Synthetic meat and the future of agriculture
Various synthetic meats will be available at affordable prices, the institute writes in a report titled The UK and the World in 2050.
Lab-grown meats will be manufactured on a factory scale by 2050, a think tank in the UK has predicted.
A new 'futurology' study by the Adam Smith Institute claims agriculture will be much more environmentally friendly in future, particularly in the UK.
Various synthetic meats will be available at affordable prices, the institute writes in a report titled The UK and the World in 2050. New vegetables will be created by cross-breeding and genetic modification.
Many of these changes will be achieved by the widespread, nearly universal, use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the report continues.
As a result, the think tank believes it will be possible to develop crops that fertilise themselves and those that can thrive on land previously thought to be unproductive or insufficiently fertile.
There will be crops that are saline tolerant, pest resistant, drought resistant and tolerant of heat and cold, the institute claims.
Cereal crops could be altered so that fields will not need to be spread with large amounts of chemical fertiliser, which runs off into rivers and streams, leading to algae blooms that kill fish by using their oxygen.
Genetic modification will also be used to develop very fast-growing trees that can mature in six years rather than 50, and will take in carbon from the atmosphere.
Adam Smith believes the UK will be a pioneer in bringing about these developments, with many of the scientific breakthroughs occurring in the country's laboratories and universities.
Read the full report here: http://www.adamsmith.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/madsen_pirie_-_2050_online.pdf
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