved inproduction[63][64][65] The only current producerof cultured meat reports that antibiotics are not re-quired during production[61] In line with currentmedical standards initial tissue samples from biop-sies require screening for infectious agents beforeeventual use in cultured meat production Theend product is thus safer during storage prepara-tion and consumption than its conventional coun-terparts

Composition of end product Another benefit of strictmanufacturing control is that it allows for significantmodification of the final product during production(as opposed to relying mainly on post-productionprocessing) at levels currently unattainable in con-ventional meat production[66] A wide range of al-terations to the final productrsquos nutritional compo-sition taste and texture is thus made available byeg co-culturingwith other cell types or introducingadditives during the culturing process[67] Geneticmodification[63] can be used for the same purposebut runs the risk of rejection by consumers due topublic concern over GMO safety

Commercial

Product safety The fact that it is virtually impossible togrow cultured meat outside of a sterile environ-ment couldmake it a preferred alternative for manyconsumers who are worried about food safety[68]In particular the roughly 65 of European con-sumers who are worried about biological risks (con-tamination from antibiotics and zoonoses)may pre-fer cultured meat over other options[69] Howeverthe same surveys also showed technological risks(chemical additives and cloning) to beof higher con-cern among consumers than biological ones Thepotential benefits of food safety in cultured meatproducts are thus uncertain

Innovative product attributes Strict control over themanufacturing process would allow for productsto be nutritionally fortified[63][66][67][70][71] andcontain less unhealthy fats[65] Thismay present an

3

Cultured Meat

opportunity to meet consumer demand for health-ier foods[69] and to help prevent malnourishmentin poorer populations Producers could also ex-periment with a range of characteristics that con-sumers would find interesting such as novel fla-vors colors and textures[72] Culturing also allowsfor the production of exotic or otherwise rare animalmeats[64][70] which in addition to being of poten-tial commercial interest may replace much of thelegal[73] and illegal[74] markets for exotic animals

Improved ethical profile European consumers expressan increasing concern over the impacts ofmeat pro-duction on food safety the environment and ani-mal welfare[67][68][75][76][77][78][79][80] There issomeevidenceof consumers beingwilling to pay ex-tra for safety-labelled products due to this concernparticularly regarding products from well-knownbrands[81] In recent years animal welfare in partic-ular is identified as a deciding factor for consumersin evaluating the ethical profile of brands withcost being the main barrier to buying more prod-ucts regarded as ethical in this regard[82][83][84]Thus already-established meat producers may finda chance to improve public perception of theirbrand in termsof food safety andanimalwelfare byadopting cultured meat technology[85] Indeed atleast one leading international brand is already con-sidering this opportunity[86]

Market expansion potential In the likely event that cul-tured meat turns out to be significantly more cost-eective to manufacturers when compared to nor-mal production methods we should also expect aproportional decrease in the market value of meatproducts opening up for significantly lower retailprices on meat products[60] This presents a poten-tial win-win more low-income consumers would beable to aord meat products with a higher nutri-tional and caloric density than many staple foodscurrently provide and producers would in turn ben-efit from the increased revenue following expansioninto this huge new target market

Animal welfare

No need for slaughter Perhaps cultured meatrsquos greatestpotential benefit over conventional production isthe fact that it does not rely on slaughtering an-imals at any point in the manufacturing processEach of the individual parent cells involved in cul-

tured meat production can multiply a vast numberof times and each donor animal possesses billionsof such cells in their bodies The number of an-imals required for tissue samples are thus ordersof magnitude less than for conventional meat pro-duction Depending on the method and type ofcell used a single ldquoparent cellrdquo could theoreticallysupply the annual global demand for meat prod-ucts before needing replacement[87] However nat-ural variations in characteristics between cell sam-ples (ie those extracted from living animals) ren-ders them impractical for use in early phases of ba-sic research It is therefore more likely that genet-ically modified cell lines would be used during theinitial research phase as these cells are more ho-mogenous between batches They would not how-ever be necessary for use in actual food produc-tion Even so a genetically altered cell line could bemadephysically immortalmeaning that a single tis-sue sample from one livestock animal would theo-retically be enough tomeet endless future demand

Minimal harm Cells can be collected by drawing a smallamount of stem cells from an animal using a biopsyneedle a typeof syringe This commonmedical pro-cedure takes only a few minutes can be performedunder local or full anaesthesia and poses little riskof long-term complications[88] mdash altogether caus-ingnegligibleharmcompared towhatanimals in themeat industry are normally forced to endure on alifelong basis

Concerns over culture medium At the moment foetalbovine serum (FBS) is a key component of the stan-dard culture medium used in biotech labs to pro-vide growing cell cultures with nutrients Obtain-ing this ingredient requires slaughtering a preg-nant cow and draining blood from the heart ofits live unanesthezised fetus ndash a decidedly inhu-mane process[89] which has so far posed a ma-jor problem for the ethical profile of cultured meatIdeal culture medias should be free of animal-sourced ingredients and prototypes of culture me-dia based on plants fungi and microalgae have re-cently been demonstrated[26][71][90] Microalgaeproduction has also been accounted for in spec-ulative life cycle analyses of large-scale culturedmeat production systems[59][22] While further re-finement is needed for plant-based media to com-pete with the eectiveness of FBS they nonethe-

4

Cultured Meat

less provide a promising proof-of-concept that in-gredients sourced from slaughtered animals are nota requirement for cultured meat production More-over the fact that FBS is used in practically all theworldrsquos biotech labs in spite of its oen heteroge-nous composition between batches (which oenleads to inconsistent data if more than one batch isused in a given study) means that there is already astrong incentive in the biotech industry to develophighly consistent culture media which can bemass-produced from rawmaterials

Challenges to cultured meat develop-ment

Current status

Funding for basic research Much of the basic biotech-nology research needed to mass produce culturedmeat has yet to be done including studies on opti-mal cell lines and culturemedia[91] There are as yetno scientific disciplines departments or institutesdevoted entirely to the research and developmentof ldquobiofabricationrdquo or ldquocellular agriculturerdquo as dis-tinct areas of study[92] Most research into cellularagriculture to date has thus been undertaken as iso-lated projects and have consequently not been metwith widespread academic interest This point is il-lustrated by the fact that all cultured animal prod-ucts of recent fame (ground beef leather milk etc)have been manufactured in laboratory conditionsusing costly techniques adapted ad-hoc from re-lated fields in biotechnology that normally exist inrelative isolation Ongoing initiatives with promis-ing long-term strategies are currently held back by asevere lack of funding

Few researchers Contrary to what is oen portrayed innews media coverage very little scientific atten-tion is being given to the research and develop-ment of cellular agriculture ndash including culturedmeat ndash as of March 2016 One expert estimateplaces the number of entirely devoted researchersat about 5 individuals worldwide with another 50-100 known researchers in related fields expressingvarying degrees of interest in working on cellularagriculture[91]

