Is the End of Animal Farming in Sight?

Jacy Reese, author of “The End of Animal Farming” believes that farming animals will end within this century.

“Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen the emergence of a powerful and dedicated farmed animal movement,” he explained. “This movement has been particularly successful through ‘effective altruism,’ the growing movement of people using evidence and data to do as much good as possible.”

These effective altruists are using the momentum from these campaigns to fuel technological development. From this, inventions like the Impossible Burger are being created and proving that meat-like products can be made using plant proteins. But Reese says that these plant-based alternatives still won’t satisfy everyone.

“In my book, ‘The End of Animal Farming,’ I outline how we can grow real animal meat straight from animal cells, instead of raising and slaughtering animals,” he explained. “Scientists and chefs can take a small sample of cells from a living animal today, place those cells in a cultivator, which looks like one of the big tanks at a beer brewery, and grow muscle and fat the same way they’re grown inside an animal’s body.”

Reese says a big reason for optimism about the end of animal farming is that it doesn’t have to be the end of meat, and he believes that in just a few short years, these “clean meat” methods will start to pop up more places and feed more consumers.