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Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why the right wants to ban this innovation before you get to try it
Conservatives want the government to dictate what you can and cannot eat. Or so Republican policymaking increasingly suggests. Earlier this month, Montana and Nebraska became the latest US states to ban lab-grown meat (also known as 'cellular meat' or 'cultivated meat'). Unlike plant-based meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger, lab-grown meat consists of actual animal tissue, but made without slaughtering animals. Instead, scientists take a sample of animal cells and feed them amino acids, salts, vitamins, and other nutrients until they grow into edible beef, pork, or poultry. This technology isn't yet commercially viable. You can't buy cellular meat at a grocery store. And if you could, a serving might cost you the bulk of your savings. Nevertheless, self-styled champions of free enterprise in Nebraska, Montana, Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Wyoming have all sought to stymy the manufacture and sale of cellular meat within their borders. Although these bans are of little immediate consequence, they're nevertheless alarming and unconscionable. Industrial agriculture as currently practiced entails the torture of billions of sentient beings. And when forced to choose between tolerating such cruelty and forfeiting cheap bacon, nearly everyone picks the former. Lab-grown meat faces many scientific and economic hurdles to viability. But it is nevertheless our best hope for eliminating torture from our food system. And the right's push for prohibiting the technology is fueled by little more than paranoia, greed, and cultural grievance. Human beings generally love the taste of flesh, and not without reason. Meat is highly nutrient-dense, providing protein and essential amino acids, as well as vitamins and minerals that can be challenging to assemble from plant-based foods. The slaughter and consumption of animals has also been a central feature of human cultures, from the Paleolithic to the present day. Of course, for much of our species' history, meat was scarce. Raising livestock requires more resources than cultivating wheat or rice, which has long rendered highly carnivorous diets unattainable for ordinary people. As soon as humans can afford to eat meat regularly, however, most do so: Around the world, meat consumption rises almost linearly with increases in national income. This relationship may break down some in the wealthiest nations. Past a certain level of affluence, people seem to give more weight to environmental and medical arguments against heavy meat consumption — Germany, for example, has managed to modestly decrease its per capita meat consumption over the last decade. But even in extremely rich societies, moral or environmental arguments against meat consumption haven't made a significant dent on people's dietary choices. According to Gallup's polling, in 1999, 6 percent of Americans identified as vegetarians. By 2023, that figure had fallen to 4 percent (while an additional 1 percent of Americans identified as vegans). And other empirical research, such as studies of shoppers' grocery purchases, comports with Gallup's findings. In other words, despite massive increases in the quantity and quality of plant-based meat alternatives — and enormous amounts of animal rights advocacy and activism — the carnivorous share of the US public has stayed more or less constant over the past quarter-century. It therefore seems implausible that moral suasion alone will ever drastically swell the ranks of America's vegetarians. Which is too bad, since the moral arguments against modern animal agriculture are incredibly strong. And it requires little philosophical sophistication to recognize as much. Most Americans think that it is wrong to torture a dog for months and then kill it. Granted, I don't have hard data for that claim (for some reason, Gallup and Pew have not seen fit to poll that proposition). But it seems like a reasonable assumption, given the public's hostility to dog-fighting rings and other forms of canine abuse. Yet the reasons why we typically consider dogs to be beings of moral worth — their capacity for bonding with humans and other members of their species, intelligence, distinct personalities, empathy, and vulnerability to suffering — also apply to pigs, among other animals raised for slaughter. Yet we tolerate the systematic torture of tens of millions of pigs each year. Male piglets are routinely castrated without anesthesia. Most sows, or female breeding pigs, meanwhile, spend their entire lives in cages so small that they cannot stretch their legs or turn around. The scale of cruelty in meat cultivation is greater than it needs to be. But there is an inescapable trade-off between productivity and humanity in industrial agriculture. Pig farmers don't keep sows in tiny cages because they are sadists. Rather, they do so because the less space an individual sow takes up, the more you can breed in a given amount of square footage. Minimizing the resource-intensity of meat production — and therefore its cost to consumers — generally means deprioritizing the welfare of animals. At present, there is just no getting around the conflict between our collective appetite for meat and our common moral intuition that torturing animals by the billions is wrong. Some people resolve this tension by irrationally denying the cognitive and emotional similarity of house pets and many farmed animals. Others simply choose to become vegetarians or vegans. Many, like myself, uneasily accept that we are not prepared to fully live up to our values in this domain (while seeking to mitigate our moral culpability by citing our difficulty digesting beans and soy, or the scarcity of vegan restaurants in our area, or our family traditions, or how good carnitas tacos taste). Maybe, eventually, my vegan colleagues will persuade me to stop eating animals and start worshipping seitan. But such conversions are unlikely to ever happen at scale. Thus, the only way to reconcile humanity's taste for meat with its sympathy for intelligent life is to decouple animals' flesh from their sentience. And lab-grown meat is our best hope for doing that. Yet some conservatives see less promise than peril in cellular meat. The movement to ban the technology partly reflects crass material interests. Already alarmed by competition from plant-based milks, which now make up more than 10 percent of overall milk sales, some livestock interests have sought to nip lab-grown meat in the bud. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his state's ban into law last year, he was flanked by cattle ranchers. But the GOP's push to ban cellular meat isn't merely about deference to moneyed interests. If conservatives' position were solely dictated by Big Ag, they might actually support the technology. Although some farmers oppose the technology, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Meat Institute have both objected to prohibitions on its sale. Meanwhile, JBS Foods, the world's largest meat processor, has itself invested in lab-grown beef. Some Republican politicians say they're motivated by safety concerns. But such objections are either ill-informed or disingenuous. To make it to market, lab-grown meat must withstand the same FDA scrutiny as the factory-farmed variety. Ironically, what some Republicans seem to fear about lab-grown meat is precisely that it could render mass animal torture unnecessary, and therefore, verboten. As DeSantis explained when he announced his cellular meat ban last May, 'Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals.' The idea here is that an international cabal of billionaire progressives wants to outlaw traditional meat and make Americans eat insects and poor simulacrums of beef instead (in arguing this, DeSantis was riffing on a popular right-wing conspiracy theory about the World Economic Forum's tyrannical machinations). Other Republican opponents of cellular meat express similar concerns. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, himself a major pork producer, described his state's prohibition as an effort to 'battle fringe ideas and groups to defend our way of life.' DeSantis's conspiratorial version of this argument is patently irrational. The World Economic Forum is not trying to make you eat bugs, so as to establish a global dictatorship. But the notion that lab-grown meat could eventually lead to bans on factory-farmed animal products is less unhinged. After all, progressives in some states and cities have banned plastic straws, despite the objective inferiority of paper ones. And the moral case for infinitesimally reducing plastic production isn't anywhere near as strong as that for ending the mass torture of animals. So, you might reason, why wouldn't the left forbid real hamburgers the second that a petri dish produces a pale facsimile of a quarter-pounder? While not entirely groundless, this fear is nevertheless misguided. Plastic straws are not as integral to American life as tasty meats. As noted above, roughly 95 percent of Americans eat meat. No municipal, state or federal government could ever end access to high-quality hot dogs, ribs, or chicken fingers and survive the next election. The only scenario in which lab-grown meats could fully displace farmed ones is if the former comprehensively outcompetes the latter in the marketplace. If cellular meat ever becomes both tastier and cheaper than conventional alternatives — across every cut and kind of animal protein — then it could plausibly drive factory farmers into ruin. And in a world where almost no one eats pork derived from tortured sows, it's conceivable that the government could ban such torture. In so doing, however, it would only be ratifying the market's verdict. It's worth emphasizing how far-fetched that scenario is. Labs are making some progress on approximating ground beef and chicken nuggets. But manufacturing a rack of ribs or chicken wings remains wholly the stuff of science fiction. In any case, creating one serving of chicken nuggets at gargantuan cost in a lab and producing such nuggets at a global scale and competitive price are radically different propositions. And many scientists contend that cellular meat will never achieve such viability, due to the inherent constraints of thermodynamics and cell metabolism. If they are right, then conservatives have nothing to worry about. But if those skeptical scientists are underestimating humanity's capacity for agricultural innovation (as some have done in the past), then the consequences could be downright utopian. Right now, the process for converting energy into animal tissue is riddled with inefficiency, environmental harms, and cruelty. We grow corn and soybeans to capture energy from the sun, then convert those crops into feed, then fatten animals on that feed for weeks, months, or years before slaughtering them. If labs found a commercially viable way to directly convert electricity into chicken wings, steaks, and bacon, we could radically reduce the resource intensity and cost of meat production. At the same time, we would free up the roughly 660 million acres of American land currently devoted to pasture and grazing — a third of the continental US — for housing, parks, or commerce, while eliminating a large share of global carbon emissions. And of course, such a technological revolution would allow carnivorous animal lovers to live our values, without forfeiting our favorite dishes. Biology or economics may ultimately block the path to such a utopian food system. But we must not let cultural grievance prevent us from finding out if that world is possible. A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!
Vox
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Vox
Why the right wants to ban this innovation before you get to try it
is a senior correspondent at Vox. He covers a wide range of political and policy issues with a special focus on questions that internally divide the American left and right. Before coming to Vox in 2024, he wrote a column on politics and economics for New York Magazine. Conservatives want the government to dictate what you can and cannot eat. Or so Republican policymaking increasingly suggests. Earlier this month, Montana and Nebraska became the latest US states to ban lab-grown meat (also known as 'cellular meat' or 'cultivated meat'). Unlike plant-based meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger, lab-grown meat consists of actual animal tissue, but made without slaughtering animals. Instead, scientists take a sample of animal cells and feed them amino acids, salts, vitamins, and other nutrients until they grow into edible beef, pork, or poultry. This technology isn't yet commercially viable. You can't buy cellular meat at a grocery store. And if you could, a serving might cost you the bulk of your savings. Processing Meat A newsletter analyzing how the meat and dairy industries impact everything around us. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Nevertheless, self-styled champions of free enterprise in Nebraska, Montana, Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Wyoming have all sought to stymy the manufacture and sale of cellular meat within their borders. Although these bans are of little immediate consequence, they're nevertheless alarming and unconscionable. Industrial agriculture as currently practiced entails the torture of billions of sentient beings. And when forced to choose between tolerating such cruelty and forfeiting cheap bacon, nearly everyone picks the former. Lab-grown meat faces many scientific and economic hurdles to viability. But it is nevertheless our best hope for eliminating torture from our food system. And the right's push for prohibiting the technology is fueled by little more than paranoia, greed, and cultural grievance. The moral necessity of lab-grown meat Human beings generally love the taste of flesh, and not without reason. Meat is highly nutrient-dense, providing protein and essential amino acids, as well as vitamins and minerals that can be challenging to assemble from plant-based foods. The slaughter and consumption of animals has also been a central feature of human cultures, from the Paleolithic to the present day. Of course, for much of our species' history, meat was scarce. Raising livestock requires more resources than cultivating wheat or rice, which has long rendered highly carnivorous diets unattainable for ordinary people. As soon as humans can afford to eat meat regularly, however, most do so: Around the world, meat consumption rises almost linearly with increases in national income. Our World In Data This relationship may break down some in the wealthiest nations. Past a certain level of affluence, people seem to give more weight to environmental and medical arguments against heavy meat consumption — Germany, for example, has managed to modestly decrease its per capita meat consumption over the last decade. But even in extremely rich societies, moral or environmental arguments against meat consumption haven't made a significant dent on people's dietary choices. According to Gallup's polling, in 1999, 6 percent of Americans identified as vegetarians. By 2023, that figure had fallen to 4 percent (while an additional 1 percent of Americans identified as vegans). And other empirical research, such as studies of shoppers' grocery purchases, comports with Gallup's findings. In other words, despite massive increases in the quantity and quality of plant-based meat alternatives — and enormous amounts of animal rights advocacy and activism — the carnivorous share of the US public has stayed more or less constant over the past quarter-century. Gallup It therefore seems implausible that moral suasion alone will ever drastically swell the ranks of America's vegetarians. Which is too bad, since the moral arguments against modern animal agriculture are incredibly strong. And it requires little philosophical sophistication to recognize as much. Most Americans think that it is wrong to torture a dog for months and then kill it. Granted, I don't have hard data for that claim (for some reason, Gallup and Pew have not seen fit to poll that proposition). But it seems like a reasonable assumption, given the public's hostility to dog-fighting rings and other forms of canine abuse. Yet the reasons why we typically consider dogs to be beings of moral worth — their capacity for bonding with humans and other members of their species, intelligence, distinct personalities, empathy, and vulnerability to suffering — also apply to pigs, among other animals raised for slaughter. Yet