Lack of regulatory preparedness Although some euro-peancountrieshavementionedculturedmeat in the

context of novel foods[109][110][111] the relative in-fancy of the science behind it means that currentfood industry regulations are generally not preparedfor commercial production at any significant scale

Genetic modification Genetic modification (GM) is notstrictly necessary at any point in the production ofcultured meat It may however be needed duringinitial phases of research (see Concerns over culturemedium) as well as potentially ensuring economicviability at somepoint in the future and should thusnot be ruled out as a potential tool[91] Any use ofGM in theproductionof culturedmeat shouldneces-sarily involve rigorous transparency and opennessto public inquiry to alleviate any concerns related tothe safety of GM foods

Product mimicry Twoculturedmeatproductshavebeendemonstrated so far bothmade frombeef cells onehamburger[93] andonemeatball[94] Bothwere de-scribed as unambiguously meat-like in taste yetlacking in certain qualities likemoisture and fat Theteams behind each demonstration report that exist-ing technology can be used to improve taste tex-ture and nutritional composition[90][61] Diicul-ties in replicating complex textures such as steakchicken breast and bacon have so far limited tex-tures to that of mince meat Significant improve-ments are needed to overcome these diicultiesyet only one study is going on at the moment[95]Improving ground beef products to the point ofmarket-competitive texture ismuch less challengingand therefore remains theprimary focus fornow[61]This approach seems most likely to secure culturedmeat aplace amongpopularmeat products on storeshelves which will be crucial in gaining acceptancefor all subsequent cultured products as soon as theyare introduced

Culture medium Althoughprototypesof animal-free cul-ture media exist and have been used to producemuscle tissue[26][71][90] progress in this area isseverely hindered by the fact that optimal cell lineshave not yet been found as individual cell lines of-ten require distinct medium formulations to pro-liferate Biomass from microalgae seems the pre-ferred source for the nutrients needed in culturemedia however algae production at scales largeenough to meet the requirements of cultured meatposes a number of technical challenges many ofwhich (including the scaling upof cost-eicient pho-

5

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

opportunity to meet consumer demand for health-ier foods[69] and to help prevent malnourishmentin poorer populations Producers could also ex-periment with a range of characteristics that con-sumers would find interesting such as novel fla-vors colors and textures[72] Culturing also allowsfor the production of exotic or otherwise rare animalmeats[64][70] which in addition to being of poten-tial commercial interest may replace much of thelegal[73] and illegal[74] markets for exotic animals

Improved ethical profile European consumers expressan increasing concern over the impacts ofmeat pro-duction on food safety the environment and ani-mal welfare[67][68][75][76][77][78][79][80] There issomeevidenceof consumers beingwilling to pay ex-tra for safety-labelled products due to this concernparticularly regarding products from well-knownbrands[81] In recent years animal welfare in partic-ular is identified as a deciding factor for consumersin evaluating the ethical profile of brands withcost being the main barrier to buying more prod-ucts regarded as ethical in this regard[82][83][84]Thus already-established meat producers may finda chance to improve public perception of theirbrand in termsof food safety andanimalwelfare byadopting cultured meat technology[85] Indeed atleast one leading international brand is already con-sidering this opportunity[86]

Market expansion potential In the likely event that cul-tured meat turns out to be significantly more cost-eective to manufacturers when compared to nor-mal production methods we should also expect aproportional decrease in the market value of meatproducts opening up for significantly lower retailprices on meat products[60] This presents a poten-tial win-win more low-income consumers would beable to aord meat products with a higher nutri-tional and caloric density than many staple foodscurrently provide and producers would in turn ben-efit from the increased revenue following expansioninto this huge new target market

Animal welfare

No need for slaughter Perhaps cultured meatrsquos greatestpotential benefit over conventional production isthe fact that it does not rely on slaughtering an-imals at any point in the manufacturing processEach of the individual parent cells involved in cul-

tured meat production can multiply a vast numberof times and each donor animal possesses billionsof such cells in their bodies The number of an-imals required for tissue samples are thus ordersof magnitude less than for conventional meat pro-duction Depending on the method and type ofcell used a single ldquoparent cellrdquo could theoreticallysupply the annual global demand for meat prod-ucts before needing replacement[87] However nat-ural variations in characteristics between cell sam-ples (ie those extracted from living animals) ren-ders them impractical for use in early phases of ba-sic research It is therefore more likely that genet-ically modified cell lines would be used during theinitial research phase as these cells are more ho-mogenous between batches They would not how-ever be necessary for use in actual food produc-tion Even so a genetically altered cell line could bemadephysically immortalmeaning that a single tis-sue sample from one livestock animal would theo-retically be enough tomeet endless future demand

Minimal harm Cells can be collected by drawing a smallamount of stem cells from an animal using a biopsyneedle a typeof syringe This commonmedical pro-cedure takes only a few minutes can be performedunder local or full anaesthesia and poses little riskof long-term complications[88] mdash altogether caus-ingnegligibleharmcompared towhatanimals in themeat industry are normally forced to endure on alifelong basis

Concerns over culture medium At the moment foetalbovine serum (FBS) is a key component of the stan-dard culture medium used in biotech labs to pro-vide growing cell cultures with nutrients Obtain-ing this ingredient requires slaughtering a preg-nant cow and draining blood from the heart ofits live unanesthezised fetus ndash a decidedly inhu-mane process[89] which has so far posed a ma-jor problem for the ethical profile of cultured meatIdeal culture medias should be free of animal-sourced ingredients and prototypes of culture me-dia based on plants fungi and microalgae have re-cently been demonstrated[26][71][90] Microalgaeproduction has also been accounted for in spec-ulative life cycle analyses of large-scale culturedmeat production systems[59][22] While further re-finement is needed for plant-based media to com-pete with the eectiveness of FBS they nonethe-

4

Cultured Meat

less provide a promising proof-of-concept that in-gredients sourced from slaughtered animals are nota requirement for cultured meat production More-over the fact that FBS is used in practically all theworldrsquos biotech labs in spite of its oen heteroge-nous composition between batches (which oenleads to inconsistent data if more than one batch isused in a given study) means that there is already astrong incentive in the biotech industry to develophighly consistent culture media which can bemass-produced from rawmaterials

Challenges to cultured meat develop-ment

Current status

Funding for basic research Much of the basic biotech-nology research needed to mass produce culturedmeat has yet to be done including studies on opti-mal cell lines and culturemedia[91] There are as yetno scientific disciplines departments or institutesdevoted entirely to the research and developmentof ldquobiofabricationrdquo or ldquocellular agriculturerdquo as dis-tinct areas of study[92] Most research into cellularagriculture to date has thus been undertaken as iso-lated projects and have consequently not been metwith widespread academic interest This point is il-lustrated by the fact that all cultured animal prod-ucts of recent fame (ground beef leather milk etc)have been manufactured in laboratory conditionsusing costly techniques adapted ad-hoc from re-lated fields in biotechnology that normally exist inrelative isolation Ongoing initiatives with promis-ing long-term strategies are currently held back by asevere lack of funding

