One of the main advantages to vertical farms over traditional farms is its low carbon footprint. This low carbon footprint helps offset carbon emissions for the entire process of produce, including transportation, storage, and even food waste.
But what about livestock?
In a perfect world, we would culture it. Lab grown meat is far from a new concept. Nine years ago the first beef burger patty was made using strands of muscle tissue grown in a lab. If you factor in the two years it took to grow those strands, that’s 11 years!
Even with a decade of research and development under its belt, the sale of cultured meat is still far on the horizon. From lawmakers to government agencies and the consumer itself, cultured meat has a long way to go before it becomes a real alternative.
So, where do we go from here?
Let’s go back to the “process” mentioned earlier. Where in the process of livestock and meat production can we reduce carbon emissions? The answer is right at the start, the feed.
Using the methodologies of vertical farming and hydroponics, GrazeIT, a company out of the UAE, has managed to not only drop the carbon cost of animal feed, but also pack it with more nutrients to produce a higher quality final product. Moving large fields of grain into a compact, efficient, and controlled space goes miles for reducing the the carbon footprint of livestock production, and so does a higher quality product. Higher quality means longer shelf life which in turn reduces the likelihood that it will become food waste. Less food waste = less carbon emissions.
You can read the original article from Verticalfarm Daily
here.
Happy Friday and happy weekend!
-Noah 🐮
