(WatchDogReport.org) – The controversy surrounding so-called alternative protein is heating up in America. In a significant move, a second state has taken action to prevent it from being sold within its borders. Following in Florida’s footsteps, Alabama has become the second state in the U.S. to ban lab-made meat, marking a crucial development in the ongoing debate.
Republican Senator Jack Williams, the Senate Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry Committee’s vice chair, proposed the Alabama bill. Governor Kay Ivy signed the bill into law on May 7. The bill bans the production, distribution, or sale of food products made from “cultured animal cells.” A week before the bill’s passing, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addressed reporters on May 1, marking the start of National Beef Month, after Florida became the first state to ban the sale of lab-grown meat.
DeSantis declared that he stood with cattle ranchers and the agriculture industry as the country’s “backbone” against a plan by the “global elite” to force everyone to eat insect protein and meat “grown” in Petri dishes. DeSantis specifically blamed the World Economic Forum based in Davos, Switzerland, which has advocated for both lab-grown meat and insect protein. The WEF argues that the alternative meat sources are more environmentally sustainable.
According to Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the state’s breeding stock and sales of beef cattle produce more than $900 million a year. In addition to the difficulties of convincingly replicating the taste and texture of natural meat, the lab-grown meat industry also raises some health concerns.
People are worried that the product is largely untested in terms of its exact and long-term effects on health, and questions remain about the side effects of consuming lab-grown meat with flawed cell lines. These faulty cell lines relate to potentially carcinogenic properties of cells that rapidly grow in vitro.
Anyone breaking the new law in Alabama risks committing a class C misdemeanor, which can result in a fine of $500 and up to three months in jail. Pepin Andrew Tuma, director of the Good Food Institute, which promotes alternative protein sources, called the laws “shortsighted.”
Tuma claimed that the politicians of Alabama and Florida were trampling over the rights of consumers and criminalizing “innovation” in agriculture. DeSantis has stressed the need to be prepared sooner rather than later for potential outcomes such as lab-grown meat being made available to justify the phasing out of livestock farming entirely.
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