Socio-economic and environmental sustainability of biomanufactured food and agricultural products: An integrated assessment framework

Biomanufacturing of food and agricultural products is increasingly being recognized as a transformative solution to sustainability challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, and food security. Biomanufactured products-including precision-fermented food ingredients, microbial proteins for feed, and bio-based agricultural chemicals and treatments-offer promising benefits but can also be disruptive, posing socio-economic, environmental, and governance challenges when commercialized. This study presents a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework to evaluate these impacts. We conducted a systematic review of 57 peer-reviewed studies and key gray literature to examine the sustainability implications of biomanufactured food, feed, and agricultural inputs. Twenty key sustainability indicators were categorized into environmental, societal, governance, and economic dimensions, enabling a structured evaluation of both benefits and challenges. Large-scale biomanufacturing of food and agricultural products offers opportunities to diversify and complement the food system through sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture, delivering environmental gains such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, land and water use, and pollution, while generating less waste compared to conventional crop and livestock farming and enhancing biodiversity. These products have the potential to enhance food security, nutrition, and health, but face adoption barriers related to regulatory complexities, ethical considerations, and public acceptance. Economically, they promise growth, innovation, new jobs, and supply chain resilience, but require high initial investment and may disrupt conventional farming markets. This holistic assessment, along with comparing hypothetical stakeholder-specific perspectives from government, industry, environmental scientists, and consumers, provides actionable insights for policymakers and industry leaders, underscoring the need to carefully manage the transition to biomanufactured systems to balance innovation with sustainability trade-offs.