we tolerate the systematic torture of tens of millions of pigs each year. Male piglets are routinely castrated without anesthesia. Most sows, or female breeding pigs, meanwhile, spend their entire lives in cages so small that they cannot stretch their legs or turn around. The scale of cruelty in meat cultivation is greater than it needs to be. But there is an inescapable trade-off between productivity and humanity in industrial agriculture. Pig farmers don't keep sows in tiny cages because they are sadists. Rather, they do so because the less space an individual sow takes up, the more you can breed in a given amount of square footage. Minimizing the resource-intensity of meat production — and therefore its cost to consumers — generally means deprioritizing the welfare of animals. At present, there is just no getting around the conflict between our collective appetite for meat and our common moral intuition that torturing animals by the billions is wrong. Some people resolve this tension by irrationally denying the cognitive and emotional similarity of house pets and many farmed animals. Others simply choose to become vegetarians or vegans. Many, like myself, uneasily accept that we are not prepared to fully live up to our values in this domain (while seeking to mitigate our moral culpability by citing our difficulty digesting beans and soy, or the scarcity of vegan restaurants in our area, or our family traditions, or how good carnitas tacos taste). Maybe, eventually, my vegan colleagues will persuade me to stop eating animals and start worshipping seitan. But such conversions are unlikely to ever happen at scale. Thus, the only way to reconcile humanity's taste for meat with its sympathy for intelligent life is to decouple animals' flesh from their sentience. And lab-grown meat is our best hope for doing that. The right's hostility to lab-grown meat is irrational Yet some conservatives see less promise than peril in cellular meat. The movement to ban the technology partly reflects crass material interests. Already alarmed by competition from plant-based milks, which now make up more than 10 percent of overall milk sales, some livestock interests have sought to nip lab-grown meat in the bud. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his state's ban into law last year, he was flanked by cattle ranchers. But the GOP's push to ban cellular meat isn't merely about deference to moneyed interests. If conservatives' position were solely dictated by Big Ag, they might actually support the technology. Although some farmers oppose the technology, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Meat Institute have both objected to prohibitions on its sale. Meanwhile, JBS Foods, the world's largest meat processor, has itself invested in lab-grown beef. Some Republican politicians say they're motivated by safety concerns. But such objections are either ill-informed or disingenuous. To make it to market, lab-grown meat must withstand the same FDA scrutiny as the factory-farmed variety. Ironically, what some Republicans seem to fear about lab-grown meat is precisely that it could render mass animal torture unnecessary, and therefore, verboten. As DeSantis explained when he announced his cellular meat ban last May, 'Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals.' The idea here is that an international cabal of billionaire progressives wants to outlaw traditional meat and make Americans eat insects and poor simulacrums of beef instead (in arguing this, DeSantis was riffing on a popular right-wing conspiracy theory about the World Economic Forum's tyrannical machinations). Other Republican opponents of cellular meat express similar concerns. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, himself a major pork producer, described his state's prohibition as an effort to 'battle fringe ideas and groups to defend our way of life.' DeSantis's conspiratorial version of this argument is patently irrational. The World Economic Forum is not trying to make you eat bugs, so as to establish a global dictatorship. But the notion that lab-grown meat could eventually lead to bans on factory-farmed animal products is less unhinged. After all, progressives in some states and cities have banned plastic straws, despite the objective inferiority of paper ones. And the moral case for infinitesimally reducing plastic production isn't anywhere near as strong as that for ending the mass torture of animals. So, you might reason, why wouldn't the left forbid real hamburgers the second that a petri dish produces a pale facsimile of a quarter-pounder? While not entirely groundless, this fear is nevertheless misguided. Plastic straws are not as integral to American life as tasty meats. As noted above, roughly 95 percent of Americans eat meat. No municipal, state or federal government could ever end access to high-quality hot dogs, ribs, or chicken fingers and survive