The Nightly On … Tomorrow: Grubs up! What a | Australian Markets
What will sir have tonight? Charcoal-grilled cultivated dodo with a facet serve of crispy fried crickets and salad of genetically modified seaweed from our vertical farm is a standard dish.
Or what concerning the braised mammoth meatballs with garlic-fried larvae?
Sounds far-fetched, like one thing out of Jurassic Park, however these tasty meatballs exist.
Australian cultured or lab-grown meat company Vow grabbed headlines in 2023 with its mammoth meatball created from lamb, mammoth and African elephant DNA.
Described by Forbes magazine because the “spaceship of the cultured meat industry”, Vow was based in 2019 by former chef George Peppou and entrepreneur Tim Noakesmith with the intention of utilizing animal cells to outline the long run of food. The company at the moment sells its cultivated quail parfait and foie gras to Singapore and Hong Kong high quality diners whereas awaiting regulatory approval for Australia.
Cultured meat is in its infancy, however lab-grown protein alongside bugs, AI-driven robot farms and vertical city greenhouses are on the menu because the world grapples with how to feed 10 billion people by 2050. That calls for an increase in food manufacturing of about 70 per cent.
Simon Eassom from unbiased suppose tank Food Frontier says we need to scale back reliance on animal agriculture, which produces between a quarter and a third of all international greenhouse emissions. As temperatures rise, we need more water to grow fewer plants.
Professor Johannes le Coutre, a food and health skilled from the University of NSW, believes we’ll nonetheless eat meat in 25 years however far much less of it should come from livestock.
“There are simply not enough cows on this planet to meet projected food production demands,” he says, “and we can’t ignore the looming environmental challenges posed by the agriculture and food industry.”
The alt-protein sector is tipped to grow into a $65 billion market by 2034.
In February, Melbourne-based cultivated meat makers Magic Valley acquired $100,000 in matched funding from the Federal Government to shift from analysis to business manufacturing.
Launched in 2020, Magic Valley specialises in lab-grown pork and lamb made by taking a small pattern of pores and skin cells from a residing animal, that are grown in a bioreactor earlier than being harvested and was meat merchandise. The cells’ growth is limitless, that means this course of may be repeated time and again.
Magic Valley’s head of analysis and development Professor Andrew Laslett says it’s “not too hard” to copy the style and texture of historically farmed meat “because what we’re growing are actual animal cells”.
It additionally removes the emotional baggage of animal slaughter.
Magic Valley, which hopes to commercially launch its first merchandise by subsequent 12 months, says the method reduces emissions by 92 per cent, land use by 95 per cent and water use by 78 per cent in comparison with typical farming.
MAGGOT BURGERS
Expect to see crickets, cockroaches and different bugs in your plate, in the event that they’re not already. More than two billion people throughout 130 international locations eat bugs, that are a source of high-quality protein, fat, iron, zinc and nutritional vitamins.
“They actually taste quite good,” says Dr Regine Stockmann, principal scientist at CSIRO. “You wouldn’t know unless someone tells you.”
But what about maggots? Specifically, black soldier fly larvae that remodel waste into nutrient-rich bio-fertiliser or frass. Around 30 per cent of the world’s food manufacturing goes to waste, costing the worldwide financial system roughly $940b annually, so something that reduces waste is nice news.
A 2020 University of Queensland research discovered that black soldier fly larvae comprise more zinc and iron than lean meat and their calcium content material is larger than milk. They have the potential to exchange meat in burger patties and sausages.
LUPIN YOU IN
Dr Rose Roche is the pinnacle of Ag2050, a CSIRO-funded program how to make Australian farming systems profitable, sustainable and productive. Part of that image is more protein-rich legumes, together with black beans, chickpeas, lupins and lentils.
Australia grows more than 85 per cent of the world’s lupins, which use minimal water to grow and put nitrogen back into the ground.
“Legumes are really good for human nutrition,” Roche says, “but they also reduce your reliance on synthetic fertilisers, which might be more expensive in the future.”
GOT MILK?
Melbourne-based Eden Brew claims its precision-fermented milk “tastes like milk” however “without the downsides”.
The company developed what it calls a world-first animal-free casein micelle, the building block of cow milk accountable for 80 per cent of dairy protein. Less than 10 litres of water is utilized in making a litre of Eden Brew’s product in comparison with 1000 litres for cow’s milk and 6000 litres for almond milk.
The sustainable mission raised $25 million in funding in 2023 and has attracted investment from Australian musicians Bernard Fanning and Angus Stone, music promoter Paul Piticco and Paralympian Dylan Alcott, plus the Victorian Government.
GOING SIDEWAYS
Why farm on flat soil when you may grow crops vertically in stacked layers of environmentally managed agriculture?
Vertical farms such because the Gold Coast-based Stacked Farm and Eden Towers in Western Australia are developing what they describe because the “farms of the future”, producing herbs on the identical price or cheaper than conventional farms, with a longer shelf life and smaller environmental footprint.
Eden Towers claims to make use of 98 per cent much less water and a tenth of the space whereas producing close to zero emissions.
Vertical farms use AI and robots to automate manufacturing from seeding to harvesting.
Stacked Farm just lately introduced plans to construct a 10,000sqm “automated veggie patch” in Melbourne to provide 3.4 million kilograms of greens annually with simply 15 workers.
RISE OF THE ROBOTS
Traditional farmers are additionally turning to AI. Queensland-based SwarmFarm Robotics has created a spot-spray machine which reduces chemical utilization and prices. The machine is armed with software program to help make data-driven selections however is easy enough to be fixed by farmers.
The company has deployed more than 130 autonomous robots, or SwarmBots, to farm more than two million hectares and cut back pesticide utilization by round 5 million tonnes.
“The beauty of a robot is that it can go all hours of the day,” SwarmFarm spokesperson Tom Holcombe says. “It’s not limited by when someone’s awake, not on holidays or the fact Friday afternoon is rolling around.”
THE BIG, BIG PICTURE
Theoretically, we make enough tucker to feed the planet. Reducing waste in any respect phases of the availability chain needs to be a high precedence however alone gained’t remedy food security points, which vary from wars and pandemics to financial inequity.
Professor le Coutre says lowering food wastage, assuaging poverty and innovating to seek out more sustainable sources of protein (perhaps not mammoth meatballs) are key to fixing the world’s food security disaster.
“If we can achieve all three on a global scale, we’ll have the right recipe to a more sustainable food system,” he says.
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