Few researchers Contrary to what is oen portrayed innews media coverage very little scientific atten-tion is being given to the research and develop-ment of cellular agriculture ndash including culturedmeat ndash as of March 2016 One expert estimateplaces the number of entirely devoted researchersat about 5 individuals worldwide with another 50-100 known researchers in related fields expressingvarying degrees of interest in working on cellularagriculture[91]

Lack of regulatory preparedness Although some euro-peancountrieshavementionedculturedmeat in the

context of novel foods[109][110][111] the relative in-fancy of the science behind it means that currentfood industry regulations are generally not preparedfor commercial production at any significant scale

Genetic modification Genetic modification (GM) is notstrictly necessary at any point in the production ofcultured meat It may however be needed duringinitial phases of research (see Concerns over culturemedium) as well as potentially ensuring economicviability at somepoint in the future and should thusnot be ruled out as a potential tool[91] Any use ofGM in theproductionof culturedmeat shouldneces-sarily involve rigorous transparency and opennessto public inquiry to alleviate any concerns related tothe safety of GM foods

Product mimicry Twoculturedmeatproductshavebeendemonstrated so far bothmade frombeef cells onehamburger[93] andonemeatball[94] Bothwere de-scribed as unambiguously meat-like in taste yetlacking in certain qualities likemoisture and fat Theteams behind each demonstration report that exist-ing technology can be used to improve taste tex-ture and nutritional composition[90][61] Diicul-ties in replicating complex textures such as steakchicken breast and bacon have so far limited tex-tures to that of mince meat Significant improve-ments are needed to overcome these diicultiesyet only one study is going on at the moment[95]Improving ground beef products to the point ofmarket-competitive texture ismuch less challengingand therefore remains theprimary focus fornow[61]This approach seems most likely to secure culturedmeat aplace amongpopularmeat products on storeshelves which will be crucial in gaining acceptancefor all subsequent cultured products as soon as theyare introduced

Culture medium Althoughprototypesof animal-free cul-ture media exist and have been used to producemuscle tissue[26][71][90] progress in this area isseverely hindered by the fact that optimal cell lineshave not yet been found as individual cell lines of-ten require distinct medium formulations to pro-liferate Biomass from microalgae seems the pre-ferred source for the nutrients needed in culturemedia however algae production at scales largeenough to meet the requirements of cultured meatposes a number of technical challenges many ofwhich (including the scaling upof cost-eicient pho-

5

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

less provide a promising proof-of-concept that in-gredients sourced from slaughtered animals are nota requirement for cultured meat production More-over the fact that FBS is used in practically all theworldrsquos biotech labs in spite of its oen heteroge-nous composition between batches (which oenleads to inconsistent data if more than one batch isused in a given study) means that there is already astrong incentive in the biotech industry to develophighly consistent culture media which can bemass-produced from rawmaterials

Challenges to cultured meat develop-ment

Current status

Funding for basic research Much of the basic biotech-nology research needed to mass produce culturedmeat has yet to be done including studies on opti-mal cell lines and culturemedia[91] There are as yetno scientific disciplines departments or institutesdevoted entirely to the research and developmentof ldquobiofabricationrdquo or ldquocellular agriculturerdquo as dis-tinct areas of study[92] Most research into cellularagriculture to date has thus been undertaken as iso-lated projects and have consequently not been metwith widespread academic interest This point is il-lustrated by the fact that all cultured animal prod-ucts of recent fame (ground beef leather milk etc)have been manufactured in laboratory conditionsusing costly techniques adapted ad-hoc from re-lated fields in biotechnology that normally exist inrelative isolation Ongoing initiatives with promis-ing long-term strategies are currently held back by asevere lack of funding

Few researchers Contrary to what is oen portrayed innews media coverage very little scientific atten-tion is being given to the research and develop-ment of cellular agriculture ndash including culturedmeat ndash as of March 2016 One expert estimateplaces the number of entirely devoted researchersat about 5 individuals worldwide with another 50-100 known researchers in related fields expressingvarying degrees of interest in working on cellularagriculture[91]

Lack of regulatory preparedness Although some euro-peancountrieshavementionedculturedmeat in the

context of novel foods[109][110][111] the relative in-fancy of the science behind it means that currentfood industry regulations are generally not preparedfor commercial production at any significant scale

Genetic modification Genetic modification (GM) is notstrictly necessary at any point in the production ofcultured meat It may however be needed duringinitial phases of research (see Concerns over culturemedium) as well as potentially ensuring economicviability at somepoint in the future and should thusnot be ruled out as a potential tool[91] Any use ofGM in theproductionof culturedmeat shouldneces-sarily involve rigorous transparency and opennessto public inquiry to alleviate any concerns related tothe safety of GM foods

Product mimicry Twoculturedmeatproductshavebeendemonstrated so far bothmade frombeef cells onehamburger[93] andonemeatball[94] Bothwere de-scribed as unambiguously meat-like in taste yetlacking in certain qualities likemoisture and fat Theteams behind each demonstration report that exist-ing technology can be used to improve taste tex-ture and nutritional composition[90][61] Diicul-ties in replicating complex textures such as steakchicken breast and bacon have so far limited tex-tures to that of mince meat Significant improve-ments are needed to overcome these diicultiesyet only one study is going on at the moment[95]Improving ground beef products to the point ofmarket-competitive texture ismuch less challengingand therefore remains theprimary focus fornow[61]This approach seems most likely to secure culturedmeat aplace amongpopularmeat products on storeshelves which will be crucial in gaining acceptancefor all subsequent cultured products as soon as theyare introduced

Culture medium Althoughprototypesof animal-free cul-ture media exist and have been used to producemuscle tissue[26][71][90] progress in this area isseverely hindered by the fact that optimal cell lineshave not yet been found as individual cell lines of-ten require distinct medium formulations to pro-liferate Biomass from microalgae seems the pre-ferred source for the nutrients needed in culturemedia however algae production at scales largeenough to meet the requirements of cultured meatposes a number of technical challenges many ofwhich (including the scaling upof cost-eicient pho-

5

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

tobioreactors) are currently being tackled for ap-plications in seemingly unrelated fields such asbiofuels[96][97] and animal feed[98]

Energy requirements One recent life cycle analysis (LCA)of cultured meat production found that while landand water use are expected to be far lower thanall other forms of meat production its energy re-quirementswouldbeextremely high comparedwithprevious estimates[22] However the analysis ex-trapolated data based on assumptions of technol-ogy that does not yet exist and contradicts previ-ous findings making it far from conclusive Whetheror not the energy requirements present a prob-lem depends on the eiciency of renewable energysources which may improve in the future thanksto rapid developments in solar power and otherrenewables[65][99][100]

