Emissions from farming for meat are astonishingly high. Without the emissions from farm animals, there would be a lot less greenhouse gasses and we would massively reduce the global warming problem.

The university of oxford has recently (June 2018) concluded a study to assess the environmental impact of producing 100 grams of protein. They collected data from different sources.

It appears that if everybody switched to plant-based food, we would reduce farmland needed by 3.1 billion hectares, that is an amazing 76% (!) and completely resolve the greenhouse gas emission problem. Can we expect something similar when we switch to manufactured meat?

Environmental impact of producing 100 grams of protein

Environmental benefits from massively switching from farmed meat to manufactured meat are still largely unknown at this stage. However, it seems they would be similar to the findings from the Oxford report: gas emissions would be less, but also at least controllable. We would not have to release them into the atmosphere.

Water and land use would both be less than with farmed meat.

It appears that especially cows cause a lot of greenhouse emissions. The reason is that they are ruminant: they actually ’emit’ a lot more methane than, say, pigs or chickens.

In the manufactured beef case, the digestive process would be eliminated. The nutrition for the growing beef would come through some form of blood (or medium) and would be added to this blood directly. In this way, no methane would need to be secreted at all.

Manufactured meat, and then especially beef, would reduce global warming significantly.