Recent concerns over rising inheritance tax for farmers has seen many commentators once again contemplating the future of farming.
In the last 5 years, the cost of livestock farming has increased by up to 54% to meet rising costs of food, fuel and fertilisers, while food retailers seek to drive down the rates paid to suppliers to keep their own prices competitive.
All forms of agriculture could be at risk, as the world’s population is expected to increase by 1.5bn by 2050, and already 73% of the UK’s total land area is being used for agriculture. With land prices soaring, efficient use of land space will need to be a priority when looking at a sustainable future of food for generations to come.
Then there are significant concerns over environmental impacts, as livestock farming contributes to 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions and increasing land costs have pushed for more intensive and environmentally damaging agricultural techniques.
According to the UN, global urbanisation is expected to increase by 68% by 2050, with over half the world’s population already living in urban areas, this represents a dramatic increase. As agricultural land disappears, farming will need to be able to adapt to occupy urban areas.
Vertical farming
The solution for this may lie in vertical farming techniques.
Vertical farming does what it says on the tin, it makes traditional ‘horizontal’ farming practices vertical. Think a giant warehouse with wall to ceiling shelves full of crops. These indoor environments allow for precise regulation of the optimal environment for growing crops that are not vertically challenged and have high growing density. Foods such as microgreens (kale, broccoli), herbs and fruits are ideal for vertical farming and can be grown in a fraction of the time of traditional farming techniques. This frees up precious land for crops and livestock ill-suited for vertical farming. Vertical farming also uses significantly less environmental contaminants, such as pesticides and fertilisers, making it a more environmentally friendly alternative.
What is the likelihood of vertical farming replacing traditional farming? Not very likely. But vertical farming may be an ideal way to introduce farming to areas typically associated with poor farming conditions, such as arid environments, countries prone to droughts, floods or other adverse weather events. Vertical farming could even see crops grown in Antarctica or Space!
Vertical farming in the future may aid in increasing nutritional density of our diets. We’ll still need grains that make up a large part of our diet, but vertically farmed microgreens may be able to provide an extra nutritional boost if nutrient diversity becomes a scarcity in the future.
Lab grown meat
As livestock products, including meat, milk, and eggs, make up a large part of our protein intake, alternatives protein sources will need to be sought out if livestock farming continues to take a financial hit and agricultural land is lost to urbanisation. Plant-based protein sources are becoming more popular, especially as more people are opting for a vegetarian/vegan diet. But what if we could replicate meat with fewer costs, fewer ethical concerns and much less need for land space?
Lab-grown meat could be the answer. Lab-grown meat is derived from animal stem cells which can be taken as part of a biopsy. The stem cells are then grown in culture and encouraged to differentiate into specific cell types that mimic a slice of meat, such as muscle and fat cells.
Lab-grown meat eliminates multiple negative factors associated with the meat industry. It doesn’t need mass antibiotic use, which traditional livestock rearing requires to prevent the spread of infection. Antibiotic use in farming can contribute to antibiotic resistance, thus making lab-grown meat a more long-term sustainable option.
Half of the world’s agricultural land is used for rearing livestock, but lab-grown meat does not require anywhere near as much land space – with estimates suggesting it has the potential to save up to 90% of land space currently used for beef farming.
The Food Standards Agency received a £1.6m grant from the UK Government in October to fund appropriate safety testing of lab-grown food before it is approved for sale. With this funding secured, the probability of seeing lab-grown meat on our supermarket shelves in the near future has grown. But the proof is in the eating; will it ever reach our dinner plates?
With a large population of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians, the UK is said to be an ideal market for lab-grown meat. However, lab-grown meat often conjures the image of a burger in a petri dish. Imagining a delicious burger in such a clinical environment immediately reduces appeal, especially when plant-based alternatives are readily available. A lack of public appetite is perhaps the single most significant challenge that the lab-grown meat industry will have to meet if it wants to take food from the petri dish to our dinner plates.
A question of when
The future of food production needs to address concerns over population growth and environmental longevity and such developments as vertical farming and lab grown meat may do just that. There are still a few areas to address, like ensuring that the large amounts of energy required in the manufacture of lab grown products and vertical farming centres are sourced from renewable energy (which many vertical farms are already doing). But with rapid advancements in technology being steered towards sustainable food production, vertical farming and lab grown meat may not be the only new advancements producing the food we might see on our shelves in the very near future.