Cost The only private company currently making cul-tured beef reports a production cost of abouteuro36200kg[61] which is roughly 18 times cheaperthan the euro650000kg burger unveiled in 2013 Oneleading researcher announced in late 2015 thatunder ideal conditions combining pharmaceuti-cal bioreactor technology to existing tissue culturetechniques can already reduce costs to euro60kg ofcultured ground beef[26] It should be noted thatwhile the cost of culturedmeat should aim tomatchthat of regular meat the current market average ofmeat[101] is artificially low as a result of heavy gov-ernment subsidizing of animal agriculture

Public perception

Media coverage News media have generally presentedculturedmeat in a positive light and have tended tohighlight its environmental benefits[102] The sum-mer of 2013 witnessed two highly publicized inde-pendent promotion events first a TED talk on cul-turedmeat and leather in June[103] followed in Au-gustby the first public tastingof a culturedburgeronBritish television[93] Cultured meat has since beenpresented at theWorld Economic Forum in 2015[26]and a cultured meat startup was launched in early2016 to widespread interest from news and socialmedia alike[94] However news stories oen por-tray incorrect stages of development giving unreal-istic impressions of the extent of progresswithin thefield[91]

Consumer attitudes A small-scale survey of Dutch con-

sumers found that when asked if they were will-ing try cultured meat once it becomes availablebeing given information about its environmentalbenefits caused positive responses to increase from25 to 43 a near-doubling compared with ba-sic informing about the technology itself[104] Re-cent online polls conducted on social and newsme-dia sites have shown that 7 out of every 10 respon-dents would like to try cultured meat once it be-comes available[105][112][113]

Selected objections to culturedmeat

ldquoCultured meat is unnatural and therefore un-healthydangerousundesirablerdquo

This argument rests on the assumption that what isnatural is good and what is unnatural is bad (appeal tonature) However examples such as natural disasters andsurgery show that this equalisation is dubious somethingcan be natural and bad or unnatural and good Thus call-ing cultured meat unnatural does not imply that it isundesirable Also it is unclear why cultured meat in par-ticular is unnatural but animal agriculture is not Thereis currently very little resemblance between nature andindustrial meat production in terms of how animals arebred housed fed and slaughtered Arguments of thiskind are thus better understood as critiques against inher-entqualitiesof industrialization itself rather thananyof itsspecific uses Although culturedmeatmay be ldquoartificiallyrdquoproduced the end result is just as ldquorealrdquo as conventionalmeat and thus poses no greater health riskmdash in fact sinceit is manufactured in a controlled environment culturedmeat is far less likely to contain harmful by-products un-healthy fats and foodborne pathogens than its conven-tional counterpart

ldquoCulturedmeat representsnoethicalprogressas longas foetal bovine serum is usedrdquo

Only culturedmeat that is producedwithout the use ofanimal-derived culture media is wholly ethically unprob-lematic not to mention economically viable We considerthe development of animal-free culturemedia a necessityfor culturedmeat development andwe therefore stronglysupport eorts to achieve this goal

ldquoAlthough cultured meat may be a short-sighted so-lution it does not change underlying attitudes towardsanimals or the environment and is therefore bad in thelong termrdquo

It is indeed important to address underlying speciesist

6

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

attitudes as this determines how nonhuman animals willbe treated in the future However the development ofcultured does in fact indirectly contribute to a long-termchange in social norms and attitudes The behaviouralfact of meat eating is an obstacle to unbiased moral rea-soning that cultured meat could greatly reduce By elim-inating the need to defend everyday behaviour culturedmeatmakes it psychologically easier to care about nonhu-man animals both on an individual and on a political levelThus culturedmeat could facilitate the transition from to-dayrsquos heavily speciesist society to a more antispeciesistone in the future In general however any ideal solutionwould need to combine attitude- and behavior-improvingapproaches with technological ones in order to ensurelasting change

Conclusions

It appears that by gradually replacing animal agriculturelarge-scale production of cultured meat could greatly re-duce animal suering human disease risk and environ-mental problems Achieving this will nevertheless be anextremely diicult costly and time-consuming challengerequiring several yearsrsquo worth of concerted eort acrossmultiple disciplines before cultured meat can rival con-ventional meat products However cultured meat re-search has received very little attention so far makingit relatively easy to conduct basic research that may laterprove catalytic to further development This in combi-nation with its potentially extraordinary return on animaland human welfare in the long term convinces us thataccelerating cultured meat is a worthwhile investment atthis time

We therefore strongly support eorts to

1 Fund and promote academic interest in cellularagriculture

Due to its high uncertainty pioneer-ing science should ideally take placewithin the low-risk research climate ofacademia with funding provided by gov-ernments and nonprofits to ensure thatfindings become publicly available Thiswill enable widespread adoption and re-finement of techniques across scientificdisciplines worldwide

2 Increase public awareness about the benefits of

culturedmeat

Once a solid research foundation existsentrepreneurs will be able to experimentwith scaling and marketing of culturedproducts to consumers It is possible thatthe ensuing market could expand rapidlyif significant public interest in cellularagriculture already exists by this time

3 Facilitate culturedmeatdevelopment throughpol-icy changes

It is possible that government subsi-dies and increased national budgets forbiotech and agrotech research can accel-erate the development of cultured prod-ucts Once economically viable cellularagriculture will also require new regula-tory frameworks in each country whereproduction is to take place Early involve-ment from political organizations mayease the intricate political work that isneeded in both cases

Funding recommendations

New Harvest

This small transparent[108] nonprofit works to estab-lish cellular agriculture as a distinct field in biotechnol-ogy They do this by funding and coordinating catalyticresearch fostering communication across relevant fieldsin academia business and politics and running publicawareness campaigns Despite having a short track recorddue to their small size they appear to be involved tovarying degrees in all recent and ongoing cultured meatprojects and are currently scaling up in order to accom-modate a growing workload It is our understanding thatNew Harvest has a concrete and actionable mission strat-egy which includes short-termplans to help granteeswithfunding and scientific counseling as well as long-termplans to establish academic political and social supportof cellular agriculture[91]

Muufri Clara Foods

Initiated by New Harvest these two companies are us-ing cellular agriculture to produce milk and eggs respec-tively Neither of these commodities require living cellsor tissue in the final product making them far simpler tomass produce using current technology than any other

7

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

cultured animal product They thus present an opportu-nity for cultured foods to secure a place in consumer mar-kets relatively soon which is likely to aid consumer accep-tanceof culturedmeatproductsonce theyareavailable forconsumption[18]

Algae biofuels

It is our understanding that cultured meat cannot beproduced economically without ready access to largeamounts of the raw biomass that is needed to grow mus-cle tissue Thisbiomasswouldnecessarily have tobemoreresource-eicient than the crops currently used to pro-duce animal feedstocks Microalgae seems the preferred

source for this biomass and while microalgae are alreadyproduced industrially to some extent the algaculture in-dustry itself is still in its infancy and thus needs signifi-cant scaling up before it can meet the requirements ofmass-produced cultured meat Consequently it seemsthat rapid establishment of a large algae biomass indus-try is needed to supply the eventual development of cul-tured meat on a large scale The majority of ongoing in-novation in this field is taking place in the biofuels indus-try an emerging sector whose solutions for combating cli-mate change and food shortage seem favorable in the longterm[65] We thus recommend funding towards the accel-eration of algae biofuels as a potential win-win for speed-ing up the large-scale development of cultured meat

