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

The results indicate that when considering production emissions and carbon opportunity cost, scenarios 1 and 2 show slightly lower carbon cost of consumption (9.0 and 9.1 t CO2e t-1) as well as scenarios 3 and 4 (10.8 and 10.7 t CO2e t-1) compared to the emissions of German pork production (11.24 t CO2e t-1) reported by Wirsenius et al. (2020) [105]. 5. Discussion 5.1 Comparison with existing literature Our investigation into CM production in southern Germany reveals limited land use advan- tages when compared with traditional pork production when feedstock is solely taken from crops. Our findings contrast with the assertions of several previously published studies which have not taken into account crop rotation restrictions or pure plant-based cell media [40, 41, 50]. The examined scenarios highlight that crop rotation restrictions along with protein and sugar content of specific crops are crucial factors determining the land use efficiency of CM. If CM were fed by cell media produced from plant-based crops to a large extent, land use effi- ciency would not be substantially better than it would be for conventional pork production. It is important to keep in mind that the cell culture medium accounts for the highest environ- mental impact in CM production [42]. The higher energy demand of CM production translates into additional land requirements when renewable energy sources, namely ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, are employed. Table 7. Comparison of land use efficiency of different European pork production systems and cultivated meat production.

Scenario/ LCA Protein source Energy source Solar panel use Area efficiency (m2/kg) Scenario 1 (max. extraction/ no solar energy) Maximum yield from all crops Maximum yield from crops No 5.6 Scenario 2 (max. extraction/ solar energy) Maximum yield from all crops Maximum yield from crops Yes 5.79 Scenario 3 (specific extraction/no solar energy) Proteins only from protein crops Sugar from energy crops No 7.26 Scenario 4 (specific extraction/solar energy) Proteins only from protein crops Sugar from energy crops Yes 7.26 Mean 6.48 Examples from LCAs for Cultivated Meat Production Smetana et al., 2015 Cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria - 0.4 Vergeer et al., 2021 Soy Maize - 1.8 Sinke et al., 2023 75% Soy hydrolysate/ 25% chemical & microbial production Maize 2.48 Mattick, et al., 2015 Soy Maize - 5.4 Tuomisto et al., 2022 Soy Maize - 6.89 Mean (without ranges) 3.39 Average from LCAs for pork production Gislason et al., 2023 31 studies from various countries 8.02 (adjusted from live weight) Mean (without ranges) 7.93 Note: m2/kg = square meters per kilogram; LCA = Life Cycle Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316480.t007 PLOS ONE Evaluating agricultural feedstock for cultivated meat PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316480 January 22, 2025 17 / 27