has compared the land area needed to grow protein by a process similar to Pasi Vainikka’s with the most efficient agricultural method: US soybean farming.6 In a typical year, soybeans occupy 36.5 million hectares of the US, an area greater than Italy. The land required to produce the same amount of protein by growing bacteria is 21,000 hectares: the size of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. In other words, you’d need 1,700 times less land to grow it.