8

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

References

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012 ldquoFAOSTAT Agriculture Livestock Primaryrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations Statisticshttpfaostatfaoorgsite569DesktopDefaultaspxPageID=569

[2] Steinfeld Henning Pierre Gerber TomWassenaar Vincent Castel Mauricio Rosales C de Haan and Others 2006Livestockrsquos Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

[3] Jones Bryony A Delia Grace Richard Kock Silvia Alonso Jonathan Rushton Mohammed Y Said DeclanMcKeever et al 2013 ldquoZoonosis Emergence Linked to Agricultural Intensification and Environmental ChangerdquoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110 (21) 8399ndash8404

[4] Leibler Jessica H Joachim Otte David Roland-Holst Dirk U Pfeier Ricardo Soares Magalhaes JonathanRushton Jay P Graham and Ellen K Silbergeld 2009 ldquoIndustrial Food Animal Production and Global Health RisksExploring the Ecosystems and Economics of Avian Influenzardquo EcoHealth 6 (1) 58ndash70

[5] Zoonotic Diseasesrdquo 2015 WHO | Zoonoses World Health Organization October 22httpwwwwhointzoonosesdiseasesen

[6] Harari Yuval Noah 2015 ldquoIndustrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in Historyrdquo The Guardian September 25httpwwwtheguardiancombooks2015sep25industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question

[7] Singer Peter 1995 Animal Liberation RandomHouse

[8] Singer Peter 2015 ldquoThe Abuse of Animals Wonrsquot Stop until We Stop Eating Meat | Peter Singerrdquo The GuardianFebruary 11 httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2015feb11abuse-animals-meat-eating-industry-liberation-speciesism

[9] Todd Benjamin 2014 ldquoWhich Cause Is Most Eective - 80000 Hoursrdquo 80000 Hours January 21https80000hoursorg201401which-cause-is-most-eective-300ending-factory-farming

[10] Ash Tom 2014 ldquoThe New Animal Charity Evaluators Recommendations Are outrdquo Eective Altruism ForumDecember 1 httpeective-altruismcomeabnthe_new_animal_charity_evaluators_recommendations

[11] Open Philanthropy Project 2013 ldquoTreatment of Animals in Industrial Agriculture | GiveWellrdquo GiveWell Septemberhttpwwwgivewellorglabscausestreatment-animals-industrial-agriculture

[12] Singer Peter 2006 ldquoFactory Farming A Moral Issuerdquo Utilitarian March 22httpwwwutilitariannetsingerby20060322htm

[13] Wellesley Laura Catherine Happer and Antony Froggatt 2015 ldquoChanging Climate Changing Diets Pathways toLower Meat Consumptionrdquo Chatham House ReporthttpswwwchathamhouseorgsitesfileschathamhousepublicationsresearchCHHJ382020Diet20and20climate20change20181115_WEB_NEWpdf

[14] Smil Vaclav 2002 ldquoWorldwide Transformation of Diets Burdens of Meat Production and Opportunities for NovelFood Proteinsrdquo Enzyme and Microbial Technology 30 (3) 305ndash11

[15] Robinson Timothy Philip Thornton Gianluca Franceschini Russ Kruska Federica Chiozza An NotenbaertGiuliano Cecchi et al 2011 ldquoGlobal Livestock Production Systemsrdquo Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO) httpwwwcabdirectorgabstracts20123268130html

Cultured Meat

[16] Hoag Hannah 2013 ldquoHumans Are Becoming More Carnivorousrdquo Nature News Decemberdoi101038nature201314282

[17] FAO 2011 ldquoWorld Livestock 2011 - Livestock in Food Securityrdquo Rome FAO Publicationshttpwwwfaoorgdocrep014i2373ei2373epdf

[18] Schubert Stefan ldquoPrioritisation of policy interventions to support cultured animal products and plant-basedsubstitutes of animal productsrdquoGlobal Priorities Project Unpublished as of March 2016

[19] Singer Peter 2013 ldquoThe Worldrsquos First Cruelty-Free Hamburgerrdquo The Guardian August 5httpwwwtheguardiancomcommentisfree2013aug05worlds-first-cruelty-free-hamburger

[20] Hopkins Patrick D and Austin Dacey 2008 ldquoVegetarian Meat Could Technology Save Animals and Satisfy MeatEatersrdquo Journal of Agricultural amp Environmental Ethics 21 (6) Springer Netherlands 579ndash96

[21] Tuomisto Hanna L and M Joost Teixeira de Mattos 2011 ldquoEnvironmental Impacts of Cultured Meat ProductionrdquoEnvironmental Science amp Technology 45 (14) 6117ndash23

[22] Mattick Carolyn S Amy E Landis Braden R Allenby and Nicholas J Genovese 2015 ldquoAnticipatory Life CycleAnalysis of In Vitro Biomass Cultivation for Cultured Meat Production in the United Statesrdquo Environmental Science ampTechnology 49 (19) 11941ndash49

[23] Fiala Nathan 2010 ldquoThe Value of Cultured Meat An Estimate of the Externality Costs of Meat ConsumptionrdquoInternet httpnew-harvestorgwp-contentuploads201303fiala_2010pdf [Feb 5 2013]httpnew-harvestorgwp-contentuploads201303fiala_2010pdf

[24] Churchill Winston 1931 ldquoFiy Years Hencerdquo Strand Magazine Teaching American Historyhttpteachingamericanhistoryorglibrarydocumentfiy-years-hence

[25] Benjaminson M A J A Gilchriest and M Lorenz 2002 ldquoIn Vitro Edible Muscle Protein Production System (MPPS)Stage 1 Fishrdquo Acta Astronautica 51 (12) 879ndash89

[26] Post Mark 2015 ldquoThe Meat Revolutionrdquo presented at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the NewChampions 2015 Dalian Peoplersquos Republic of China September httpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=1lI9AwxKfTY

[27] Gerber PJ Steinfeld H Henderson B Mottet A Opio C Dijkman J Falcucci A Tempio G 2013 ldquoTacklingClimate Change through Livestock A Global Assessment of Emissions and Mitigation Opportunitiesrdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations httpwwwfaoorgdocrep018i3437ei3437epdf

[28] International Transport Forum 2010 ldquoReducing Transport Greenhouse Gas Emissionsrdquo Leipzig OECDhttpwwwinternationaltransportforumorgPubpdf10GHGTrendspdf

[29] Climate Change Division 2012 ldquoMethane Emissionsrdquo US EPA March 15httpwww3epagovclimatechangeghgemissionsgasesch4html

[30] United Nations Environment Programme nd ldquoHow Close Are We to the Two Degree Limitrdquo In UNEPhttpwwwuneporgPDFPressReleasestemperature-briefing-21-02-10-final-epdf

