jakir770
NEWBIE
Doczy: 07 Mar 2024
Posty: 1
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 Plant burgers are way better for the planet than beef, but t |
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That may once have been true, but the rapid growth of plant-based meats in recent years has begun to fundamentally alter agricultural supply chains, creating new demand for key ingredients like cocoa butter and coconut oil. Yet even as the plant-based meat industry is snapping up more of those ingredients, small farmers like Jalil say they’re not seeing any benefit. “Cacao farming is getting increasingly difficult,” he said, pointing to unpredictable prices, a more variable climate, and growing risk of crop disease as growing challenges. “Many farmers are cutting down their cacao trees” and abandoning their plantations. (Cacao is the raw, unprocessed product of the cacao fruit, from which cocoa is roasted and processed.) What is happening on the ground in Sulawesi should serve as a major warning sign for the plant-based meat companies that rely on these tropical oils. Facing slowing growth in the United States, plant-based meat producers are working hard to reduce costs in the hope of hitting a goal deemed essential to their future: bringing the price of plant-based meat in line with that of beef or pork.
Industry watchers warn that plant-based alternatives will struggle to break out of their current niche status unless they can achieve price parity with meat. “Long-term price parity is the only way that these products are going to be competitive,” said Ryan Nebeker, a research analyst at the nonprofit Foodprint. One way to do that is to lower ingredient costs, but supply chain challenges and threats from climate change could make USA Phone Number achieving that goal tough. Much of the supply of coconut oil and cacao butter comes from countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Cte d’Ivoire, and Ghana, with weak labor and environmental protections. There is a risk that a desire to lower costs could result in purchasing cacao butter or coconut oil from less ethical sources. These are delicate questions to ask. Nothing can take away from the fact that the emissions and deforestation footprints of beef are far worse than those of plant-based alternatives.
Beef is an outsize driver of deforestation around the world, including in the vital Amazon rainforest. One serving of beef, as Vox has reported, requires as much as 20 times more land and four times more water, and creates more emissions, than an equivalent serving of plant-based meat. Chart showing CO2-equivalent emissions for meat and alternatives. Beef has by far the highest range, with dairy following it, and then pork, chicken, plant-based meats, and tofu, in that order. Tim Ryan Williams/Vox But no diet is free from impacts on the planet and those who live on it. Even as the plant-based meat sector offers an important tool in mitigating climate change — not to mention reducing the number of animals sent to the slaughterhouse — there are risks of unintended environmental and labor consequences. That includes significant localized impacts in tropical cacao- and coconut-growing regions in Asia and Africa, areas that haven’t been as intensively impacted by the beef industry as South America.
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