The recent ban on cultivated meat production, sale, and even research in both Florida and Alabama has been rightly criticized as ‘colossally stupid.’ I’d add that these bans are colossally shortsighted. 

TL;DR - Come back to the table with the goal of reversing the ban, if nothing else to prevent harm to your own industry. All meat - traditional or cultivated - uses the same regulatory agencies and is subject to the same requirements here in the US. Compete in market, and if you have a better product, let’s let consumers decide. No one likes a bully. Everyone likes meat.

In the history of food and agricultural innovation, bans have rarely been the correct call, especially after the amount and depth of reviews by experts from not one, but two federal agencies and by dozens of literal world experts reviewing these products for safety. I have had the pleasure of seeing this issue from all sectors: Academia, the US Government, and as a private sector producer of cultivated meat products and policy. Those positions aside for a moment, as a professional scientist, I see the rational, bigger picture argument - we need to feed a lot more people with a fixed amount of stuff (for example, we aren’t making significantly more arable land) to make that food and do it while the planet is changing more rapidly that we had anticipated. All of *that* aside, as a human, I see the emotional, cultural, and traditional aspect associated with being a traditional animal producer: It’s hard to see anyone wanting to try to take a cut of your potential revenue, to think your tradition might die one day, or that your identity is being taken away against your will with these newfangled ‘lab-grown’ burgers. Two things can be true at the same time. I think the latter is both completely valid and still very shortsighted. People want meat, plain and simple. That is not likely to change soon. The majority of humans eat meat everyday and have arguably done so for over two million years. And a meat shortage would have profound consequences if it were to occur suddenly. And if you think that is unlikely, well, I’ve got news for you. Climate change has already begun to force our hand. But say you don’t believe that climate change is that severe or that it’s happening at all. You’d be very incorrect, but even so, rearing more animals just isn’t going to meet the demand here in the US. It cannot be just rearing animals. It can be both - “And,” not “Or.” We can have our traditions and the chance to create new ones too. These bans just spit in the face of those of us even trying to feed people, when we should be working together.

I’ll be blunt: These bans will only hurt consumers and traditional meat producers and that hurts everyone. The world’s largest meat processing organization, the North American Meat Institute, even suggests this in their thoughtful letter opposing this legislation. Innovation in food is a virtuous American tradition, and this approach is a legal maneuver equivalent to kicking sand into the eyes of would-be competitors.

It goes further than simply being shortsighted. Here’s what message this sends to people actually trying to ensure we can feed a growing, hungry world: Don’t even bother. And if you do wish to innovate in food and we don’t ‘approve’ of your work, you will be crushed into the gravel of our boot in the name of tradition. But, I get that changing a way of life is not scientific. It’s emotional. It’s cultural. It’s tradition. It’s very human. I get that. As I have said for years, animals for food was once a brilliant human invention. I ask: Why not add more? And why do these states get to pick innovation winners and losers? We all want meat. No debate there. Let’s simply try other ways to make it and let consumers decide. 

Now, I am no stranger to the fact that science and politics are a ‘necessary tension’ that forces important discussions about what kind of culture and society we want to be here in the US. As a professional scientist, I myself believe in the power of compromise in making policy. It works! 

The regulatory pathway for cultivated meat is arguably one of the most robust, diligent, and comprehensive safety evaluation processes the US has ever implemented - and it was proposed by cultivated meat producers in collaboration with the conventional meat industry! Not one step in this process was done without full-knowledge by all players in the space, and every step was telegraphed in publicly-available documents. 

We knew consumers would want to know that these products were evaluated from every reasonable angle to build trust. On top, two federal agencies were proposed to evaluate these products rather than just one (for meat and poultry - seafood remains entirely at FDA). How did we know this would be effective? Because this regulatory safety and suitability and labeling system is the EXACT system that’s been successfully used by conventional meat products for decades. We designed this system to take advantage of the incredibly safe meat supply we already enjoy, using the system the meat industry worked hard to help develop. The meat industry uses the same two-agency system to evaluate safety and suitability for all of their products. We simply extended it to cultivated meat, added appropriate risk reduction steps to account for the differences in production, and, once deemed safe, went to the races. 

Said differently, Florida and Alabama’s actions ban a product that they themselves use every day for their own products to establish the safety and truthfulness of traditional products. Are we to believe then that conventional meat products are also unsafe since these states believe cultivated meat to not be adequately safe nor truthfully labeled despite completing an arguably equivalent safety and labeling process? Of course not. Our food system, today, is arguably the safest food supply to ever exist in the history of humanity. And it’s because there is effective policy in place that allows food innovation balanced against food safety, and ultimately consumer trust. In this case, these bans have stated quite plainly, “I will choose food for you because I don’t trust you to make a good choice for yourself.” 

In my days as federal regulator of novel foods, attempted preemptive bans and ‘soft’ bans though withheld agency funding were regularly attempted by or on behalf of vested conventional industries. As a policy maker, bans are the ultimate middle finger to good faith compromise and negotiation when they are launched in opposition to established safety and evidence.  And the US is arguably the world’s leader in food and agricultural policy, safety, and innovation. These preemptive bans are (thankfully) rare, but they happen more often than you might think. 

In short, when you ban a safe food that hasn’t even existed long enough for consumers to even have a chance to buy them, you say a few things: 1. You believe that consumers - us - are too stupid to know what to buy for our families. 2. That you’d rather be a bully and dictate who gets to sell what rather than simply produce a superior product that consumers may want.

Neither is a good look. Look, it’s simple: If you believe you have a superior product, prove it the American way: Sell a lot more of it, and let consumers decide. But do it on a level playing field. 

This legislation says to residents of Florida and Alabama (and any other state considering this ban), “You are not smart enough to choose food that’s good for your family. You need us to parentify your choices instead of living your values.” I happen to think consumers are smart enough to make their own decisions. Let’s do right by everyone and come back to the table and re-think this in good faith. Let’s define a level playing field. Let’s agree on what we disagree about and see if we can compromise so that we each have a shot at feeding the next 1.5 billion mouths in the next 40 years. We don’t need more bullies in the world. We need more safe and delicious food.