[31] Mekonnen M M and A Y Hoekstra 2010 ldquoThe Green Blue and Grey Water Footprint of Farm Animals and AnimalProductsrdquo Del the Netherlands Engineering Technology (CTW) httpdocutwentenl76912

[32] Mekonnen M M and A Y Hoekstra 2011 ldquoThe Green Blue and Grey Water Footprint of Crops and Derived CropProductsrdquo Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 8 (1) 763ndash809

[33] Rischkowsky Barbara and Dafydd Pilling 2007 ldquoThe State of the Worldrsquos Animal Genetic Resources for Food andAgriculturerdquo Commision for Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture httpwwwfaoorg3a-a1260epdf

10

Cultured Meat

[34] Graham Jay P Jessica H Leibler Lance B Price Joachim M Otte Dirk U Pfeier T Tiensin and Ellen KSilbergeld 2008 ldquoThe Animal-Human Interface and Infectious Disease in Industrial Food Animal ProductionRethinking Biosecurity and Biocontainmentrdquo Public Health Reports 123 (3) 282ndash99

[35] Baquero Fernando Joseacute-Luis Martiacutenez and Rafael Cantoacuten 2008 ldquoAntibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance in WaterEnvironmentsrdquo Current Opinion in Biotechnology 19 (3) 260ndash65

[36] ldquoPrescription for Trouble Using Antibiotics to Fatten Livestockrdquo 2016 Union of Concerned Scientists AccessedJanuary 23 httpwwwucsusaorgfood_and_agricultureour-failing-food-systemindustrial-agricultureprescription-for-troublehtml

[37] Andremont A 2015 ldquoWHO | What to Do about Resistant Bacteria in the Food-Chainrdquo Bulletin of the World HealthOrganization World Health Organization April httpwwwwhointbulletinvolumes93415-030415en

[38] Gilchrist Mary J Christina Greko David B Wallinga George W Beran David G Riley and Peter S Thorne 2007ldquoThe Potential Role of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Infectious Disease Epidemics and AntibioticResistancerdquo Environmental Health Perspectives 115 (2) 313ndash16

[39] ldquoWHO | Antibiotic Resistancerdquo 2015World Health Organization World Health Organization Aprilhttpwwwwhointmediacentrefactsheetsantibiotic-resistanceen

[40] Sprenger M 2015 ldquoWHO | How to Stop Antibiotic Resistance Herersquos a WHO PrescriptionrdquoWorld HealthOrganization Media Centre World Health Organization November 20httpwwwwhointmediacentrecommentariesstop-antibiotic-resistanceen

[41] Low Philip Jaak Panksepp Diana Reiss David Edelman Bruno Van Swinderen and Christof Koch 2012 ldquoTheCambridge Declaration on Consciousnessrdquo In University of CambridgehttpfcmconferenceorgimgCambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousnesspd

[42] ldquoAnimal Welfarerdquo 2007 European Commission December 17httpeceuropaeufoodanimalswelfareindex_enhtm

[43] Berridge Kent C and Morten L Kringelbach 2011 ldquoBuilding a Neuroscience of Pleasure and Well-BeingrdquoPsychology of Well-Being 1 (1) 1ndash3

[44] Griin Donald R and Gayle B Speck 2004 ldquoNew Evidence of Animal Consciousnessrdquo Animal Cognition 7 (1) 5ndash18

[45] HSUS 2010 ldquoAn HSUS Report The Welfare of Animals in the Meat Egg and Dairy Industriesrdquo Humane Society ofthe United States httpwwwhumanesocietyorgassetspdfsfarmwelfare_overviewpdf

[46] HSUS 2010 ldquoAn HSUS Report The Welfare of Animals in the Pig Industryrdquo Humane Society of the United Stateshttpwwwhumanesocietyorgassetspdfsfarmwelfare_pig_industrypdf

[47] HSUS 2012 ldquoAn HSUS Report The Welfare of Intensively Confined Animals in Battery Cages Gestation Crates andVeal Cratesrdquo Humane Society of the United Stateshttpwwwhumanesocietyorgassetspdfsfarmhsus-the-welfare-of-intensively-confined-animalspdf

[48] Pimentel David and Marcia Pimentel 2003 ldquoSustainability of Meat-Based and Plant-Based Diets and theEnvironmentrdquo The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 78 (3 Suppl) 660S ndash 663S

[49] Gerbens-Leenes P W S Nonhebel and W P M F Ivens 2002 ldquoA Method to Determine Land RequirementsRelating to Food Consumption Patternsrdquo Agriculture Ecosystems amp Environment 90 (1) 47ndash58

[50] Bracke M B M S Edwards G Geers N E OrsquoConnell L Juul-Pedersen and A Valros 2008 ldquoThe Risks Associatedwith Tail Biting in Pigs and Possible Means to Reduce the Need for Tail Dockingrdquo In Preparatory Work for the FutureDevelopment of Animal Based Measures for Assessing the Welfare of Weaned Growing and Fattening Pigs IncludingAspects Related to Space Allowance Floor Types Tail Biting and Need for Tail Docking 84ndash98 Parma Italy EFSA

11

Cultured Meat

[51] Pickett Heather 2009 ldquoReport on theWelfare of Pigs in the EU in Relation to Current Legislation and EnforcementrdquoCompassion in World Farming httpwwwciwforgukmedia3818889welfare-of-pigs-in-the-european-unionpdf

[52] Gregory Lemire H 2004 ldquoThe Welfare of Sows in Gestation Crates A Summary of the Scientific Evidencerdquo FarmSanctuaryhttpswebarchiveorgweb20071223155956httpwwwfarmsanctuaryorgcampaigngestation_evidencehtm

[53] Hemsworthlt P H J L Barnett and G J Coleman 1993 ldquoThe Human-Animal Relationship in Agriculture and ItsConsequences for the Animalrdquo Animal Welfare 2 (1) 33ndash51

[54] Fraser D D M Weary E A Pajor and B N Milligan 1997 ldquoA Scientific Conception of Animal Welfare That ReflectsEthical Concernsrdquo Animal Welfare 6 187ndash205

[55] Quinteiro-Filho W M A Ribeiro V Ferraz-de-Paula M L Pinheiro M Sakai L R M Saacute A J P Ferreira and JPalermo-Neto 2010 ldquoHeat Stress Impairs Performance Parameters Induces Intestinal Injury and DecreasesMacrophage Activity in Broiler Chickensrdquo Poultry Science 89 (9) 1905ndash14

[56] Turner J Garces L and Smith W 2003 The Welfare of Broiler Chickens in the European Union A Report byCompassion in World Farming Trust Compassion in World Farming Trust

[57] Chapman J V M 2010 ldquoFAO Legislative Study Legislative and Regulatory Options for Animal Welfarerdquo Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations httpwwwfaoorgdocrep013i1907ei1907e01pdf

[58] ldquoUndercover Investigationsrdquo 2015Mercy For Animals January 5 httpwwwmercyforanimalsorginvestigations

