Saturday, March 30, 2024

ALTERNATIVE VIEW: Synthetic wave is now a tsunami

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A year ago I wrote about the threat to New Zealand of artificial protein, primarily meat and milk.
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While there have been quite a few articles, speeches and discussions of the subject since then I get the sincere impression that we’re not actually doing anything, as evidenced by Jack Keey’s Pulpit in last week’s Farmers Weekly.

I believe the threat has moved from being a wave to resembling a tsunami. 

I also believe we can survive the threat but we have to do a lot more than we are doing.

The present debate reminds me of NZ’s reaction, some decades ago now, to the threat of artificial fibres.

They’ll never replace wool was the universal feeling.

The argument then went on to tell us about wool being a long-lasting, natural fibre that was as good as it gets, sustainable and environmentally friendly – all of which is true.

In 1960 wool provided 70% of a sheep farmer’s income. In 2010 it was just 16%.

The wool industry has been devastated by synthetics and that doesn’t look like changing anytime soon.

Now we have the real and present threat of synthetic meat and milk.

My point, simply put, is we need a single, national plan to handle the threat of fake meat and milk. If we don’t develop strong national strategies we’re going to get well and truly screwed.

In the 50-plus years we’ve had the threat of synthetics our wool industry has not developed any national strategies. There’s been a pile of ad hoc lurching from crisis to crisis driven largely by arrogance and egos but nothing concrete that everyone has brought into.

That said, I wish Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor all the best with his wool initiative. It’s not going to be easy.

Getting back to synthetic meat, the first thing that needs to be done is to correct all the misinformation, the fake news about the product.

The second is to position NZ produce as a cut above anything else, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

On the artificial meat side the Impossible Burger has been hailed as a pristine example of environmental friendliness.

I have problems with that, starting with its genetic engineering or modification.

I think it is somewhat ludicrous that we can get massive bleats about the evils of GE whenever the subject is raised yet it tends to be the same people embracing artificial meat.

Mufri milk, now called Perfect Day, is similarly genetically engineered.

Beyond Meat is a cultured product that requires animal blood, serum and sugar.

Sugar is needed in many so-called natural products but it is important to acknowledge that sugar production requires land, a considerable amount of tillage, fertiliser and is heavily processed. The greenhouse gas emissions the process encourages are considerable and the amount of land required is significant.

To get artificial chicken onto our supermarket shelves we have to import yellow peas from Canada. They have a large environmental footprint.

In addition to the genetic engineering there are other unexpected products involved, such as xanthan to reduce animal-free products’ high water content.

Xanthan was developed to thicken drilling mud in the oil industry.

In addition, the intensive manufacturing process used to produce artificial meat and milk represents a whole new phase of industrialisation with all the trade-offs that will involve.

So my view, unsurprisingly, is artificial products aren’t the great environmental hope they’re made out to be.

I look forward to some good investigative journalism on the subject.

The reality, however, is that artificial proteins are here and now. They are a considerable threat to animal proteins.

That threat will be at the bottom level, certainly initially. I can’t at this point see a good fillet steak coming out of soy.

The vast majority of our exports are bulk commodities. We send containers overseas full of milk powder, butter and frozen meat.

That needs to change. We’ve been saying that for decades.

We’ll also need to have NZ telling a really good story but, as I’ve said in the past; it needs to be a national story and not one of the various sectors doing their own thing at the expense of others.

For a start, our grass-fed meat and dairy are natural products that aren’t heavily processed using lots of additives and genetic engineering.

They are, to coin a phrase, clean, green and natural.

The simple issue is that we are not addressing the problem as a country and we need to do that and now.

We need a single, national strategy and if we don’t, meat and dairy will follow wool.

Most of all we need strong leadership that will get a team together, the industry groups working as one and a realistic goal that everyone buys into. 

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