I've just received some news on my recent criticism of industrially produced food. Sorry for coming back to this topic again and again, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on how the story develops. I'll take a look at new topics at the end.
So this latest article is another rather dreamy post announcing the bright future for Solein, the protein powder made from bacteria by the Finnish company Solar Foods. The interesting thing about it is that it contains some facts and figures about the company's production processes, presumably from the company itself, which confirm the figures I gave in my book. Say no to a future without agriculture.
The article suggests that Solar Foods' new factory can produce a maximum of 160 tonnes of solein per year, using an average of 7,000 MWh of electricity. Assuming a maximum of 70 per cent digestible protein content (there are reasons to believe the true value is lower), this gives the following calculation:
7,000,000 kWh / 160,000 kg / 0.7 = 62.5 kWh per kg protein
This is pretty close to the 65.3 kWh/kg I calculated in Say NO… and almost four times more than the 16.7 kWh/kg that George Monbiot quoted in his influential book Regenesis who promoted the method.
It is clear that the figure of 62.5 kWh/kg only covers part of the energy costs of the process. It excludes, for example, the energy needed to capture and feed carbon dioxide into the process – and presumably other inputs and infrastructure costs. It is also about Average by a maximum Number. Overall, the figure of 62.5 kWh/kg is certainly too low, but it does set a lower limit for the enormous energy costs of the process.
I had already shown that the 16.7 figure was wrong, but this new article is the final nail in the coffin. It would be nice if that figure was retracted – but unfortunately that is out of my hands. Given the essentially nonexistent “transition” to clean energy described in my previous post, which does not even meet existing energy needs, this technology is not feasible as a mass food product, as the renewable energy production required to meet the additional energy demand for industrially produced food if it is to play a major role in a sustainable future would have to increase enormously.
Another problem with this type of bacterial protein powder that I have barely addressed in Say NO… is its worryingly high content of a bioplastic called PHB, which can break down in the gut into a pharmacologically active compound called hydroxybutyrate, which has been described as having potential use in the treatment of narcolepsy, alcohol withdrawal syndrome, cationic and chronic schizophrenia, chronic brain syndrome, atypical psychoses, drug withdrawal, circulatory collapse, Parkinson's disease, cancer, radiation exposure, and various other neuropharmacological disorders. All of this could be good news, but not necessarily if you regularly consume it in large quantities as a food and important source of protein.
Unfortunately, technical impracticality and uncertain health effects rarely seem to be a barrier to widespread acceptance of the latest healing technologies. Even the august environmental organization Greenpeace seems to have jumped on the bacteria bandwagon. Admittedly, this is happening in the context of exposing the livestock industry's lobbying against industrially produced food, which is fine. But while Greenpeace has opposed the promotion of biotechnology and advocated community-based and agroecological approaches to problems such as vitamin A deficiency, in this case the organization seems to have taken sides with one company's claim against another, swallowing a tall tale about the future of microbial food and energy.
Some of the hype around microbial foods centers on the idea that they are a substitute for meat. One problem with this view is that perfectly good substitute meat products based on soy and other legumes already exist. The land use of the microbial product may be less, but that must be weighed against its enormous energy use, plus the numerous additional costs – environmental and otherwise – in the long, material-intensive supply chain that drives microbial substitute meat factories. The trophic inefficiency arguments against meat consumption find an exact parallel in the arguments against eating microbial substitute meat.
It seems to me that what really excites proponents of microbial alternative meat are the technology's possibilities for abolishing agriculture—what some are calling a “counter-agrarian revolution.” It's easy to understand why food corporations like this idea, because it greatly increases their already considerable powers to monopolize production. But at first glance it's harder to understand why anyone else would find this attractive. I think the answer lies in the fact that our contemporary civilization has become so alienated from the idea that humans should earn their living like other species by participating in nature's economy as ecological protagonists, as “simple members and citizens of biotic communities,” to use Aldo Leopold's famous words, that the pursuit of supposedly nature-free or agrarian food production in order to supposedly “leave more land to nature” has become attractive.
I have written a lot about the numerous problems with this argument and will not repeat them here. Instead, I will just comment on how the debate plays into the hands of corporations. Bruce wrote on this site, “My concern is that opposition to lab-grown meat will be used to defend some of the worst current practices,” and I agree that this is very likely to be the case. Going against the interests of the meat industry for a biotech approach that is so obviously unsound in many ways is a gift to the interests of that meat industry. Likewise, the horror show of the global meat industry is a gift to the interests of alternative meat synbio production. Often, there are pretty much equal amounts of money behind these two respective interests – another case of the “heads I win, tails you lose” game that neoliberal capital is so good at.
What is missing is the pro-nature and pro-human argument for local agroecological agriculture that can include mixed farming and pastoralism – even at a commercial level – that is not representative of the “meat industry”. It saddens me that many thoughtful and hard-working but increasingly demoralized farmers are being smeared with this “industry” ribbon by people who too easily and indiscriminately join the global discourse about the need to reduce meat consumption. As true as that may be (and, well, it is quite complicated…), it is rarely true that local agroecological systems with livestock – or, for that matter, with grain – repeat the mistakes of the “meat industry” or “arable industry” systems. We need those farmers. I wish public narratives about agriculture were less full of contempt, less indiscriminate in their goals, and less naive about imaginative biotechnological alternatives.
Low-energy agroecological farming without livestock is possible – it's just usually a little less efficient and requires more human or machine labour (in the latter case the arguments about greater sustainability are pretty much moot). But I'm all for people trying different systems and seeing what works. In general, I think low-energy agroecological systems will draw on the mixed farming approaches that preceded fossil-fuel-powered modernity in most populated areas, and the pastoral approaches that preceded it in most unpopulated areas. But who knows? Maybe there's something new under the livestock-free sun.
Be that as it may, the real dividing line is not between livestock-free and mixed/pastoralist farming, but between commercial farming (mainly arable farming, but also meat production and alternative meat production) and local, non-commercial, community-based farming. I think this needs to be constantly emphasised and reiterated so that the ecomodernist cash pipeline from the state to corporations and the associated rewilding approach do not further undermine the possibilities for future sustainability.
Current reading: Philipp Loring Finding our niche: Towards a restorative human ecology …which somehow relates to the above. Loring writes, “…it is indeed possible for us to coexist with the rest of the natural world and repair the damage we have done. We do not do this by self-quarantine, by leaving nature alone. We do this by aligning our lives and destinies with those of the species, landscapes, and seascapes around us.” (p. 26). Loring's comments on ecomodernism are incisive, equating it with white supremacy. So far, of course, I don't agree with everything he writes, but I do agree with him that we must ultimately align our lives and destinies with the surrounding biota and avoid what he calls “self-quarantine” – which I believe is the direction the industrially produced food narrative is taking us. How we can alternatively better align our lives and destinies with our environment is the focus of my future projects.