the next election. The only scenario in which lab-grown meats could fully displace farmed ones is if the former comprehensively outcompetes the latter in the marketplace. If cellular meat ever becomes both tastier and cheaper than conventional alternatives — across every cut and kind of animal protein — then it could plausibly drive factory farmers into ruin. And in a world where almost no one eats pork derived from tortured sows, it's conceivable that the government could ban such torture. In so doing, however, it would only be ratifying the market's verdict. Lab-grown meat isn't going to imperil factory farms anytime soon It's worth emphasizing how far-fetched that scenario is. Labs are making some progress on approximating ground beef and chicken nuggets. But manufacturing a rack of ribs or chicken wings remains wholly the stuff of science fiction. In any case, creating one serving of chicken nuggets at gargantuan cost in a lab and producing such nuggets at a global scale and competitive price are radically different propositions. And many scientists contend that cellular meat will never achieve such viability, due to the inherent constraints of thermodynamics and cell metabolism. If they are right, then conservatives have nothing to worry about. But if those skeptical scientists are underestimating humanity's capacity for agricultural innovation (as some have done in the past), then the consequences could be downright utopian. Right now, the process for converting energy into animal tissue is riddled with inefficiency, environmental harms, and cruelty. We grow corn and soybeans to capture energy from the sun, then convert those crops into feed, then fatten animals on that feed for weeks, months, or years before slaughtering them. If labs found a commercially viable way to directly convert electricity into chicken wings, steaks, and bacon, we could radically reduce the resource intensity and cost of meat production. At the same time, we would free up the roughly 660 million acres of American land currently devoted to pasture and grazing — a third of the continental US — for housing, parks, or commerce, while eliminating a large share of global carbon emissions. And of course, such a technological revolution would allow carnivorous animal lovers to live our values, without forfeiting our favorite dishes. Biology or economics may ultimately block the path to such a utopian food system. But we must not let cultural grievance prevent us from finding out if that world is possible. A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lab-grown meat ban is another step closer to becoming law in Nebraska
Cattle gather in a pen on a warm day. (Stock photo byPlus) LINCOLN — A bill banning lab-grown meat from Nebraska advanced Tuesday to its final round in the Legislature after a failed attempt to change the focus instead to labeling. The voice vote ended a two-day debate. Undertones of culture war politics were more on display during the second round of debate in the statehouse. State Sen. Barry DeKay of Niobrara — in a nod to some national Republicans calling similar bans around the country an attempt to stop the 'elitist' class from promoting unnatural foods — called lab-grown meat an attempt by groups to undermine Nebraska beef. 'I'd like to also share this quote from Bill Gates…rich nations should move to eat 100% synthetic beef,' said DeKay, who introduced the bill. Nebraska is marching toward becoming the fourth state to implement a ban on lab-grown meat. Mississippi was the third state to outlaw cell-derived meat. Florida and Alabama have banned cultivating and selling meat grown in laboratories in recent years. The proposed law doesn't ban alternative-meat products like the Impossible Burger, which is made entirely from plants. The target is cell-derived meat produced from animal cells, enabling the cells to multiply and differentiate into muscle, fat, and connective tissue without slaughtering animals. The bill would ban the production, import, distribution, promotion, display or sale of any cultivated-protein food in the state. State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln proposed an amendment to the bill that would have replaced the ban with labeling of lab-grown meat — a proposal supported by the Nebraska Farm Bureau. 'I believe that's a better, more thoughtful approach that's in line with agricultural leadership thinking on this topic,' Conrad said. 'I think a ban is too restrictive.' The amendment failed with a 12-24 vote. Nebraska is the second-largest cattle-producing state in the U.S., behind only Texas. Cattle and other livestock production are among Nebraska's largest industries, bringing nearly $31.6 billion to the state, according to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. The Food and Drug Administration approved lab-grown meat for human consumption in 2022. 'I believe it will only add to the arsenal group of individuals who want to engineer our dietary choices,' DeKay said in support of his proposed ban, 'increasing pressures to legally, culturally deny real meat out of animal welfare activists.' Conrad questioned the DeKay claims of negative effects. Democratic aligned lawmakers said labeling is a better option because it is a more free-market approach. Rural State Sen. Teresa Ibach of Sumner preferred the labeling approach. 'Because cattle is [Nebraska's] number one industry,' Ibach said. 'I will do everything to protect that. Banning it is not a bad thing.' Ibach said she is fine with either approach and was marked 'present not voting' for Conrad's amendment. California-based UPSIDE Foods, which sells lab-grown meat, sued the state of Florida for its ban on cell-derived meat last year. While a district court judge rejected Upside Foods's request for a preliminary injunction, the lawsuit is still ongoing. Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of UPSIDE Foods, said he recently met with Gov. Jim Pillen about the potential ban and called it a productive conversation. 'There's a lot of misinformation about cultivated meat,' Valeti said. 'Banning cultivated meat won't protect farmers; it will only limit Nebraska's ability to lead, grow its meat production capacity, and weaken its food system.' DeKay's bill was introduced at the request of Pillen, who owns a major hog operation based in Columbus. Pillen has called the creation of 'bioreactor meat' a 'dishonest attack' on producers in Nebraska. The Nebraska Farm Bureau supported legislation that would label lab-grown meat but not ban it, saying the bureau supports a free and open market and believes that there is a much better option than a ban. State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha supported Conrad's failed amendment. He said he and the Farm Bureau often disagree on issues. 'If the (Farm) bureau and I are on the same side of something, that's certainly something people should take seriously,' Cavanaugh said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lab-grown meat ban moves forward in Nebraska Legislature
State Sen. Barry DeKay of Niobrara, chair of the Legislature's Agriculture Committee, center, meets with Speaker John Arch of La Vista. March 31, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — A bill banning lab-grown meat from Nebraska advanced Monday to a second round in the statehouse after a two-hour debate. Legislative Bill 246 advanced 33-1. Nebraska would join a handful of states that have introduced legislation banning cell-derived meat. The bill was introduced at the request of Gov. Jim Pillen, who owns a major hog operation based in Columbus. Several lawmakers expressed concerns over the safety of lab-grown meat, while others called the bill a waste of time. The proposed law doesn't ban alternative-meat products like Impossible Burger, which is made entirely from plants. The cell-derived meat it targets is produced from animal cells, enabling the cells to multiply and differentiate into muscle, fat, and connective tissue without slaughtering animals. The bill would ban the production, import, distribution, promotion, display or sale of any cultivated-protein food in the state. If passed, Nebraska would be the fourth state to implement a ban on lab-grown meat; Mississippi is expected to be the third once its Governor signs it into law. Florida and Alabama have banned cultivating and selling meat grown in laboratories in recent years Bill author State Sen. Barry DeKay of Niobrara, said the bill aims to protect the Nebraska meat industry and consumers from 'adulterated food's effects.' 'Our goal is not to throw people in jail or impose heavy monetary penalties,' DeKay said. 'It's just to keep the product off the shelves.' Mississippi's ban punishes anyone growing or selling lab-grown meat with a $500 fine and up to three months in jail. Lab-grown meat has been a subject of culture war politics, as some national Republicans say a ban is an attempt to stop the 'elitist' class from promoting unnatural foods. State Sen. Tanya Storer of Whitman said she had leaned toward voting no before researching the topic. On Monday, Storer said not banning lab-grown meat is 'sending a message to the people of Nebraska that we believe it's safe.' 'I cannot look someone in the eye right now and tell them that self-cultivated meat is safe,' Storer said. Nebraska is the second-largest cattle-producing state in the U.S., behind only Texas. Cattle and other livestock production are among Nebraska's largest industries, bringing nearly $31.6 billion to the state, according to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. The Food and Drug Administration approved lab-grown meat for human consumption in 2022. DeKay alluded to a ban in France and other European countries as proof that his concerns over the safety of lab-grown meat are valid. State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln said lab-grown meat is a non-issue, because the product is not yet in stores and is just an issue that gives the governor 'a win.' Conrad added that there are other solutions, such as labeling the meat as lab-grown. 'I think it's beneath the Legislature…it's out of touch with what most Nebraskans want,' Conrad said. The Nebraska Farm Bureau supported legislation that would label lab-grown meat but not ban it outright. Pillen has said he supported the bill as a way for the state to protect consumers and defend agriculture because it's the lifeblood of Nebraska's economy. After the vote, the governor said, 'The creation of this bioreactor meat is simply a dishonest attack on producers in our state,' on X. State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair said the state has bigger issues to deal with. 'Beer and bugs, tackling the important matters that matter to Nebraskans,' Hansen said sarcastically. 'I'm hoping we'll get to property taxes.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
New York Times
14-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Who's Afraid of Lab-Grown Meat?
Curious to try a lab-grown chicken sandwich? Don't look to satiate your craving in Mississippi, which earlier this week moved to ban so-called cultivated or cell-derived meat. The proposed ban, unanimously passed by the House of Representatives, carries a $500 fine and up to three months in jail for anyone growing or selling such products within the state. The bill, which Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican, is expected to sign, is the latest in a series of legal maneuvers by states seeking to constrain the nascent cell-cultured meat industry — despite the fact that such products are currently unavailable to consumers in the United States. In contrast with alternative-meat products like Impossible Burger, which are made entirely from plants, lab-grown meat starts as cells taken from an animal. By nourishing them with a cocktail of nutrients, scientists can coax these cells to develop into animal muscle, connective tissue or fat — the basic components of meat. Proponents say cultivated meat can address the many environmental impacts of farmed livestock and provide meat eaters a protein that does not require the slaughtering of animals. Last year, Florida and Alabama became the first states to outlaw the cultivation and sale of meat grown in laboratories, and a number of other states, including Nebraska and Georgia, are considering similar measures. The bans are unconstitutional, proponents say, and won't survive court challenges, some already underway. 'It's a whole lot of political theater,' said Suzannah Gerber, executive director of the Association for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation, a trade group. The opposition to cultivated meat has mostly taken hold in red states, but the trend defies easy categorization. Trade groups like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Meat Institute have come out against restrictive measures, and Republican lawmakers in Wyoming and South Dakota have quashed similar bills, with many describing the proposed bans as anathema to conservative values like limited government and free trade. 'If we let the government decide what foods we eat and what medicines we take, our bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny,' State Senator Bob Ide of Wyoming, quoting Thomas Jefferson, said shortly before voting against the measure in his state. For now, the measures are unlikely to have much real world impact. Although the prospect of mass produced lab-grown meat has prompted breathless headlines and drawn billions in investment, its commercial viability remains unproven. Only two companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, are currently authorized to sell cultured meat in the United States; the companies briefly sold limited quantities to a few restaurants, none of which were in states that have passed the bans. Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration granted regulatory clearance to a third company, Mission Barns, for a lab-grown pork fat product. In addition to being under F.D.A. oversight, cultivated meat products are regulated by the Department of Agriculture. Some opponents of cultivated meat traffic in falsehoods about the health risks of cultivated meat, while others, like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have embraced the opportunity to defend domestic livestock producers. But cultured meat has also been swept up in the nation's culture wars. That's in part because proponents often describe lab-grown meat as a 'no kill' humane alternative to farmed animal products. Many also see it as a way to reduce the environmental impacts of raising millions of cows, pigs and chickens — and of the large quantities of antibiotics required to keep them healthy in crowded feeding sheds. 