In this presentation, Andras Forgacs, talked about the technology of creating raw animal products in facility like brewing beer.
He explains that today, 60 billion animals are killed to provide our living supplies such us meat, eggs and leather goods. As the world population expands, more animal should be need. He insists that our livestock are not just raw materials but they are living animals, and also they are already one of the largest users of land, water, and also they cause climate change by producing greenhouse gases.
“But now, there’s another way.” Andras says. He insists that now, they can grow animal products like meat and leather.
He started a company to 3D print human tissues and organs with his father. At that point, some people thought that they were crazy. But now, in medicine, biofabrication techniques has already succeed to create sophisticated body parts, such as ears, windpipes, skin, blood vessels and bones. He explains that meat and leather are made up from cells, the basic unit of life, so it is easier to create meat and leather than those sophisticated body parts. He has already made a piece of leather by biofabrication.
He insist that biofabrication has many pros. But in my opinion, actually, I don’t know if it’s good or not to produce all our meat or dairy from biofabrication. Of course I think that it’s wonderful if we don’t need to kill animals to get meat or leather. Even now, I think that we should reduce the use of animal leather. On a coming-of-age ceremony day in Japan, a lot of furs are consumed only for the day and thousands of animals are killed. But we don’t know what would occur when we started to eat biofabrication products. I think it’s natural that animal are killed for other animals to survive. Many other carnivore eats other meats by killing them.
And also, I think it needs time to those products would spread. When genetically-modified soybean started sold in Japan, many people didn’t bought them. In a similar way, I think many people would feel fear if biofabrication products are safe. It needs long time to spread.
In conclusion, I don’t know if the technology of biofabrication is good or bad. But I think it’s very interesting technology and could be change our lives.