ArticlePloS one2025
The climate impact and land use of cultivated meat: Evaluating agricultural feedstock production.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Comparing meat alternatives for a sustainable food system.NPJ science of food · 2026Article
- Global Comparison and Future Trends of Major Food Proteins: Can Shellfish Contribute to Sustainable Food Security?Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Public discourses of alternative protein foods in Facebook public pages' posts, 2014-2024.PloS one · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
As global demand for meat continues to rise, alternative and sustainable methods of production are being explored. Cultivated meat (CM) is one such alternative that holds potential for sustainable production with less environmental impact. This study develops an approach to evaluate CM production based on agricultural feedstock. The specific objectives are to determine the minimum land area required to produce a certain amount of cell medium-feedstock for CM production-on agricultural land and to identify potential future land use scenarios assuming that the macro components of the cell medium are solely produced from common agricultural crops in southern Germany. A linear programming model was developed to analyze four different scenarios of CM production, considering factors such as crop rotation, nutrient sourcing, and solar energy use. The results indicate that CM production using plants as raw material for the cell medium cannot improve land use efficiency substantially compared to conventional pork production. Extraction methods, crop choice, and energy sources will strongly influence future pathways for CM. We also find that there is no substantial benefit from CM in terms of climate change mitigation when feedstock is sourced solely from plants. This study provides valuable insights into the limitations of using agricultural feedstock for sustainable CM production. The findings suggest that future research should focus on optimizing the land use efficiency of CM. This includes exploring alternatives such as sourcing cell media from precision fermentation instead of relying solely on crops, and utilizing upcycling possibilities.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.