The global trend in meat consumption is clearly upward, as the article says. I presume that global economic development is going to continue along with more meat-eating. There isn't enough land for everyone to consume meat like 20th century Americans if we stick to 20th century meat production techniques.
What remains?
I personally believe that cultivation of hydrogen oxidizing bacteria, and using them as a food chain base for animal feed, may constitute a second Green Revolution [1] for the 21st century. One early company in this space is Solar Foods [2]. Even though Solar Foods is promoting direct use of microbial cultured protein as a human food ingredient, I think that as costs go down and scales go up it will become common for microbial protein to be used in aquaculture and agriculture for feeding traditional food animals which will then be consumed by people.
Hydrogen oxidizing bacteria can convert nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide to protein and other biological macromolecules without relying on photosynthesis. This constitutes a potential revolution in food production because any source of electricity can be used to generate hydrogen from water via electrolysis, and then biomass can be grown using that hydrogen plus carbon dioxide and nitrogen (plus small amounts of other mineral inputs).
Photosynthesis has a very low sunlight-to-food energy conversion ratio. A solar farm feeding hydrogen to microbial synthesis tanks could achieve more than an order of magnitude more food production per hectare than growing crops. Further, microbial synthesis tanks do not require weed control, insect control, or plowing (soil disruption). They require a minute fraction of the water needed to irrigate crops. They could operate on land that is too rocky, dry, hot, cold, or contaminated for farming. They could operate in windy places with little sun if powered by wind farms.
Here's an article focusing on the use of solar power for protein production:
"Solar-powered large scale microbial food production"
The authors use selection pressure to develop a population of hydrogen oxidizing bacteria that assimilate nitrogen from the air. It potentially renders the Haber-Bosch process [3] unneeded for protein production, replacing a high-pressure, high-temperature industrial process with a room temperature, atmospheric pressure biological process. That would be the greatest sea change in agriculture since the original invention of the Haber-Bosch process more than 100 years ago.
What remains?
I personally believe that cultivation of hydrogen oxidizing bacteria, and using them as a food chain base for animal feed, may constitute a second Green Revolution [1] for the 21st century. One early company in this space is Solar Foods [2]. Even though Solar Foods is promoting direct use of microbial cultured protein as a human food ingredient, I think that as costs go down and scales go up it will become common for microbial protein to be used in aquaculture and agriculture for feeding traditional food animals which will then be consumed by people.
Hydrogen oxidizing bacteria can convert nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide to protein and other biological macromolecules without relying on photosynthesis. This constitutes a potential revolution in food production because any source of electricity can be used to generate hydrogen from water via electrolysis, and then biomass can be grown using that hydrogen plus carbon dioxide and nitrogen (plus small amounts of other mineral inputs).
Photosynthesis has a very low sunlight-to-food energy conversion ratio. A solar farm feeding hydrogen to microbial synthesis tanks could achieve more than an order of magnitude more food production per hectare than growing crops. Further, microbial synthesis tanks do not require weed control, insect control, or plowing (soil disruption). They require a minute fraction of the water needed to irrigate crops. They could operate on land that is too rocky, dry, hot, cold, or contaminated for farming. They could operate in windy places with little sun if powered by wind farms.
Here's an article focusing on the use of solar power for protein production:
"Solar-powered large scale microbial food production"
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/08/03/solar-powered-large-s...
Also consider this astonishing recent research report:
"Microbial Protein out of Thin Air: Fixation of Nitrogen Gas by an Autotrophic Hydrogen-Oxidizing Bacterial Enrichment"
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/322827781.pdf
The authors use selection pressure to develop a population of hydrogen oxidizing bacteria that assimilate nitrogen from the air. It potentially renders the Haber-Bosch process [3] unneeded for protein production, replacing a high-pressure, high-temperature industrial process with a room temperature, atmospheric pressure biological process. That would be the greatest sea change in agriculture since the original invention of the Haber-Bosch process more than 100 years ago.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
[2] https://solarfoods.com/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process