Fungus-Based Meat Alternatives Can Save Forest, Study Shows

Substituting 20% of meat from cattle with microbial protein — a meat alternative produced in fermentation tanks — by 2050 could halve deforestation, a new analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) published in the journal Nature finds, SciTechDaily reported.

Photo Insert: More and more forests that store a lot of carbon are cleared for cattle grazing or growing its feed and because of further greenhouse-gas emissions from animal agriculture.

“The food system is at the root of a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, with ruminant meat production being the single largest source,” says Florian Humpenöder, researcher at PIK and lead author of the study.

That is because more and more forests that store a lot of carbon are cleared for cattle grazing or growing its feed and because of further greenhouse-gas emissions from animal agriculture.

Part of the solution could be existing biotechnology: Nutritious protein-rich biomass with meat-like texture produced from microbes like fungi via fermentation, what scientists call “microbial protein.”

“The substitution of ruminant meat with microbial protein in the future could considerably reduce the greenhouse gas footprint of the food system,” says Humpenöder.

“The good news is that people do not need to be afraid they can eat only greens in the future. They can continue eating burgers and the like, it’s just that those burger patties will be produced in a different way.”

The team of researchers from Germany and Sweden included microbial protein in a computer simulation model to detect the environmental effects in the context of the whole food and agriculture system, as opposed to previous studies at the level of single products.

Their forward-looking scenarios run until 2050 and account for future population growth, food demand, dietary patterns as well as dynamics in land use and agriculture.

“We found that if we substituted 20 percent of ruminant meat per capita by 2050, annual deforestation and CO2 emissions from land-use change would be halved compared to a business-as-usual scenario. The reduced numbers of cattle do not only reduce the pressure on land but also reduce methane emissions from the rumen of cattle and nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizing feed or manure management,” says Humpenöder.

“So replacing minced red meat with microbial protein would be a great start to reduce the detrimental impacts of present-day beef production.”

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