This, he argues:Ĭould break the hegemony of the massive companies that now control global food commodities. Monbiot also advocates making cultured meat technology free from patents, to allow the widest possible distribution of ownership. How gardeners are reclaiming agriculture from industry, one seed at a time Notions like Monbiot’s farmfree food undermine the work of keeping farmers on board. Some entrepreneurs suggest cultured meat factories could be hosted on farms that grow plant-based input materials, or that farmers could rear animals (potentially from rare breeds) as cell donors. On another, the cultured meat community has been careful not to exclude farmers entirely, with some insisting that cultured meat can broaden the “protein portfolio” alongside livestock. On one level, as Monbiot suggests, the aim is to replace industrial animal farming. The relationship between traditional farming and the cultured meat industry has been tricky to balance. The same day Apocalypse Cow was screened, Monbiot published a Guardian opinion piece in which he described this as “farmfree food” that “will allow us to hand back vast areas of land and sea to nature”. Most are rooted in a venture capitalist tech culture that grew out of Silicon Valley and many companies – including New Age Meats, Finless Foods, and Mission Barns – are located within the San Francisco Bay Area. Many cultured meat companies have no link to conventional farming. The dual identity of a livestock farmer turned cultured meat entrepreneur captures a tension in the politics of lab-grown food. World Economic Forum/Wikipedia, CC BY From the land to the labĭunsford’s story is unusual. The world’s first cultured hamburger, ready to be fried on August 5 2013. “Anything that’s alien to you can be slightly scary,” he said. Dunsford himself admitted that it took a while for him to adjust too. As Monbiot noted, to some this is Frankenstein food. Working with the University of Bath, he showed Monbiot a small work-in-progress bioreactor, used for growing animal muscle cells. My personal choices here, as a farmer in Wales, had a direct correlation with the crops that were being grown in Brazil.ĭunsford returned to the UK and became a leading figure in the UK cultured meat sector. It was an “emotional experience” for Dunsford, as he recalled in the documentary: He moved away from his career as a livestock farmer after travelling South America and seeing deforestation in the Amazon. I’m a sociologist and have spent 12 years documenting the politics and culture of the people working in this industry: people like Dunsford, the CEO of Cellular Agriculture Ltd, who I have occasionally worked with. With characteristic zeal, Monbiot asserts that huge tracts of Earth’s surface, instead of being carefully maintained to grow food, could be returned to natural habitat like forests, meadows and marshes.Ĭlimate crisis: the countryside could be our greatest ally – if we can reform farming
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