[59] Tuomisto Hanna L and Avijit G Roy 2012 ldquoCould Cultured Meat Reduce Environmental Impact of Agriculture inEuroperdquo In European Commission

[60] Bitten 2016 Bitten 2016 Isha Datar On Animal Products Without Animals YouTubehttpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=5FbQ89PFSsk

[61] Harris Sam and Uma Valeti 2016Meat Without Misery Podcast Accessed March 1httpswwwsamharrisorgpodcastitemmeat-without-murder

[62] Genovese Nicolas and Kris Notaro 5 October 2011 ldquoThe Crusade for a Cultured Alternative to Animal Meat AnInterview with Nicholas Genovese PhD PETArdquo Institute of Ethics and Emerging TechnologieshttpieetorgindexphpIEETmorenotaro20111005

[63] Datar I and M Betti 2010 ldquoPossibilities for an in Vitro Meat Production Systemrdquo Innovative Food Science ampEmerging Technologies IFSET The Oicial Scientific Journal of the European Federation of Food Science andTechnology 11 (1) 13ndash22

[64] Bhat Zuhaib Fayaz and Hina Bhat 2011 ldquoAnimal-Free Meat Biofabricationrdquo American Journal of Food Technologyno 6 441ndash49

[65] Diamandis Peter H and Steven Kotler 2012 Abundance The Future Is Better than You Think Simon and Schuster

[66] Post Mark J 2012 ldquoCultured Meat from Stem Cells Challenges and ProspectsrdquoMeat Science 92 (3) 297ndash301

[67] Grunert Klaus G 2005 ldquoFood Quality and Safety Consumer Perception and Demandrdquo European Review ofAgricultural Economics 32 (3) 369ndash91

[68] TNS Opinion amp Social 2010 ldquoSpecial Eurobarometer 354 lsquoFood-Related Risksrsquordquo European Commissionhttpwwwabgovtrfilesardbevt1_avrupa_birligi1_6_raporlar1_4_eurobarometerseurobarometer_food_related_risks_2010pdf

[69] Van Eelen Willem Frederik Willem Jan Van Kooten and Wiete Westerhof 1999Industrial ScaleProductionOfMeat From In-VitroCell CulturesWIPO 1999031222WorldPatent issuedJune25 1999httpspatentscopewipointsearchendetailjsfjsessionid=CB39D6B2F2E348482B826E7D1B53B9E5wapp2nAdocId=WO1999031222amprecNum=1ampmaxRec=ampoice=ampprevFilter=ampsortOption=ampqueryString=amptab=PCTDescription

12

Cultured Meat

[70] Post Mark J 2014 ldquoAn Alternative Animal Protein Source Cultured Beefrdquo Annals of the New York Academy ofSciences 1328 (November) 29ndash33

[71] ldquoMagic Meatballsrdquo 2016 Bistro In Vitro Accessed January 25 httpbistro-invitrocomendishesmagic-meatballs

[72] Global Agriculture Information Network 2001 ldquoUnited Kingdom Product Brief Exotic and Specialty Meatsrdquo USDAForeign Agricultural Service httpappsfasusdagovGainFiles20010265679757pdf

[73] ldquoExotic Animals for Sale - Havocscoperdquo 2014 Havocscope httpwwwhavocscopecomexotic-animals-for-sale

[74] Florian Koumlhler SusanneWildner 1998 ldquoConsumer Concerns about Animal Welfare and the Impact on Food ChoicerdquoUniversity of Kiel httpwwwuni-kieldeagrarmarketingEUKoewildPDF

[75] Miele Mara and Vittoria Parisi 2001 ldquoConsumer Concerns about Animal Welfare and Food Choice Strategies toAddress Consumerrdquo University of Pisa httpdxdoiorg

[76] Yeung Ruth M W and Joe Morris 2001 ldquoFood Safety riskmdashConsumer Perception and Purchase Behaviorrdquo BritishFood Journal 103 (3) 170ndash87

[77] Harper Gemma and Spencer Henson 2001 ldquoConsumer Concerns about Animal Welfare and the Impact on FoodChoicerdquo EU FAIR CT98-3678 Centre for Food Economics Research The University of Readinglondonpressserviceorgukhttpwwwlondonpressserviceorgukhaeu20131031020146httpeceuropaeufoodanimalwelfareresearchfair_projectpdf

[78] Meehan Hilary and Cathal Cowan 2002 ldquoFood Choice amp Consumer Concerns about Animal Welfare in IrelandrdquoThe National Food Centre httpt-storteagasciebitstream110191381Report2053pdf

[79] Honkanen Pirjo Bas Verplanken and Svein Ottar Olsen 2006 ldquoEthical Values and Motives Driving Organic FoodChoicerdquo Journal of Consumer Behaviour 5 (5) John Wiley amp Sons Ltd 420ndash30

[80] Enneking Ulrich 2004 ldquoWillingness-to-Pay for Safety Improvements in the German Meat Sector The Case of theQampS Labelrdquo European Review of Agricultural Economics 31 (2) 205ndash23

[81] Schroumlder Monika J A and Morven G McEachern 2004 ldquoConsumer Value Conflicts Surrounding Ethical FoodPurchase Decisions A Focus on Animal Welfarerdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies 28 (2) BlackwellScience Ltd 168ndash77

[82] ldquoAnimal Welfare Tops Consumersrsquo Ethical Wish List - 74 List This among the Top Factors Which Make a Food BrandEthical | Mintelcomrdquo 2016 Accessed January 29 httpwwwmintelcompress-centrefood-and-drink74-of-consumers-list-animal-welfare-among-the-top-factors-which-make-a-food-brand-ethical

[83] Special Eurobarometer 2007 ldquoAttitudes of EU Citizens towards Animal Welfarerdquo European CommissionhttpwwwvuzvskDB-Welfarevseobsp_barometer_aw_enpdf

[84] Chiles Robert M 2013 ldquoIntertwined Ambiguities Meat in Vitro Meat and the Ideological Construction of theMarketplacerdquo Journal of Consumer Behaviour 12 (6) 472ndash82

[85] ldquoTomorrowrsquos Meatball What We All Could Be Eating 20 Years From Nowrdquo 2015 Space10 December 9httpswwwspace10iojournaltomorrow-s-meatball-what-we-all-could-be-eating-20-years-from-now

[86] Edelman P D D C McFarland V A Mironov and J G Matheny 2005 ldquoCommentary In Vitro-Cultured MeatProductionrdquo Tissue Engineering 11 (5-6) 659ndash62

[87] Krans Brian and William A Morrison 2016 ldquoMuscle Biopsyrdquo Healthline January 11httpwwwhealthlinecomhealthmuscle-biopsy

[88] Jochems Carlo E A Jan B F van der Valk Frans R Stafleu and Vera Baumans 2002 ldquoThe Use of Fetal BovineSerum Ethical or Scientific Problemrdquo Alternatives to Laboratory Animals ATLA 30 (2) 219ndash27

