The climate impact and land use of cultivated meat: Evaluating agricultural feedstock production

RESEARCH ARTICLE The climate impact and land use of cultivated meat: Evaluating agricultural feedstock production Hanno KossmannID*, Thorsten Moess, Peter Breunig Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition, Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences, Weidenbach, Germany * hanno.kossmann@hswt.de Abstract As global demand for meat continues to rise, alternative and sustainable methods of produc- tion are being explored. Cultivated meat (CM) is one such alternative that holds potential for sustainable production with less environmental impact. This study develops an approach to evaluate CM production based on agricultural feedstock. The specific objectives are to determine the minimum land area required to produce a certain amount of cell medium– feedstock for CM production–on agricultural land and to identify potential future land use scenarios assuming that the macro components of the cell medium are solely produced from common agricultural crops in southern Germany. A linear programming model was developed to analyze four different scenarios of CM production, considering factors such as crop rotation, nutrient sourcing, and solar energy use. The results indicate that CM produc- tion using plants as raw material for the cell medium cannot improve land use efficiency sub- stantially compared to conventional pork production. Extraction methods, crop choice, and energy sources will strongly influence future pathways for CM. We also find that there is no substantial benefit from CM in terms of climate change mitigation when feedstock is sourced

solely from plants. This study provides valuable insights into the limitations of using agricul- tural feedstock for sustainable CM production. The findings suggest that future research should focus on optimizing the land use efficiency of CM. This includes exploring alterna- tives such as sourcing cell media from precision fermentation instead of relying solely on crops, and utilizing upcycling possibilities. 1 Introduction Human diets have prominently incorporated meat for millennia, serving as a cornerstone for nutritional needs and livelihoods throughout the world [1–3]. Despite declining meat con- sumption in high-income countries, forecasts indicate a ballooning demand for meat in forth- coming decades due to global population surges and increasing incomes [4, 5]. Plant-based foods are not always available or affordable and livestock is an important source of income to poor households [6]. Globally meat is instrumental for food security and livelihoods [7, 8]. PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316480 January 22, 2025 1 / 27 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Kossmann H, Moess T, Breunig P (2025) The climate impact and land use of cultivated meat: Evaluating agricultural feedstock production. PLoS ONE 20(1): e0316480. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0316480 Editor: Anto´nio Raposo, Lusofona University of Humanities and Technologies: Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, PORTUGAL Received: October 3, 2024 Accepted: December 11, 2024 Published: January 22, 2025

Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316480 Copyright: © 2025 Kossmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript.