K A S H R U T . C O M_©

February 6, 2024 from the Time:

"Cell-cultivated meat—meat grown from animal cells rather than taken from slaughtered animals—seems to be the hottest topic in food right now. Everyone from veteran chefs to tech moguls seem eager to get involved. Lawmakers in a growing number of states, however, aren’t quite as jazzed about it.

"At the end of January, Florida’s House and the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bill introduced by Republican Rep. Danny Alvarez that would not only ban the production and sale of cell-cultivated meat, but would make it a second-degree misdemeanor. If the bill is passed by the state Senate, effective this summer the culinary crime would be punishable with a fine of up to $1,000, plus suspension or closure of the restaurant, store, or other business in question. Similarly, Arizona Republican Rep. David Marshall proposed a bill on Jan. 16 banning the sale of cell-cultivated meat. The bill would also allow Arizona business owners to sue cell-cultivated meat companies for damages to their profits.

"It’s hard to believe that these measures are really designed for “consumer protection,” especially when so many of the people supporting the legislation have expressed their actual motivation: money, and in the pockets of a select few. One Arizona Republican explicitly stated that his desire is to “protect” the cattle ranching industry; another Arizona representative is a cattle rancher himself. It doesn’t take a detective to realize that defending the status quo is really what it’s all about.

"But interfering with the rise of cell-cultivated meat is almost certainly a bad economic decision in the long run. The idea of the government deciding to privilege one industry over another should already be abhorrent to free market Republicans on principle. Anyone who believes in capitalism should theoretically bristle at the thought of the government overriding the laws of supply and demand. If it’s a bad product for whatever reason, the people won’t want it and it will fail anyway, so the logic goes. If “real” beef is truly all-around better, what does the cattle industry have to fear?

"The states expressing hostility toward cell-cultivated meat are just limiting their own opportunities for economic growth. By all appearances, cell-cultivated meat will continue to grow in popular interest, and an innovation gap is going to develop between the states that support progress and those that reject it.

"Meanwhile, other countries like Israel, Singapore, and China are actively funding or otherwise supporting the development of cell-cultivated meat, perhaps out of recognition that factory farming—how 99% of meat is produced in the U.S.—is a nasty business. It’s responsible for 15% of greenhouse gas emissions; it produces antibiotic-resistant bacteria and zoonotic diseases; and it is unkind to animals, to say the least. Cell-cultivated meat sidesteps all these issues. If we seriously want America to continue to be a nation that leads in technology and innovation, we can’t continue draconically resisting change while other countries forge ahead. Even some of the world’s biggest meat conglomerates are developing cell-cultivated meat.

"By refusing to change with the times, politicians may be helping local cattle ranchers in the short term, but in the long run their state may become economically stymied. At the end of the day, falling behind technologically is an unstrategic, reactionary response to the threat of something new and unfamiliar entering the world. It’s a betrayal of their own values, and they’re not doing the residents of their states any favors—they’re just hindering American progress."