[imagesource:unsplash]
While most South Africans love a juicy beef steak, the scary reality is that the meat industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate change.
Surprisingly enough, the en masse industrial culling of animals is not the biggest culprit. Don’t stress, you can send this article to your vegan friends too.
One of the most serious issues is that all the billions of animals needed to satiate our love of a protein-packed meal pack a mighty punch when it comes to emitting gas. Yes, the poeps and burps of farm animals are not just giggle-material but contribute to 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions each year. That means these flatulent critters are producing more gas emissions than all global transport use combined.
On top of this, farming practices, especially when unsustainable and unmonitored, are slowly destroying large scores of land. And it’s regular South Africans who will suffer.
By 2050, Africa’s population is estimated to double, and with 40% of all maize in SA going to fatten up cows for beef, this is a serious issue. Even if our country could find enough arable land to produce these huge amounts of grain, when not done carefully, wide areas of land can become barren if sustainable farming practices are not put into place.
With all those terrifyingly real implications in mind, lab-grown meat may well be our best shot at keeping the planet healthy, while also improving the food security that SA so desperately needs.
Founder of WildBio and ‘cultivator’ of game meat Dr Paul Bartels is bravely paving the way for something like this to be possible.
While not all of us are fans of game meat, you’ve got to be impressed by the concept behind WildBio, which is Africa’s first-ever cultivated game meat programme. It’s clear this guy knows what he’s doing, also boasting a veterinarian qualification and a Masters of Science in Zoology.
The meat maverick Dr Bartels hasn’t stopped at game vleis. As someone who can’t resist a classic chicken nugget, I’m impressed that the doc teamed up with Tshwane University of Technology and University of KwaZulu-Natal recently, in order to create the first lab-grown hybrid chicken nugget on the continent.“Think of it like a brewery for meat where tiny cells are taken from a live animal (for example, a chicken, a cow or a springbok) and then grown or brewed in a laboratory.”
Dr Bartels also holds an interesting philosophy on this topic, where he suggests that, rather than preventing people from producing and enjoying meat products, we should be “exploring ways in which we can coexist with nature” instead.
“Who’s to say, maybe in 200 or 250 years, there might not be (mass) slaughtering of animals to feed people,” says Dr Bartels.
While it’s all sounding quite sci-fi at this point – or rather, braai-fi – it’s exciting to see that talented members of our science communities are thinking out of the box for the future, with the best intentions for South Africans in mind.
[source:dailymaverick]
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