英検 1級 要約問題 サンプル練習問題 ⑧ Lab-Grown Meat: Promise or Peril?

Read the article below and summarize it in your own words as far as possible in English.

Summarize it between 90 and 110 words.

In the past decade, lab-grown meat—also known as cultivated or cell-based meat—has transitioned from a speculative concept to a tangible innovation captivating the global food sector. Developed by extracting stem cells from animals and nurturing them in bioreactors with nutrient-rich media, this product replicates the taste and texture of conventional meat without requiring animal slaughter or expansive farmland. Trailblazing firms in the United States, Israel, and Singapore have secured governmental approvals for limited sales, while investments surge amid projections that the market could burgeon to billions by 2030. With intensifying pressures from climate change, population growth, and ethical scrutiny of industrial farming, stakeholders are grappling with whether this biotechnology heralds a paradigm shift in protein production or merely a niche experiment.

Advocates emphasize its transformative potential to mitigate profound ethical dilemmas inherent in livestock farming. Conventional meat production often entails overcrowded conditions and routine slaughtering, practices decried by animal welfare organizations; lab-grown alternatives eliminate such suffering entirely. Furthermore, comparative environmental assessments indicate substantial efficiencies: it demands far less farmland—potentially making large areas available for rewilding—and slashes water usage by up to 95 percent, alongside reducing significant greenhouse gas emissions that plague cattle farming, thereby aligning with urgent needs for managing Earth’s resources.

Skeptics, nonetheless, highlight major obstacles that reduce enthusiasm. The resource-heavy cultivation process, reliant on sophisticated bioreactors and clean facilities, incurs extremely high energy costs, which could undermine claimed ecological advantages when examined across the full supply chain. Compounding these concerns, the nascent technology’s nutritional profile remains under rigorous investigation, with lingering doubts about scalability and unforeseen health effects from novel cellular engineering. Moreover, sudden widespread adoption risks causing major disruption in farming economies, where millions depend on herding and butchery livelihoods, potentially fueling social inequities and resistance from traditionalists wary of “Frankenfoods.”