13

Cultured Meat

[89] Datar Isha and Daan Luining 2015 ldquoMark Postrsquos Cultured Beefrdquo New Harvest November 3httpwwwnew-harvestorgmark_post_cultured_beef

[90] Post Mark 2015 ldquoWhat If Scientists Are the New Chefsrdquo presented at the World Economic Forum Annual Meetingof the New Champions 2015 Dalian Peoplersquos Republic of China Septemberhttpwwwweforumorgeventsannual-meeting-new-champions-2015sessionswhat-if-scientists-are-new-chefs

[91] Online communication between New Harvest CEO Isha Datar New Harvest research strategist Daan Luining andEective Altruism Foundation research associate Adrian Roslashrheim 2016 March 7

[92] Datar Isha and Gilonne DrsquoOrigny ldquoNew Harvest Strategic Planning Documentrdquo Unpublished as of March 2016

[93] ldquoBurger Tasting London 2013rdquo 2013 YouTube London England ITVhttpswwwyoutubecomwatchv=_Cy2x2QR968

[94] ldquoOur Storyrdquo 2016Memphis Meats httpwwwmemphismeatscomabout-us

[95] ldquo3D Vascularized Tissue The Cultured Steakrdquo 2016 New Harvest Accessed March 5httpwwwnew-harvestorgcultured_steak

[96] ldquoAlgae Cyanobacteria and Microbiological Production of Biofuelsrdquo 2016 European Biofuels Technology PlatformAccessed February 15 httpwwwbiofuelstpeualgae-aquatic-biomasshtml

[97] Slade Raphael and Ausilio Bauen 2013 ldquoMicro-Algae Cultivation for Biofuels Cost Energy BalanceEnvironmental Impacts and Future Prospectsrdquo Biomass and Bioenergy 53 (June) 29ndash38

[98] van der Welde Rommie and Marinus van Krimpen 2015 ldquoAlgae as a Promising New Type of Animal FeedrdquoWageningen UR February 3httpswwwwageningenurnlennewsarticleAlgae-as-a-promising-new-type-of-animal-feedhtm

[99] Whitmore Adam 2013 ldquoRenewables Growth Predictions and Accuracy | The Energy Collectiverdquo October 14httptheenergycollectivecomonclimatechangepolicy286586why-have-iea-s-projections-renewables-growth-been-so-much-lower-out-tur

[100] Metayer M C Breyer and H J Fell 2015 ldquoThe Projections for the Future and Quality in the Past of the WorldEnergy Outlook for Solar PV and Other Renewable Energy Technologiesrdquo 31st European PV Solar Energyresearchgatenet httpswwwresearchgatenetpublication281939932

[101] European Commission 2006 ldquoBeef Deadweight Market Pricesrdquo Agriculture and Rural Developmenthttpeceuropaeuagriculturebeef-vealpresentationscarcass-prices2016ca16-09pdf EU price average euro38kg

[102] Goodwin J N and C W Shoulders 2013 ldquoThe Future of Meat A Qualitative Analysis of Cultured Meat MediaCoveragerdquoMeat Science 95 (3) 445ndash50

[103] Forgacs Andras 2016 ldquoLeather and Meat without Killing Animalsrdquo Accessed February 18httpwwwtedcomtalksandras_forgacs_leather_and_meat_without_killing_animals

[104] Verbeke Wim Pierre Sans and Ellen J Van Loo 2015 ldquoChallenges and Prospects for Consumer Acceptance ofCultured Meatrdquo Journal of Integrative Agriculture 14 (2) 285ndash94

[105] ldquoSam Harris Asks Would You Eat Cultured Meatrdquo 2016 The Good Food Institute February 5httpwwwthegoodfoodinstituteorgsam-harris-asks-would-you-eat-cultured-meat Poll results as of February 12016 83 Yes 17 No

[106] Schaefer G Owen and Julian Savulescu 2014 ldquoThe Ethics of Producing In Vitro Meatrdquo Journal of AppliedPhilosophy 31 (2) 188ndash202

14

Cultured Meat

[107] Welin Stellan and C Van der Weele 2012 ldquoCultured Meat Will It Separate Us fromNaturerdquo In Climate Change andSustainable Development 348ndash51 Springer

[108] ldquoNew Harvest Review | Animal Charity Evaluatorsrdquo November 2015 Animal Charity Evaluators Accessed March 10httpwwwanimalcharityevaluatorsorgresearchorganizationsnew-harvest-review

[109] Gleadle Allison 2010 ldquoEmerging Food Technologies Novel Protein Sources as Foodrdquo Food Standards Agencyhttpwwwfoodgovuksitesdefaultfilesmultimediapdfsboardfsa111110pdf

[110] van Duijne F and A Visser 2010 Voorzorg Voor Voedsel- En Productveiligheid Een Kijkje in de Toekomst Voedselen Waren Autoriteit Bureau Risicobeoordeling

[111] Cazaux G D Van Gijseghem and L Bas 2010 ldquoAlternatieve Eiwitbronnen Voor Menselijke Consumptie EenVerkenning Rapport Departement Landbouw En Visserij Afdeling Monitoring En Studie Januari 2010rdquoDepotnummer D20103241 36

[112] Jaeger Kyle 2016 ldquoYou Can Now Eat Meat Without Killing the Animal It Came Fromrdquo Attn March 15httpwwwattncomstories6565kill-free-meat-products Poll results as of March 28 2016 77 Yes 23 No

[113] McCrum Kirstie 2016 ldquoWould You Eat This Laboratory-Grown lsquoMeatrsquordquo Mirror March 21httpwwwmirrorcouknewsworld-newsscientists-create-first-ever-laboratory-7602107 Poll results as of April 62016 53 Yes 18 No 29 Undecided

[114] CompassionUSA April 16 2016 Factory Farmers Expose Diseased Chickens YouTubehttpwwwyoutubecomwatchv=ZVfHcXUUn-s

15

Sentience Politics is an anti-speciesist political think-tank We advocate a society which grants moral

consideration to all sentient beings regardless of their species membership Our activities include

political initiatives and the composition of scientific position papers in order to encourage rational

discussion on important issues

Our philosophy is based on eective altruism How can we use our limited resources (time and

money) to reduce asmuch suering as possible Sentience Politics uses rationality and empirical sci-

ence in order to identify and implement the most eective strategies We also use this approach in

order to select and prioritize the causes that we work on

Sentience Politics was founded as a project of the Eective Altruism Foundation (EAF) in 2013 EAF

is an independent think tank and project overseer founded at the intersection of science and ethics by

a team of young interdisciplinary individuals It is a part of the fast-growing Eective Altruismmove-

ment and aims to improve the lives of as many sentient beings as extensively as possible In order to

achieve this goal with limited resources EAF uses rational thinking and evidence-based approaches

Would you like to support our work Please visithttpsentience-politicsorgensupportfor more information on several ways to support us

copy 2016