By Anna Phillips, The Washington PostGood Meat's cultivated chicken is shown at the Eat Just office in Alameda, Calif., June 14, 2023.
So far this year, lawmakers in Florida and Alabama have made it a criminal act to manufacture and sell lab-grown meat in their states. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went first, signing a bill earlier this month and warning cellular agriculture companies: “Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere … we’re not doing that in the state of Florida.”
Fear of competition from lab-grown meat, also known as cultivated meat, has been percolating for years. The United States Cattlemen’s Association has advocated for national labeling rules that would only apply the term “beef” to products derived from livestock raised by farmers and ranchers. Since 2018, more than a dozen states have passed laws making it illegal to use the word meat to describe burgers and sausages made from plant-based ingredients or meat products grown in labs.
As Alabama weighed a potential ban, The Meat Institute, the trade group that represents big meatpackers, came out against the measure in a March letter, calling it “bad public policy that would restrict consumer choice and stifle innovation.
The climate impact of cattle is especially large compared to other livestock. Researchers have been trying for years to find a solution for the industry’s emissions of methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more warming than carbon dioxide - that cows produce during digestion. At the same time, the world’s increasing demand for beef is fueling deforestation to clear land for cattle grazing, resulting in the loss of forests that scientists say are essential for absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.
Only a few companies have won approval from the Agriculture Department and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make lab-grown meat in the United States, and they still have to overcome hurdles before they can sell it to restaurants and grocery stores. Some of those obstacles are regulatory and some are scientific. The companies will also have to find ways to make their products cost competitive with the meat on offer today.