'There's no way we can sustain healthy food the way we're doing today with livestock production, because we just don't have the land and the resources,' said David Kaplan, an expert on cellular agriculture at Tufts University. 'We need alternative options.' Such sentiments inflame politicians who look unkindly on vegetarians and environmentalists, and for whom the consumption of a juicy T-bone steak is an act of patriotism. Last May, in announcing his decision to sign the state's ban, Governor DeSantis sought to cast his stance as a blow against liberals. 'Today, Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals,' he said during a news conference. The environmental benefits of cultivated meat remain theoretical, and studies suggest that certain production methods could be energy intensive, especially if implemented on a large scale. Cultivated meat begins with a small sample of animal cells, which can be collected from fertilized eggs or tissue biopsies from living animals. The cells are nourished with nutrients, multiplying rapidly in large tanks called bioreactors. A variety of technical hurdles remain. It is much easier to create ground meat products than intact cuts of meat, and producing cultured meat is expensive and has been done only on a very small scale. Experts say that companies will need to drastically ramp up production, and bring down costs, in order for these products to really compete with conventional meat. Americans, it would seem, are ready to give cultivated meat a try. In a 2024 survey by Purdue University, two-thirds of respondents said that they would be open to eating cultivated chicken or beef in a restaurant. According to Joseph Balagtas, director of the school's Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability, which conducted the survey, consumers consistently report that taste and price are the biggest factors influencing their food decisions. Ultimately, he predicted, the fate of cultivated meat will depend on whether companies can clear those two bars. 'If it tastes good and it's affordable, then consumers will eat it,' he said. Last year, Good Meat began selling its cultivated chicken at a butcher shop in Singapore, the first country to approve lab-grown meat. Josh Tetrick, a founder and the chief executive of Eat Just, the parent company of Good Meat, said that the company had sold less than 100 pounds in the last six months. 'Can companies like ours figure out a way to manufacture this at scale, defined as tens of millions of pounds, at a cost that makes sense?' he asked. 'That's the big question.' For now, industry executives are trying to thwart the state restrictions. Upside Foods filed a federal lawsuit last August challenging the Florida law as unconstitutional. The Good Food Institute, an alternative meat advocacy group that is providing legal assistance to Upside Foods, argues that the bans violate the commerce clause of the Constitution, which bars states from interfering with interstate trade. The laws, experts say, also violate the so-called pre-emption doctrine, which gives federal laws precedence over state laws when the two conflict. 'These laws are pretty flagrantly in violation of both,' said Madeline Cohen, the institute's associate director of regulatory affairs. Backers of the Mississippi bill have not publicly explained their antipathy to cultivated meat; state legislators did not hold a public hearing or comment before unanimously voting for the ban. Representatives Bill Pigott and Lester Carpenter, two Republicans who introduced the legislation, did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Reeves, the Mississippi governor, declined to comment, as did the state's agriculture commissioner, Andy Gipson. Still, Mr. Gipson has not been shy in criticizing cultivated protein as hostile to farmers. 'I want my steak to come from farm-raised beef, not a petri dish from a lab,' he wrote last year on his website. Cultivated meat proponents describe the dichotomy as a false one, and many livestock farmers agree, saying they do not see cell-derived products as a threat to their livelihood. 'We know Americans love our product and will continue to buy it,' said Sigrid Johannes, a spokesperson for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Doug Grant, a Mississippi native whose seafood start-up, Atlantic Fish Co., is seeking to produce black sea bass in the lab, agrees. He said his product, should it gain regulatory approval, would not put him in competition with local producers, noting that overfishing has led to declines in the black sea bass population, and that the species is difficult to raise in aquaculture pens. 'Mississippi raises a lot of catfish, but no one is talking about doing cultivated catfish,' Mr. Grant said. 'I understand that people are scared of new things, but no one is forcing consumers to buy these products. If you don't like them, you don't have to eat them.'
