Sirois, an actual property developer who stated he has no ties to agriculture, stated he hopes Florida will change into the primary state to ban cultured meat.
He additionally has a robust ally to again him: Wilton Simpson, the state’s agriculture commissioner and former Senate president, who helps the hassle “one hundred pc.”
“With out this laws, untested, unsafe, and just about unregulated lab-grown meat might be accessible in Florida,” Simpson, an industrial egg farmer, stated in an announcement.
The USDA final June authorised two firms, Upside Meals and Good Meat Inc., to promote cultured meat, although it isn’t available in grocery shops. Synthetic meat is grown from animal cells and could be formed into nuggets, cutlets or different shapes, and proponents say it may well scale back the environmental impacts of grazing, rising animal feed and animal waste.
“As an alternative of all that land and all that water getting used to feed all these animals being slaughtered, we will do it a unique approach,” stated Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Simply Inc., which operates Good Meat, He told the Associated Press.
There was no rapid response to requests for remark from the Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation Affiliation, which represents the rising cultured meat trade that has promoted its sale in eating places.
The affiliation says on its web site that cultured meat “will likely be a vital and sustainable element, in partnership with the general agriculture sector, to satisfy the rising demand for meat because the world’s inhabitants continues to develop.”
Sirois stated he finds the method of rising meat in a laboratory, utilizing chemical compounds and enzymes, “very disturbing.” His laws would make their sale or distribution a second-degree misdemeanor.
“I believe this raises necessary moral considerations in regards to the constraints and limits that we should always place on this type of science,” he stated. “I believe you’ll be able to see a really slippery slope right here resulting in issues like cloning, which worries me very a lot.”
Sirois additionally stated that the USDA and the federal Meals and Drug Administration are a part of the ESG push behind lab-grown meat. He famous that the legislature earlier this 12 months focused environmental, social and governance elements in state investments.
“That is the message being despatched right here {that a} lab-grown product is superior to standard agriculture and livestock,” Sirois stated. “However for me, I am targeted on first ensuring that we do not act right here with out understanding the results of manipulating this materials in a lab — manipulating cells which can be harvested from animals — and likewise ensuring that Floridians have a transparent understanding of what is going on on.” Being right here.”
The nonprofit advocacy group Natural Shoppers Affiliation and the commerce and lobbying group the Nationwide Beef Affiliation have additionally raised considerations nationally about cultured meat manufacturing and labeling.
Sam Ard, director of presidency affairs for the Florida Cattlemen’s Affiliation, advised Politico that his group has not taken a place on the invoice however opposes calling a lab-grown product “meat.”
“It is not meat,” Ard stated. “Meat comes from a cow. Meat comes from a reside animal.”
