The agricultural sector is the largest emitter of climate-damaging gases. These gases include carbon dioxide, ozone, ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen chloride.
In the first twenty years following its emission, practices like bovine belching and flatulence produced the potent greenhouse gas methane.
This gas is roughly 80 times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The main issue is with the manufacturing process of red meat.
According to Greenpeace, livestock farming accounts for 18% of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions globally, equivalent to all pollution created by ships, planes, trucks, vehicles, and all other modes of transportation combined..
Africa’s cattle population accounts for one-third of the world’s total. Every year, farmers across the continent chop and burn forests to make room for cattle ranching, transforming woods, marshes, and savannas from environmentally beneficial carbon sink to CO2 emitters.
Animal husbandry leads to land degradation, and 48% of rangelands in Sub-Saharan Africa were damaged owing to overgrazing.
However, Africa’s biggest beef producer is assisting the continent in eating its way to a more sustainable future.
In March, Mzansi Beef Co., which markets itself as the first cellular agriculture firm, debuted the continent’s first cultured meat burger.
It states that the company aims to revolutionize the continent’s food systems. It makes its cultured beef products by taking a peppercorn-sized cell sample from a cow and growing it in a controlled environment.
In order to produce cultivated meat, the company uses cells that are then grown in bioreactors. The company then differentiates them into muscle and fat to create real meat. This process skips the need to raise and slaughter an animal.
According to the co-founder and CFO Tasneem Karodia, the manufacturing process produces five times fewer emissions than traditional meat processing.