If test tube meat, insects and GM are the answer..

Vicki Hird

26 June 2013

...what was the question?

Is it 'How do we feed 9 billion by 2050'?  Or could it be 'How do we protect biodiversity by growing more food on less land?' or 'How do we make food cheaper?' Or is it 'How do we eat healthier or reduce animal cruelty?

Looking at the motivation behind so many 'new' food fads and technologies, it often looks like none of the above.

Climate and other threats loom over the global food supply, but the data suggests we do already produce enough food to feed ourselves now; and possibly enough to feed 9 billion by 2050. We just seem to be incapable of using it wisely. The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) José Graziano da Silva said in 2012 -"We have the resources to guarantee food security for all, today and in four decades from now".  We don't have a crisis of production. We have a crisis of consumption. And waste. And poverty. 

Don't get me wrong. As a scientist, I am well up for new technologies.

Lab meat could be a useful tool but the current media blitz seems well ahead of the reality. I have seen so many reports heralding the first juicy test tube 'burger' which then does not appear. The big money needed to develop such meat is, I understand, from the animal welfare community. The objective is sound - reduce animal suffering in factory farms. And alternatives like Quorn are well established. But the lab burgers are a long, long way from the bun. 

It's true that eating insects is not a new fad. Entomophagy - the techy term - is a long-established and good protein source in many parts of the world. The UN recently put out a paper which showed how we could benefit from more bug munching. But I'm not convinced it is going to replace global meat guzzling soon enough. And is this 3D printing of pizzas malarkey a real solution? Or just something space folk will have to swallow.

Are we distracting ourselves by discussing large-scale fly factories and lab burgers?

And I'm not sure I need to say much about the over-hyped claims made for last century's GM technology when the Secretary of State Owen Paterson did so well last week. The discovery of a completely unauthorised GM wheat in the US - engineered to resist weedkiller - further shows major flaws in this technology.

The true origins of a sustainable and fair food future, especially for poorer countries, lies in power and money - redistributing both so they work for communities and consumers; not for distant markets or large scale monoculture production. 

A disruption of the current norm is needed. It is complex - and probably very far from the ideas of the so-called new Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition which the G8 announced but which African farmer groups are opposing.

And we need to challenge how crops are used for animal feed and biofuels. As a high level panel of experts from the UN FAO say, "Demand tends to be presented as an exogenous variable (like the weather) that cannot be negotiated. This is not true." It is possible to change diets. 

This is not about consigning the rural or urban poor to food poverty forever as Monsanto likes to suggest. It is all too obvious where their interest does lie.

But we need to focus on the real solutions. The question is not whether the £250,000 burger passes the taste test or if this rather marvellous insect flour 3d printed biscuit is cool (it is). Or really if GM is safe..

It's not going to feed the world.

Disrupting the current trend will - putting control and support for the food system into the right hands, eating more efficiently, like eating less meat, wasting less, feeding no crops to cars may just do it...

Slug kebab anyone?

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