Brief

<p>Naoufer Ramoul introduced the CEO of New Harvest, Mrs. Isha Datar to the World Government Summit to talk about her innovative idea of cellular agriculture and its relationship with climate change. </p> <p>While Datar attended her fourth year as an undergraduate, she saw herself signing up for a meat science class in the agricultural department. With a background in microbiology, Datar was able to create the opportunity of linking traditional agriculture with laboratory cellular cultures and answer the question of whether the hen or the egg came first. This idea came to be of immense importance when climate change was found to affect animal agriculture. Datar suggested that 7.1 giga tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per annum comes from animal agriculture. Emissions from animal agriculture in China are measured to be more than that of fossil fuels. In 20 years, Datar mentioned, the global warming potential will be 85 degree more partly due to methane.</p> <p>As climate conditions continue to vary over the years, animals become less productive, less fertile and less healthy. Datar believes that the transformative in these figures will be due to cellular agriculture. Whether through the production of intracellular products like proteins or through using actual muscle cells, cellular agriculture will create food product in vitro. According to Datar, this will reduce 85% of greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of producing food and drinks on laboratory scales is extravagant. For instance, the first hamburger meat created in the Netherlands costed around 300 thousand Dollars.</p> <p>Ramoul ended the session inquiring how long it would take to buy food products created by cellular agriculture. Datar answered that this could take decades unless governments and people embrace this approach and significantly support it.</p>

Du Hall

February 13, 2017 - 10:50 - 11:10

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