Opportunities to produce food from substantially less land

Bibliographic Details
Title: Opportunities to produce food from substantially less land
Authors: H. Charles J. Godfray, Joseph Poore, Hannah Ritchie
Source: BMC Biology, Vol 22, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2024)
Publisher Information: BMC, 2024.
Publication Year: 2024
Collection: LCC:Biology (General)
Subject Terms: Food system, Vertical farming, Meat substitutes, Cellular agriculture, Fermentation, Food processing, Biology (General), QH301-705.5
More Details: Abstract The vast majority of the food we eat comes from land-based agriculture, but recent technological advances in agriculture and food technology offer the prospect of producing food using substantially less or even virtually no land. For example, indoor vertical farming can achieve very high yields of certain crops with a very small area footprint, and some foods can be synthesized from inorganic precursors in industrial facilities. Animal-based foods require substantial land per unit of protein or per calorie and switching to alternatives could reduce demand for some types of agricultural land. Plant-based meat substitutes and those produced through fermentation are widely available and becoming more sophisticated while in the future cellular agricultural may become technically and economical viable at scale. We review the state of play of these potentially disruptive technologies and explore how they may interact with other factors, both endogenous and exogenous to the food system, to affect future demand for land.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1741-7007
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/1741-7007
DOI: 10.1186/s12915-024-01936-8
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/aa0ec9c76d564f63a79357527da1f8d9
Accession Number: edsdoj.0ec9c76d564f63a79357527da1f8d9
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
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More Details
ISSN:17417007
DOI:10.1186/s12915-024-01936-8
Published in:BMC Biology
Language:English