Browsing by Author "Oljemark, Fiina"

Finland's goal is to be a carbon-neutral society by 2035. In the case of agriculture, the key objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sinks. However, alongside mitigating climate change, food supply must be secured for a growing population. In the future, food production should be increased without increasing its negative environmental impact. Solving this equation is one of the greatest societal challenges to which the food production system must adapt. In this work, I study the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that result from the production processes of different protein food products. I gather the results for beef, oil plants, wheat, neo-carbon protein, and cultured meat. In addition to the environmental load, I determine the profitability of the production of these goods by considering both the net commercial income and the net social income, where the latter includes also emissions and environmental load in the cost estimates. Traditional beef production uses a large proportion of cultivated cereals as fodder, and almost all available grassland for grazing. I determine the benefits that would accrue if, in the future, part of the beef consumed were replaced by cultured meat. A similar comparison is made between oil plants used as fodder and neo-carbon protein. New protein food products have the potential to be more resource efficient and less harmful to the environment than traditional forms of food production. My results show that a protein kilogram of cultured meat requires 99,2 % less land, 97 % less water and 70 % lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to beef production. Correspondingly, compared to oil plants, neo-carbon protein consumes 99,5 % less land and 98 % less water, and results in 95 % lower greenhouse gas emissions. If half of the current domestic production of beef and oil plants were replaced by cultured meat and neo-carbon protein, a total of about 1,2 million hectares of land would be freed up for other uses. Afforestation of arable land would reduce soil carbon emissions by up to 34 million tCO2 equivalents per year. For a private landowner, however, afforestation of the field is not an economically viable option if the system of government subsidies remains the same. Economic incentives are needed in order to increase the net present value of afforestation beyond that of arable farming. Over the 60-year period I am looking at, a subsidy of 7 140 EUR per hectare would be needed for afforestation to be an economically profitable investment for a private landowner.