Sustainable, healthier and cruelty-free animal products.
Current systems of meat production are exerting strain on finite resources and exacerbating climate change. Animal production is responsible for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions, extensive land and water use, and environmental damage. There are impacts on human health, animal welfare, disease transmission, hormone/antibiotic use, deforestation and meeting the needs of a growing population and increasing demands for protein (Fraser, 2020; Lima et al., 2022; Neethirajan, 2023). Ethical issues include crowding, dehorning, tail docking, castration, branding, de-beaking, tooth grinding, and forced insemination usually without anesthesia or pain relief. Transport can lead to injuries, dehydration, death and use of painful devices such as cattle prods. Despite growing interest in more sustainable animal production the end point is always slaughter. Around three-quarters of crop production is used for animal farming which represents an inefficient use of resources. In clearing of forests for the expansion of agricultural land we not only lose invaluable biodiversity but also diminish the capacity to absorb CO2 (Gebre & Gebremedhin, 2019).

There is an urgent need for alternatives to existing animal products (Kumar et al., 2022; Van Vuuren et al., 2018). Whilst there is growing interest in plant-based alternatives the percentage of consumption is still low; in the meantime the climate crisis increases in intensity. Cell-culture has potential to rapidly displace traditional livestock production. This project will build and evaluate a supply-chain transition model for cell-cultured meat and other animal product production; it will include economic evaluation of the scale and investment needed.

References
Fraser, E. D. (2020). The challenge of feeding a diverse and growing population. Physiology & behavior, 221, 112908.
Gebre, T., & Gebremedhin, B. (2019). The mutual benefits of promoting rural-urban interdependence through linked ecosystem services. Global ecology and conservation, 20, e00707.
Kumar, P., Mehta, N., Abubakar, A. A., Verma, A. K., Kaka, U., Sharma, N., ... & Lorenzo, J. M. (2022). Potential alternatives of animal proteins for sustainability in the food sector. Food Reviews International, 1-26.
Lima, M., Costa, R., Rodrigues, I., Lameiras, J., & Botelho, G. (2022). A Narrative Review of Alternative Protein Sources: Highlights on Meat, Fish, Egg and Dairy Analogues. Foods, 11(14), 2053.
Neethirajan, S. (2023). The Significance and Ethics of Digital Livestock Farming. AgriEngineering, 5(1), 488-505.
Van Vuuren, D. P., Stehfest, E., Gernaat, D. E., Van Den Berg, M., Bijl, D. L., De Boer, H. S., ... & van Sluisveld, M. A. (2018). Alternative pathways to the 1.5 C target reduce the need for negative emission technologies. Nature climate change, 8(5), 391-397

Professor Jeffrey Soar

• Business and Management

• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)